Today’s Plan:
- ENG 123 update
- Syllabus Review
- Feedback Portfolios / Homework
- Paper Day #2
ENG 123 Update
I’ve forwarded all of you the email I got from Sonja Scullion regarding English 123. It contains the syllabus and the supporting materials.
Syllabus Review
Here’s what I am doing for the next week or so.
First, in today’s class, I gave them a proposal project. I think of this as a pre-writing exercise, getting them to read, think, and write about their topic. My *hope* is that they really do ask a question that they don’t know the answer to, although many of them will overlook this requirement and seek a path of less resistance.
Thursday’s class will be busy for me. I’m in the computer lab that day. I will start off with the Booth activity (I am studying…). I will also pass around a sign-up sheet for 10 minute conferences next week; I’ll be cancelling class on Tuesday and Thursday. I wish I had one more class with them, because they will be essentially on their own with MLA and APA format until after Thanksgiving Break. Since you are all on the M/W/F format, I would cancel two days but use the third day productively.
Then, I have a quick quiz on those readings dealing with surveys and questionnaires (basically a reading check). I’ll probably get a bit political about what not to do. Then we are going to read an academic article together. Hey look, a worksheet to use in class. Hey look, an article to read together.
Well I remember: teaching MLA and APA. I have two activities I do. The first, as I’ve described, is to give them a horribly broken paper and tell them to fix it. I’ll provide a checklist of things so they know what to fix. That’s pretty much the same checklist I use to evaluate final papers. I don’t let them leave the computer lab until they are done.
A second exercise I’ve used is to bring in a pile of 10 sources–a mix of books, magazine articles, wikipedia entries (printed out), JSTOR pdfs (again, printed out but we pretend they are digital), etc. I break them into teams of two and have them create a Works Cited or Reference List from that material. I like this activity because it is tactile–they have the sources in their hand–and because I don’t necessarily do this one in a computer lab, they can’t rely on an attribution generator like EasyBib.
Feedback Portfolios / Homework
We have two remaining projects to complete this semester: the first is a Feedback Portfolio and the second is a Statement of Teaching Philosophy. I’m going to talk about the former today, and the later next week.
I’m going to be honest–I’ve never seen a “Feedback Portfolio” before. It was something I thought of this summer as I was putting together the readings for our course. I knew a number of readings would deal with assessment. I know from personal experience that it is easy to provide students with too much feedback (overwhelming them and reducing the chance that they follow up on our most important feedback). I know I sincerely believe that providing concise, actionable feedback in a timely manner is one of the best ways to helps students develop their abilities. So, I knew I wanted a project to focus intellectual energy on feedback. And I knew/know that I wanted you to end the course with materials that could help develop a teaching portfolio and help you with a future job search.
But I don’t know exactly what the feedback portfolio should include. I have a few ideas. But I am interested in hearing what you think. So, group time.
Paper Day #2
