policies ENGL301 Writing & The Teaching of Writing
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 ltorda@bridgew.edu www.leetorda.com CLICK HERE TO JOIN MY ZOOM SPACE. |
Fall 2022 Open Hours for students (office hours):
MW (in-person or Zoom) 12:00 (noon) to 1:30 T (Zoom only) 4:00-5:00 And by appointment (in-person or on Zoom) Make an appointment, either face to face or on zoom, during office hours or at another time: Let me know you want to meet by adding yourself to my google.doc appointment calendar here: https://goo.gl/3CqLf. If you are meeting me on zoom, Use the zoom link to the left on this page, repeated every page of this site (and in my email signature). |
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to help prospective teachers develop a personal and professional sense of what they want their writing/reading classrooms to look like. To do this, we will read and write together about current research and theory in Composition Pedagogy and literacy instruction; about the ELA classroom, past and present; about the rules, regulations, and requirements placed upon you as teachers today; about the needs of all students as we help them become thoughtful readers and writers themselves. As we move forward with our understanding of all of this, we will remember where we all start: as students. Thus, you will examine your own personal literacy practices and your experience as a student as it impacts your future classroom as a teacher.
While we will explore various ways to theorize your teaching practice, my own classroom practice will identify the theories that I value. The classroom I construct will therefore reinforce particular theories of language and composition (and you should know this going in to the deal).
The experiences you will engage in this semester, are the kinds of literacy practices I hope you will one day invite your own students to participate in: you will write informally and formally; you will work individually and as a group; you will present your ideas orally and in print. At the end of the semester you should have the beginnings of a set of documents that you can take with you into your professional career, and a theory/philosophy of their significance in your future classroom (that may or may not reflect what I value).
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course you will:
COURSE TEXTS
There are two text available in the bookstore for purchase (the titles are live links to the Amazon page):
Lives On the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles &
Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared
by Mike Rose
Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice & Clarity in High School Writing
by Penny Kittle
Here are some other sites where these books might be available at a better price (and will not feed the amazon monster)
Other readings, videos, or podcasts are available on the syllabus either as a file to download or as a link. Including the .PDF of Asao Inoue's Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching & Assessing Writing For A Socially Just Future.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance. Because this is a 300 level class, I have the reasonable expectation that you want to be here and intend to come prepared to the best of your ability. I ask that you make every effort to attend as much of class as possible, and I will try to be as accommodating and reasonable as possible if you can not be in class. However, if you miss more than four classes--or two weeks of class--it will adversely affect your final grade in this class. If you miss eight classes--or a full month of class--I can not guarantee that you will pass this class.
Covid-19 and attendance. We are all tired of hearing how these are unprecedented times--but they are. Attendance matters a lot to me. And I think you will quickly figure out that if you miss class you miss a lot. And this isn't high school. I will not, and am not required to, re-teach the class or classes you missed. So, I want to say that: come to class. It's the most important thing you can do to insure your success in this class. But if you test positive for Covid, you need to stay away from class for the required number of quarantine days and/or until you test negative. I would very much like for us to not be a super spreader event on campus. If you need to be absent due to Covid or a family member's Covid, let me know and we will work out how you will stay a part of a class. Zoom attendance in a face-to-face class is not ideal, but it will make it work because we need it to work.
Late Work. I try to be reasonable about late work. However, to be totally honest, late work makes it difficult for me to keep up with the paper load and to keep track of your performance in our class. During the first first five weeks of the semester--or a third of the semester--I will accept late work. After that, I will accept late work on a case-by-case basis. It is best if you ask me for an extension prior to the deadline rather than day-of. I will be more lenient about deadlines for major projects than I am for Reading Journals or Reader's Notes because reading is a central part of the day-to-day functioning of our class. Excessive late work will impact your final grade in our class.
In-Class Mask Mandate. When we are in class together, we are required to wear a mask and to wear it correctly: snug and over the nose and under the chin. I know we are all tired of wearing masks, but our class requires a lot of up-close talking, moving around, etc. I want us to be as safe as we can reasonably be while still participating in a classroom in the most pedagogically active way possible.
I will enforce this mandate in our class. For the safety of everyone in our class and for myself, I am authorized by the administration to do so. Here are the guidelines I have been given: "If a student, who does not have a mask exemption, refuses to wear a mask, a faculty member should inform the student that they are required to do so. If the student continues to refuse to wear the mask, the unit member can dismiss the student from class and instruct the student to leave the immediate area. If the student continually refuses to leave the teaching area while still refusing to wear a mask, the unit member shall have the right to dismiss the class and shall report the incident to the university’s student conduct officer. Student refusals to wear a mask shall be treated as a student conduct violation and addressed through the code of conduct mechanisms at the university."
Informal Writing and Participation. Informal writing clarifies what we are thinking about something and makes it possible for us to share those ideas with those around us. Thus, you will write informally almost every class. Not everyone is a talker, but everyone can participate. Writing informally in class, and sharing it with classmates, is another way besides discussion where you can show your engagement with the class.
Reading Journals. In addition to the informal writing you do in class, you will also be responsible for reading journals. For nearly every reading we do in this class, you need to produce a reading journal. This is a 500-750 word text that provides a brief summary of the significant points of our reading, and a brief analysis of the main argument. Be prepared to use your journals in class and to have other people in the class read and comment on them. More information about reading journals is available here on our class website, including information on what an acceptable journal looks like and what you will need to do in order to earn a strong grade on this assignment. Reading Journals make up 15% of your final grade.
Formal Writing. You will be responsible for four formal projects this semester. More information on each of these assignments is available on our class website, accessible by clicking on the title of each assignment below or as a link in the drop down menu under "ENGL 301 Writing & the Teaching. . . ". There you will find more detailed explanations of the assignment as well as all of the components of the assignment you are expected to complete in order to earn full credit and a strong grade for that assignment.
Interview with a Teacher. It's easy to have ideas about what it means to be a teacher, and a very different thing to actually teach. In this first assignment, you will be paired with a BSU alum who is currently teaching. As a class, we will devise questions designed to get at what its like to be a working professional in a classroom. You will conduct and write about what you learn and then, as a class, we will analyze these interviews for important themes about the joy and difficulty of teaching writing and reading. Interview with a Teacher is worth 15% of your final grade.
Mentor Text Flash Memoir. This very short assignment is a brief narrative—no more than 500 words—that discusses your life as a reader. This is a very specific kind of literacy history that asks you to think about the texts that have most affected you as a reader and writer. This is a course about teaching writing, but our teaching is always informed by our own experiences as students and as readers in and out of the classroom. This is an assignment that explores what our own experiences tell us about what our teaching experiences should probably be like. The Mentor Text Flash Memoir is worth 10% of your final grade.
Book Club. This assignment is a moment, in a class filled with theories of writing, to take time to understand theories of reading and the intimate connection between the two. Book Club is worth 15% of your final grade.
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations. This two-part project will involve doing independent research on teaching students who have historically been underserved in the U.S. class room as well as a group presentation about what you learn. Why this focus on underserved populations? Because the classrooms you will enter into will be filled with diverse students that will most likely not be the student you are (because a lot of folks who want to become teachers found solace and comfort in school and, thus, imagine that school is that same thing for most students—and are often flummoxed at why it is not). Further, students who begin to fall behind in literacy as early as 4th grade are statistically more likely to drop out of high school. Thus, it is important to consider the diversity of student needs because much is at stake. Research in Teaching Diverse Populations is worth 15% of your final grade.
Assignment Design. The final assignment of the semester asks you to develop a writing assignment that reflects the values you would want to bring to a reading/writing classroom. The design will be entirely yours, as will the assessment and the rational. I’m not an education professor, and I don’t have strict rules about how this information is presented. I just want to see a really great and creative assignment that reflects what we learn about how people learn to be better writers over the course of our semester together, how you’ll evaluate it, and why you think it is great. It should be the most fun assignment of the semester. Assignment Design is worth 15% of your final grade.
Final Portfolio. Revision is an important part of the writing process, and in an effort to make that clear to you I need to value it in the classroom. The way I do this is by the portfolio. At midterm, you will turn in a mini-portfolio of work that I'm calling a "midterm check in." At the end of the semester, you will turn in a final portfolio. That portfolio will include some revised work as well as a collection of informal work that will not require revision. Most importantly, you will do some reflection on what you've learned as a future teacher of writing. Portfolios are importantly tied to your evaluation in this class, as you will see in the “Evaluation” section of this document. Specific information is available online at the “portfolios” link on our class website.
EVALUATION
For each formal assignment you will receive fairly extensive written feedback in the form of a letter when you turn the draft in to me. I will discuss samples of these letters with you before the first major writing assignment is due so you have a sense of what this feedback looks like and how it is connected to your final letter grade for each assignment and the class as a whole. You can read actual sample draft letters for actual students from previous semesters--names changed--directly below.
This course is designed to help prospective teachers develop a personal and professional sense of what they want their writing/reading classrooms to look like. To do this, we will read and write together about current research and theory in Composition Pedagogy and literacy instruction; about the ELA classroom, past and present; about the rules, regulations, and requirements placed upon you as teachers today; about the needs of all students as we help them become thoughtful readers and writers themselves. As we move forward with our understanding of all of this, we will remember where we all start: as students. Thus, you will examine your own personal literacy practices and your experience as a student as it impacts your future classroom as a teacher.
While we will explore various ways to theorize your teaching practice, my own classroom practice will identify the theories that I value. The classroom I construct will therefore reinforce particular theories of language and composition (and you should know this going in to the deal).
The experiences you will engage in this semester, are the kinds of literacy practices I hope you will one day invite your own students to participate in: you will write informally and formally; you will work individually and as a group; you will present your ideas orally and in print. At the end of the semester you should have the beginnings of a set of documents that you can take with you into your professional career, and a theory/philosophy of their significance in your future classroom (that may or may not reflect what I value).
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course you will:
- Identify and interrogate the culture of the writing/reading classroom in the United States today,
- Compare and Contrast various theories of literacy and composing,
- Identify the challenges and joys of teaching reading/writing to all students,
- Design meaningful reading/writing assignments that inculcate these theories of reading, writing, and inclusiveness,
- Design meaningful assessments of these assignments that demonstrate these theories of reading, writing, and inclusiveness,
- And, finally, begin to develop a professional persona in a reading/writing teaching portfolio.
COURSE TEXTS
There are two text available in the bookstore for purchase (the titles are live links to the Amazon page):
Lives On the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles &
Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared
by Mike Rose
Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice & Clarity in High School Writing
by Penny Kittle
Here are some other sites where these books might be available at a better price (and will not feed the amazon monster)
- https://isbnsearch.org/ This site is excellent, and I always encourage students to start here. It generates a list of online sellers for new and used books when you search by ISBN. See info bear or Amazon for ISBN numbers.
- Powells.com. Great online bookseller. Not sure what their shipping fees are like, however.
- AbeBooks.com. pretty good deals here.
- https://www.textbookx.com/
- ecampus.com. Mostly textbooks but I’ve found some good stuff here.
- biblio.com
- https://bookshop.org/. A non-profit that supports local booksellers. You can use their online map to find a specific store to buy from, and they’ll receive the full profit off your order. Otherwise, your order contributes to an earnings pool that’s evenly distributed among independent bookstores (even those that don’t use Bookshop). I buy books for myself and gifts here – not sure how good they are for textbooks etc.
Other readings, videos, or podcasts are available on the syllabus either as a file to download or as a link. Including the .PDF of Asao Inoue's Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching & Assessing Writing For A Socially Just Future.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance. Because this is a 300 level class, I have the reasonable expectation that you want to be here and intend to come prepared to the best of your ability. I ask that you make every effort to attend as much of class as possible, and I will try to be as accommodating and reasonable as possible if you can not be in class. However, if you miss more than four classes--or two weeks of class--it will adversely affect your final grade in this class. If you miss eight classes--or a full month of class--I can not guarantee that you will pass this class.
Covid-19 and attendance. We are all tired of hearing how these are unprecedented times--but they are. Attendance matters a lot to me. And I think you will quickly figure out that if you miss class you miss a lot. And this isn't high school. I will not, and am not required to, re-teach the class or classes you missed. So, I want to say that: come to class. It's the most important thing you can do to insure your success in this class. But if you test positive for Covid, you need to stay away from class for the required number of quarantine days and/or until you test negative. I would very much like for us to not be a super spreader event on campus. If you need to be absent due to Covid or a family member's Covid, let me know and we will work out how you will stay a part of a class. Zoom attendance in a face-to-face class is not ideal, but it will make it work because we need it to work.
Late Work. I try to be reasonable about late work. However, to be totally honest, late work makes it difficult for me to keep up with the paper load and to keep track of your performance in our class. During the first first five weeks of the semester--or a third of the semester--I will accept late work. After that, I will accept late work on a case-by-case basis. It is best if you ask me for an extension prior to the deadline rather than day-of. I will be more lenient about deadlines for major projects than I am for Reading Journals or Reader's Notes because reading is a central part of the day-to-day functioning of our class. Excessive late work will impact your final grade in our class.
In-Class Mask Mandate. When we are in class together, we are required to wear a mask and to wear it correctly: snug and over the nose and under the chin. I know we are all tired of wearing masks, but our class requires a lot of up-close talking, moving around, etc. I want us to be as safe as we can reasonably be while still participating in a classroom in the most pedagogically active way possible.
I will enforce this mandate in our class. For the safety of everyone in our class and for myself, I am authorized by the administration to do so. Here are the guidelines I have been given: "If a student, who does not have a mask exemption, refuses to wear a mask, a faculty member should inform the student that they are required to do so. If the student continues to refuse to wear the mask, the unit member can dismiss the student from class and instruct the student to leave the immediate area. If the student continually refuses to leave the teaching area while still refusing to wear a mask, the unit member shall have the right to dismiss the class and shall report the incident to the university’s student conduct officer. Student refusals to wear a mask shall be treated as a student conduct violation and addressed through the code of conduct mechanisms at the university."
Informal Writing and Participation. Informal writing clarifies what we are thinking about something and makes it possible for us to share those ideas with those around us. Thus, you will write informally almost every class. Not everyone is a talker, but everyone can participate. Writing informally in class, and sharing it with classmates, is another way besides discussion where you can show your engagement with the class.
Reading Journals. In addition to the informal writing you do in class, you will also be responsible for reading journals. For nearly every reading we do in this class, you need to produce a reading journal. This is a 500-750 word text that provides a brief summary of the significant points of our reading, and a brief analysis of the main argument. Be prepared to use your journals in class and to have other people in the class read and comment on them. More information about reading journals is available here on our class website, including information on what an acceptable journal looks like and what you will need to do in order to earn a strong grade on this assignment. Reading Journals make up 15% of your final grade.
Formal Writing. You will be responsible for four formal projects this semester. More information on each of these assignments is available on our class website, accessible by clicking on the title of each assignment below or as a link in the drop down menu under "ENGL 301 Writing & the Teaching. . . ". There you will find more detailed explanations of the assignment as well as all of the components of the assignment you are expected to complete in order to earn full credit and a strong grade for that assignment.
Interview with a Teacher. It's easy to have ideas about what it means to be a teacher, and a very different thing to actually teach. In this first assignment, you will be paired with a BSU alum who is currently teaching. As a class, we will devise questions designed to get at what its like to be a working professional in a classroom. You will conduct and write about what you learn and then, as a class, we will analyze these interviews for important themes about the joy and difficulty of teaching writing and reading. Interview with a Teacher is worth 15% of your final grade.
Mentor Text Flash Memoir. This very short assignment is a brief narrative—no more than 500 words—that discusses your life as a reader. This is a very specific kind of literacy history that asks you to think about the texts that have most affected you as a reader and writer. This is a course about teaching writing, but our teaching is always informed by our own experiences as students and as readers in and out of the classroom. This is an assignment that explores what our own experiences tell us about what our teaching experiences should probably be like. The Mentor Text Flash Memoir is worth 10% of your final grade.
Book Club. This assignment is a moment, in a class filled with theories of writing, to take time to understand theories of reading and the intimate connection between the two. Book Club is worth 15% of your final grade.
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations. This two-part project will involve doing independent research on teaching students who have historically been underserved in the U.S. class room as well as a group presentation about what you learn. Why this focus on underserved populations? Because the classrooms you will enter into will be filled with diverse students that will most likely not be the student you are (because a lot of folks who want to become teachers found solace and comfort in school and, thus, imagine that school is that same thing for most students—and are often flummoxed at why it is not). Further, students who begin to fall behind in literacy as early as 4th grade are statistically more likely to drop out of high school. Thus, it is important to consider the diversity of student needs because much is at stake. Research in Teaching Diverse Populations is worth 15% of your final grade.
Assignment Design. The final assignment of the semester asks you to develop a writing assignment that reflects the values you would want to bring to a reading/writing classroom. The design will be entirely yours, as will the assessment and the rational. I’m not an education professor, and I don’t have strict rules about how this information is presented. I just want to see a really great and creative assignment that reflects what we learn about how people learn to be better writers over the course of our semester together, how you’ll evaluate it, and why you think it is great. It should be the most fun assignment of the semester. Assignment Design is worth 15% of your final grade.
Final Portfolio. Revision is an important part of the writing process, and in an effort to make that clear to you I need to value it in the classroom. The way I do this is by the portfolio. At midterm, you will turn in a mini-portfolio of work that I'm calling a "midterm check in." At the end of the semester, you will turn in a final portfolio. That portfolio will include some revised work as well as a collection of informal work that will not require revision. Most importantly, you will do some reflection on what you've learned as a future teacher of writing. Portfolios are importantly tied to your evaluation in this class, as you will see in the “Evaluation” section of this document. Specific information is available online at the “portfolios” link on our class website.
EVALUATION
For each formal assignment you will receive fairly extensive written feedback in the form of a letter when you turn the draft in to me. I will discuss samples of these letters with you before the first major writing assignment is due so you have a sense of what this feedback looks like and how it is connected to your final letter grade for each assignment and the class as a whole. You can read actual sample draft letters for actual students from previous semesters--names changed--directly below.
| sample.eval.letters.301__1_.pdf |
Comments on reading journals shouldn’t be treated like evaluation but rather like an ongoing conversation between you and me: think of it as a talk between us, only in written form. If I'm not writing anything, I'm bored. Your only cause for alarm should be if you see this: "you aren't taking this work seriously," or some version of that. Included on the Reading Journal assignment page are specific details about what you need to do in a journal for it to be "acceptable" and how many acceptable journals will result in a strong grade in this class for that assignment. You can read about that here and summarized below.
KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR "A"s & "U"s
Here is how I keep track of your reading journal/book club work & teaching discussion posts: Each week, after I've read through the journals, I will assign you either an "A" or a "U" ("A" for acceptable and "U" for unacceptable). If you earn a "U" on anything, I will make sure you know why and you are welcome to revise that "U" into an "A" no matter how many times it takes to get it there as long as you've posted it initially by the before-class deadline.
I don't keep track of the date of the "A" or "U" received, and I don't keep track of what you turn in as a revision of a "U." I just enter marks into my book each week. At the end of the semester, I total up how many "A"s you end up with and that tells me what grade you've earned. So if you turn in your work for all of the assignments and always get "A" for acceptable, great. If turn in your work and get all "U"s but then revise them to "A"s, that will be reflected in my book and you are golden too. If you have some "A"s and then, say, one post you keep getting a "U" on week after week, but you still have enough "A"s to earn you an "A" grade in the end, all those "U"s just don't matter.
But here is the thing: Once I've given you the "A" or the "U", my role is done until next week. I can't tell you which journals you get "A"s on and which you got "U"s on after the fact. All I'll be able to do is tell you where you are at in the "A" column. It's up to you to keep track of a "U" in need of revision.
But here is another thing: Most students in this class get "As" on their journals. The only reason you'd get a "U" is if you totally misread a text and/or you don't turn something in that is 500-750 words. Students worry a lot that they aren't doing the right thing in these journals, and what I'm trying to tell you here is that most students do this right--and I say this having taught this class for nearly 20 years.
Comments on Formal Assignments are typically meant to guide your revision process and/or prepare you for the next assignment. For each of those assignments (Interview with a Teacher, Mentor Text Flash Memoir, Book Club, Research in Teaching Diverse Populations, Assignment Design), there are several components that you must complete in order to earn full credit. They are specific to the assignment, but, generally, you are required to turn in drafts and revisions and participate in whatever workshop and/or conference required for that assignment. Read the specific assignment pages for the requirements for each assignment.
At midterm, we will meet one-on-one (Covid permitting, in person) to discuss how you are doing in the class. You will get a grade so far on any un-graded assignments, we'll talk about how successful your informal work is, and what you still need to work on as we move on to the second half of the semester. The meeting will culminate in a "grade-so-far" for your performance in our class. At the end of the semester you will receive a “final grade” letter that reflects your cumulative grades on assignments and your final grade in the course as well. Your midterm grade so far meeting will coincide with the completion of the Interview with a Teacher. Your final grade letter will accompany your final portfolio. You can read sample midterm letters, names changed, below.
KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR "A"s & "U"s
Here is how I keep track of your reading journal/book club work & teaching discussion posts: Each week, after I've read through the journals, I will assign you either an "A" or a "U" ("A" for acceptable and "U" for unacceptable). If you earn a "U" on anything, I will make sure you know why and you are welcome to revise that "U" into an "A" no matter how many times it takes to get it there as long as you've posted it initially by the before-class deadline.
I don't keep track of the date of the "A" or "U" received, and I don't keep track of what you turn in as a revision of a "U." I just enter marks into my book each week. At the end of the semester, I total up how many "A"s you end up with and that tells me what grade you've earned. So if you turn in your work for all of the assignments and always get "A" for acceptable, great. If turn in your work and get all "U"s but then revise them to "A"s, that will be reflected in my book and you are golden too. If you have some "A"s and then, say, one post you keep getting a "U" on week after week, but you still have enough "A"s to earn you an "A" grade in the end, all those "U"s just don't matter.
But here is the thing: Once I've given you the "A" or the "U", my role is done until next week. I can't tell you which journals you get "A"s on and which you got "U"s on after the fact. All I'll be able to do is tell you where you are at in the "A" column. It's up to you to keep track of a "U" in need of revision.
But here is another thing: Most students in this class get "As" on their journals. The only reason you'd get a "U" is if you totally misread a text and/or you don't turn something in that is 500-750 words. Students worry a lot that they aren't doing the right thing in these journals, and what I'm trying to tell you here is that most students do this right--and I say this having taught this class for nearly 20 years.
Comments on Formal Assignments are typically meant to guide your revision process and/or prepare you for the next assignment. For each of those assignments (Interview with a Teacher, Mentor Text Flash Memoir, Book Club, Research in Teaching Diverse Populations, Assignment Design), there are several components that you must complete in order to earn full credit. They are specific to the assignment, but, generally, you are required to turn in drafts and revisions and participate in whatever workshop and/or conference required for that assignment. Read the specific assignment pages for the requirements for each assignment.
At midterm, we will meet one-on-one (Covid permitting, in person) to discuss how you are doing in the class. You will get a grade so far on any un-graded assignments, we'll talk about how successful your informal work is, and what you still need to work on as we move on to the second half of the semester. The meeting will culminate in a "grade-so-far" for your performance in our class. At the end of the semester you will receive a “final grade” letter that reflects your cumulative grades on assignments and your final grade in the course as well. Your midterm grade so far meeting will coincide with the completion of the Interview with a Teacher. Your final grade letter will accompany your final portfolio. You can read sample midterm letters, names changed, below.
| midterm.evaluations.301.sample.pdf |
Different assignments carry different weight in any class, here is a break down of what percentage of your grade each assignment will contribute to your overall grade.
Reading Journals/Teaching Scenario Discussions 15%
Interview with a Teacher 15%
Flash Mentor Text Memoir 10%
Book Club 15%
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations 15%
Assignment Design 15%
Midterm check in 5%
Final Portfolio 10%
I have never encountered a student who didn’t have a clear sense of how they were doing in my class based on this system of evaluation, but if you should feel that you don’t know how you are doing, come see me. We’ll figure it out.
Ultimately, your success in this class depends on the following:
I use this kind of evaluation because I want to be able to consider all the parts of your performance in our class, not just how good your final drafts of your papers are. I want to consider where you started and how much you improved. I want to consider how hard you tried (or didn’t try) in class. I want to consider how you contribute to class on a daily basis--not by being the one who always talks, but by paying attention, contributing when you have something thoughtful to say, helping to make your group work go smoothly, really giving your all to our reading journals and in-class writing. I have found that this kind of grading rewards hard-working students as well as students that are just naturally good at something. And, for that reason, I think it is the most fair way to run a writing classroom. Further, research indicates that this kind of grading--sometimes called standards based grading--in an equity-minded classroom, turns out to support students often disenfranchised by traditional grading policies in the US classroom. I hope you’ll come to agree.
OTHER THINGS
Plagiarism. How you could plagiarize in a class like this, I don’t know, but don’t try. I will fail you because the last person in the world who should be standing up and teaching is a cheater.
Students who need specific accommodations. Students who need accommodations should come to see me with written documentation of the specific need and suggested accommodations before the end of the first week of classes. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time. I try to employ universal design in my classes; if you see a way to make the class more accessible, tell me. I want to know.
Electronics Policy. Please don't use electronics for personal use during class time. Let's focus on each other. Repeated inappropriate use of electronics will accumulate to at least one absence.
The Writing Studio. Located in the Academic Achievement Center, on the bottom floor of the Library, the Writing Studio is available to any and all students at whatever level of expertise you might be at.
Other Resources on Campus. There are a wide variety of services available on our campus that you might want to know about but also might just be too inundated with information to remember you have access to, so I'm including links to a variety of places on campus that I think you might want to know about. First and foremost is probably the counseling center and the wellness center. Other places you can go if you want to connect with folks: the LEGAC center for multicultural affairs, the Pride Center, the campus food bank, and Commuter Services. Making a connection to this campus is the number one way you'll get from day one to graduation.
Title IX and Sexual Violence. The Office of Equal Opportunity and the Title IX Coordinator work to ensure that all members of the campus community flourish in a supportive and fair climate. See https://my.bridgew.edu/departments/affirmativeaction/SitePages/Home.aspx to learn more.
While this class will present you with many challenges, I believe it has its share of pleasures and rewards. What matters most to me is that you try to be the best student you are capable of being—that you try to improve as a writer and thinker. No good teacher wants to give a student a bad grade. Good standing in this class is yours to lose.
I. Love. This. Class.
Syllabus/Policies Check-in Assignment
Good for you. You got to the end of the policies. To reward you, you have the opportunity to earn one "A" for Acceptable for a reader's notes grade simply by completing the following assignment by the third week of classes.
1. Send me an email at ltorda@bridgew.edu, CC me at lee.torda@gmail.com
2. In the subject line, write "Syllabus Check-in Email". Write it exactly as I've written it here.
3. In the body of the email, include a greeting: "Hello LT," "Hi Professor Torda," "Hey Dr. Torda." Whatever. But have a greeting.
4. Cut and paste this sentence into the email: "I've read through the policies and syllabus for the course, and I understand how to use the website to find out information about assignments, course policies, due dates, and classroom expectations." BUT: here is the thing, really seriously make sure you've actually done it. This email is like your signature on a contract. I won't be super patient with folks who tell me that "they didn't know" how some policy will affect them if I have that email.
4. Ask me any questions about any thing on my website for our class: policies, due dates, classroom expectations, assignments. If you honestly have not questions, okay, but I mean, really?
5. Include a meme of your choosing or design that sums up how you are feeling about being in college so far.
6. Sign off on your email, "best, so & so" "see you in class, your name here" "sincerely, John Doe." Again, whatever. But sign off on your email.
Make sure I get this email by the 3rd week of classes. If you don't send it to me, you lose this free "A". There will be a couple of these during the semester, and they can really help you out when you are in the thick of the semester.
Reading Journals/Teaching Scenario Discussions 15%
Interview with a Teacher 15%
Flash Mentor Text Memoir 10%
Book Club 15%
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations 15%
Assignment Design 15%
Midterm check in 5%
Final Portfolio 10%
I have never encountered a student who didn’t have a clear sense of how they were doing in my class based on this system of evaluation, but if you should feel that you don’t know how you are doing, come see me. We’ll figure it out.
Ultimately, your success in this class depends on the following:
- Fulfilling all of the requirements listed above,
- The quality of your written and oral work,
- Your efforts to try new things and think in new ways.
I use this kind of evaluation because I want to be able to consider all the parts of your performance in our class, not just how good your final drafts of your papers are. I want to consider where you started and how much you improved. I want to consider how hard you tried (or didn’t try) in class. I want to consider how you contribute to class on a daily basis--not by being the one who always talks, but by paying attention, contributing when you have something thoughtful to say, helping to make your group work go smoothly, really giving your all to our reading journals and in-class writing. I have found that this kind of grading rewards hard-working students as well as students that are just naturally good at something. And, for that reason, I think it is the most fair way to run a writing classroom. Further, research indicates that this kind of grading--sometimes called standards based grading--in an equity-minded classroom, turns out to support students often disenfranchised by traditional grading policies in the US classroom. I hope you’ll come to agree.
OTHER THINGS
Plagiarism. How you could plagiarize in a class like this, I don’t know, but don’t try. I will fail you because the last person in the world who should be standing up and teaching is a cheater.
Students who need specific accommodations. Students who need accommodations should come to see me with written documentation of the specific need and suggested accommodations before the end of the first week of classes. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time. I try to employ universal design in my classes; if you see a way to make the class more accessible, tell me. I want to know.
Electronics Policy. Please don't use electronics for personal use during class time. Let's focus on each other. Repeated inappropriate use of electronics will accumulate to at least one absence.
The Writing Studio. Located in the Academic Achievement Center, on the bottom floor of the Library, the Writing Studio is available to any and all students at whatever level of expertise you might be at.
Other Resources on Campus. There are a wide variety of services available on our campus that you might want to know about but also might just be too inundated with information to remember you have access to, so I'm including links to a variety of places on campus that I think you might want to know about. First and foremost is probably the counseling center and the wellness center. Other places you can go if you want to connect with folks: the LEGAC center for multicultural affairs, the Pride Center, the campus food bank, and Commuter Services. Making a connection to this campus is the number one way you'll get from day one to graduation.
Title IX and Sexual Violence. The Office of Equal Opportunity and the Title IX Coordinator work to ensure that all members of the campus community flourish in a supportive and fair climate. See https://my.bridgew.edu/departments/affirmativeaction/SitePages/Home.aspx to learn more.
While this class will present you with many challenges, I believe it has its share of pleasures and rewards. What matters most to me is that you try to be the best student you are capable of being—that you try to improve as a writer and thinker. No good teacher wants to give a student a bad grade. Good standing in this class is yours to lose.
I. Love. This. Class.
Syllabus/Policies Check-in Assignment
Good for you. You got to the end of the policies. To reward you, you have the opportunity to earn one "A" for Acceptable for a reader's notes grade simply by completing the following assignment by the third week of classes.
1. Send me an email at ltorda@bridgew.edu, CC me at lee.torda@gmail.com
2. In the subject line, write "Syllabus Check-in Email". Write it exactly as I've written it here.
3. In the body of the email, include a greeting: "Hello LT," "Hi Professor Torda," "Hey Dr. Torda." Whatever. But have a greeting.
4. Cut and paste this sentence into the email: "I've read through the policies and syllabus for the course, and I understand how to use the website to find out information about assignments, course policies, due dates, and classroom expectations." BUT: here is the thing, really seriously make sure you've actually done it. This email is like your signature on a contract. I won't be super patient with folks who tell me that "they didn't know" how some policy will affect them if I have that email.
4. Ask me any questions about any thing on my website for our class: policies, due dates, classroom expectations, assignments. If you honestly have not questions, okay, but I mean, really?
5. Include a meme of your choosing or design that sums up how you are feeling about being in college so far.
6. Sign off on your email, "best, so & so" "see you in class, your name here" "sincerely, John Doe." Again, whatever. But sign off on your email.
Make sure I get this email by the 3rd week of classes. If you don't send it to me, you lose this free "A". There will be a couple of these during the semester, and they can really help you out when you are in the thick of the semester.