Communty College Teaching

Zee Maps and Basic Writing and Beyond.

It looks like technology has finally caught up with me. I've wanted to be able to create a group map of the campus in which the students were responsible for writing, annotating photo-ing and researching the campus. All of this work would be uploaded onto a map program. I tried using Wayfaring, but it just didn't work quite as well as I'd wanted. I liked the skin, but as I recall, I couldn't have more than one person contributing to a map at a time. I'll check back with them, but I liked what I saw tonight on ZeeMaps.com There, I could select the degree of participation each person had on a private map, so that some folks would be contributors, other viewers. I think all of my students will be contributors, and I'll give viewing privileges to other faculty or student guests as we go along. I'm also interested in making it a private map until such time we decide to share it with the world.

Right now, I'm playing with the map program and creating a genealogy map that links the origins of my family. I'm thinking that I'd like to link this to a timeline in my Women and Literature class as well. Perhaps have the class work together on a group project of all of the writers we're reading.

Mapping looks like a great way to ground (no pun) visual learners when there' a lot of information to cover that doesn't lend itself to a traditional outline or list. The fact that links and graphics can be uploaded makes it just as meaningful.

Culture Cat Blogging

I wrote this post for my regular blog, but as I finished, I realized that it could just as well fit here.  So I'll do the next best thing:  link to it!

NIU

I feel profoundly sad at the carnage, the grief, and the pain.  How can we keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable?  Does their right to bear arms end when they plan to use the arms on innocent people?

Slow Going

I've been busy adjusting to the new semester.  Most of my scant blogging has been either at TRACE, or at the mothership, 2 Board Alley.  Getting back into the swing of things after surgery has meant being a bit more cautious about taking care of my body, so blogging has had to be, well, not curtailed, but minimized.

In the meantime, I hope you've been checking in to CCE and all of the new, wonderful things that Holly and Co. are writing about--from cell phone novels to studies to online course tools for f2f classes.

A New Semester, A New Me

Yes, that's right, a new, gallbladder-free me will be striding into the classroom later on today.  Not that i expect anyone to notce the change. 

I've slacked off in my Moodling and will get back to it when I have time.  My plan for the semester is to teach--creative writing, basic writing and first-year comp--and take it easy.  If I don't get back to the Moodle project until later this semester, fine.  But thank you to jason and kait for offering to test drive the project.

In the meantime, I hope that readers have visited CCE.  Holly has taken charge and has asked Howard Timburg to write about a study that he and others are undertaking. 

FreshMAN Frustration

I am part of a group of faculty (the advising cadre) who work in Counseling and Advising during the summer and winter to help with registration.  And for the most part, it's a great experience--I get to help students plan their studies, and  more often than not, they thank me.

Yesterday, however, I worked with a student who frustrated me just as much I seemed to be frustrating her.  She wanted to know if she had to take a placement test to take a writing course.  Which course?  She wouldn't tell me.  Was she working on a degree?  That's what I should have known.  Was she new to college?  No, but she didn't want to talk about that now.  Okay, did she have a transcript? Well, she'd just turned it in, so it hadn't been posted and we couldn't see it.  Could she bring in an unofficial transcript? No.

I tried to explain that I wanted to see if she'd taken freshman comp somewhere else and that it was a pretty generic course. She assured me that not every college or university used the terminology of"freshman comp." True, I said,  pointing out the example of Georgetown's English offerings, but that I still wanted to ascertain  whether or not she would have to take a placement test.  Well, it wouldn't have been a course called "freshMAN comp" that she'd taken--she was a Women's Studies major.

And then  she said that I wasn't listening to her and that she felt very frustrated.  I looked at her and said that I felt the same way because she kept interrupting me when I tried to explain things to her.

I'll admit that I felt frustrated, and when she left in angry tears, I felt too wound up to talk to the next student before I spoke with another advisor.    But I felt good, too, for being honest with her and not being overly empathic.  There's a boundary there that needs tending.

Moodle Volunteers

I need to ask you all a favor--would you be willing to be a "student" and log-in to my Moodle site so that I can test some specific functions before I unleash unveil my course site (to replace the textbook). I am going to run the test from December 1 through January 10, and all you have to do is to sign up, sign in, do your assigned assignment and send me an email with your feedback. 

The Litmag Assignment

went rather well.  I'm posting here the assignment guide which I submitted to my BW colleagues at school.  Feel free to take this idea and adapt it to your style.

EN 001/MC-R/Joanna Howard/Fall ‘07/Developmental Group

The Literary Magazine Assignment

Abstract: In this assignment, given at the start of November, students were asked to read the campus literary magazine, The Red Jacket, and use their reading as the basis of an assignment of which they would have several options.  Through daily reading quizzes, homework questions, one handout and class discussions, students reviewed the literary components of the narrative as well as the individual stories in the magazine.

Writing Focus: Distinguishing Fiction from Non-Fiction; discussing commonalities of narration; practicing rereading and rewriting; being able to give reasons using examples from one or more stories; practicing writing opening paragraphs; practicing writing for different audiences.

Punctuation Focus:  Proofreading for sentence –level comma errors.

Note:  Although the assignment suggests a 4-6 paragraph limit, I say to the class that if anyone wants to write a longer paper, they are welcome to.  Also, the handout was the chapter on writing a literary analysis in Writer’s Inc. (Houghton Mifflin).

The Assignment Sheet:  Below is a cut-and-paste version of the assignment. The homework questions are specific to the current issue of the magazine, so I haven’t repeated them here.

This Week’s Assignment:  Writing About the Literary Magazine

The reading and writing that you have been doing for the past week will help you out as you begin to write about the literary magazine’s selection of stories, both real and fictional.  As college students, you are developing your ability to read critically, so remember that the point of this assignment is not to love or hate the selections in the magazine, but to be able to talk about them in a constructive, critical way. 

Also, you will be writing a longer and more structured piece of writing with this essay, but you are ready for it.  Your essay should run for about three pages and be made up of somewhere between 4-6 paragraphs.  Furthermore, your essay should have an opening paragraph that draws the reader’s attention in by having the following components:

·         An opening sentence or two that pulls us in;

·         A thesis statement that states the point that you are making in your paper;

·         A sentence or two that previews the main ideas of the paper;

·         Mention of the author and title of the work.

Note that your opening paragraph doesn’t have to follow the order listed above.  Just be sure that it contains all of the components!

As far as what you write about goes, think about the following choices and pick one:

1.       Assume that you have been asked by the campus paper, The Advocate, to write a review of the stories in the literary magazine.  You will need to have an overview point to make about them, which will be supported by your analysis of two-three stories as examples.  Each story can serve as one of your example paragraphs. 

2.       The chair of the Psychology department is putting together a student-based workshop on relationships and has asked you to write an analysis of the personal narratives which you think would be useful examples of problems people experience in life.  Again, you will need to have an overview point to make about all of the pieces, and can use each narrative as a support paragraph. 

3.       The author of one of these stories or narratives is a good friend of yours who has asked you for some constructive feedback.  Write a letter that is both tactful and honest, and which points out the strengths as well as the weaknesses. 

For each of these choices, give some thought to how you will address your audience.  Also, be sure to explain your points:  remember the Topic-Illustration-

Explanation technique. Finally, proofreading and editing do count, so please make sure that your sentences are punctuated correctly.

When you turn in the paper, remember to staple the rough drafts to the final draft, and to underline your thesis statement.  This assignment is worth 75 points.

The Response to Gertrude Stein

Karren asks how the post-presentation assignments went, and this brings to mind two ideas: one,that with blogging, an event  is never really over,that ideas keep tumbling along and that audience, performer, teacher, student, writer,can all engage in a discussion (or several) around specific ideas in a less formal, less time-driven manner. 

The second idea is that the students could have been encouraged to send their reactions to the presenter as well as to me,their professor.  I'm not sure why I didn't think to do that at the time since I did give out Karren's email address so that they could offer feedback about the presentation itself. 

That said, the reaction papers were good. One student did a fantastic job of imitating Stein's voice and re-vising bel hooks' essay--so good that she read it to the appreciative class. Only one student opted for the music video choice, but she came through splendidly.  Most of the class chose to write a response to the visit and to discuss whichever ideas struck them the most. I wish that I could think of specific examples, but I am too far ahead into the rest of the semester to remember.  Karren, I will ask the class to send along their responses to you.

One of the other benefits of this assignment was that it caused me to revise the course assignments so that I now get and respond to a weekly email from each student, discussing something about the class discussion that struck them as new, unusual, troubling or whatever.  This takes the place of three  quizzes that, in a class that meets once a week for two and a half hours, ate up too much time.  Also, because the class is so small, it affords me the time to give each student one on one attention to their ideas. 

Liz and Audio Essays

If you are interested in how comp profs use audio to create essays, check out Revisionspiral.  Liz is doing some amazing things by blending NPR's "This I Believe," with student composition.