12.10 Portfolios

You presented your portfolios.  Awesome.

If you want feedback on anything you have written so far that we didn't talk about in class - send me an email within the next day or so.  Include the link to the documents you want me to review - and let me know what kind of feedback you are looking for.

Looks good!

Next week you will turn in your complete portfolios.  We will review the course and make a plan for how it should be integrated into the program.  Good work, guys.

12.3 Workshop on Portfolios

Joe's Portfolio

Lewis' Portfolio

Wayne's Portfolio

We talked over the book reviews + the up-coming lessons for Lewis and Joe.  Class was primarily spent workshopping what you have so far.

Next week, each of you will give a preliminary presentation on your portfolio with particular questions directing the rest of the class' attention to points you want to work on/develop.

I may have jury duty next week, December 10.  I will be in touch to let you know.

Final portfolios are due December 17 at the end of class.

See you next week.

11.26 Electronic portfolio, classroom dynamics, syllabi & calendars

Tonight's class discussion began with consideration of communication/power dynamics in the classroom and how the balance of power can affect what student's learn.  After discussing a particular situation we generalized the factors we saw in play along a flexibility scale moving from inflexible to very flexible.

	Inflexible => flexible
Self separate from teaching	openness	Reveal self - share experiences
Clear, definite terms No contextual change	communication	Common language - negotiated terms
Teacher responsible for classroom outcomes	responsibility	Student responsible for clarifying terms, demanding explanations, establishing clear due-dates
Teacher defines expectations and evaluates work based on those expectations	expectations	Teacher teaches to and/or responds to the expectations of individual students

Our discussion did not decide whether inflexible (definite/clear) or flexible (negotiable, contextualized) teaching styles were right or wrong = rather we explored the kinds of problems and solutions that could be posed through each approach.

Electronic Portfolios.  I created a sample teaching portfolio and reviewed the headings (material) we agreed would be in your portfolio.  This portfolio is a requirement for completion of this course and it is the primary document for the assessment of your performance.  It (or some version of it) will also be a critical component of your job applications.  For that reason, you should create your portfolio for an audience suitable to your job search, and I will evaluate (and give feedback to ) your work based on my assessment of its effectiveness with that audience. 

Documents to include in the portfolio include:

• portfolio rationale
• teaching philosophy
• class observation ( this may be a reflective observation of your own teaching - or an observation of the kind we discussed last week)
• calendar + syllabus
• assignment series
• lesson plan 
• sample graded papers
• textbook review

We then spent some time creating a site map (designing the link structure) for your portfolios.  Each of you posed a slightly different organization with different headings.  Your structure should reflect the identity of your audience and the message you want to give to that audience about who you are.

Syllabi & Calendars 

We finished class by reviewing Wayne's presentation of the syllabus from Professor Grillo's class, and Lewis' syllabus from his business writing course. Discussions surrounding these documents made it clear that there are many different ways to present information about course content, assessment, policies, and etc that are both effective and appropriate.  Your form of presentation should match your persona as a teacher - and the needs for your course.  The audiences for this document are the students in the coures AND your potential employers. This means you need to create language that is both easily understood by your student readers, and able to convey the content your employer will be looking for. 

For next week:

 Send me the link to your portfolio, and set the "share" settings so that anyone with a link (or everyone in the world) can see your materials.  

For the rest of the term, I will look at draft materials as they appear on your portfolio.

Post your draft book review and the introduction to your portfolio.

The lesson plan and the assignment series were due 11.26 = so post drafts for those so I can give you some feedback on those, too.

In class we will do some focused work on the book reviews and the portfolio introduction.  You might want to review the blog where we talked about the textbook review to collect your thoughts on what perspective to take.

You might also want to look at these reviews, as models for how other reviewers have represented textbooks.

Blog with book reviews  There are several - click through the posts (not saying this is the right format - just an example). 

Undergraduate Research in English Studies

11.19 Class observations and teaching philosophies

We started class by talking about your next lesson plan, and making plans to for you to teach your second class.

Class observation workshop
We then talked about doing observations - why you might do one, and how you want that document to function in your portfolio.

I felt that the second page of the "what new teacher's need to learn" link on Lew's blog gave excellent food for though regarding what you might want to learn from a class observation.

For the written document in your portfolio you will want to consider the following:

Who is your audience?  We decided, for you, audience will be complex; that is you may choose to engage in a performance where you state that you are the audience for this document (so you can learn something about the classroom you observe) => but that the observation will be an opportunity to illustrate for future employers how you use your observational abilities to learn about/become better at teaching.

What is your purpose?  You might use your observation to explore classroom culture, practices for assessment, how the curriculum is put into practice in the classroom, classroom management starategies, connections to the larger community, or any other feature of teaching/social interactions you want to learn.

We then brainstormed up a list of features we might note if we were observing classroom cultuer.  These included:
teacher actions/interactions/appearance etc
dynamics of communication
characteristics of the student population
power relationships
distribution of responsibilities (who is responsible for what - teachers? students?)
behaviors etc

Form for writing up observations:
As a kind of preface, create an introductory note that states the purpose, context, time and other relevant factors your audience needs to understand in order to be able to interpret your introduction.  If you use your blog (your observations from over the semester) point out that your "data" / examples you base your conclusions on have come from a blog you kept throughout the term.  If you use detailed notes from a single observation focused on one feature - such as classroom culture - state that.

The body of your observation should correlate roughly with forms for ethnographic writing.

Many ethnographic accounts begin with an "arrival story" that places you in the observation context.  This provides you the opportunity to present a detailed description of the context + your purpose for being there.

After placing your reader in the scene with you => state the terms of your analysis: what you will be looking at. Provide whatever context for the examples that follow.

Then make 2-3 points with respect to your focus.  In each point, set up a focus, provide some detailed description to provide the "data" for the point you make.  This part should read like a story, possibly with dialog.  Analyze/state what the description shows with respect to the observation's overall focus.

Finally - sum up what you learned (how you accomplished your purpose).  Make references to your examples..  

Teaching philosophies workshop
During the last half of class you gave short presentations on your teaching philosophies and fielded the class' & my feedback so as to work on the "persona" or overall "guiding perspective" that you wanted to shine through your specific points.  I think you did a great job on that - and as I said at the end of class, the focus in each of your philosophies very much correlated with my impressions of who you are as teachers => so well done.  We generally agreed that you should hit what you see as the central purpose of your teaching, what in particular you teach(your focus); how you teach (your practices); your methods for assessing/giving feedback and that all of these features of your philosophy should loosely connect to your core beliefs/persona.  We talked about closing with a kind of "what's next" or "where I am going" section = but it whether you make this move depends on your purpose, audience and style.  Good job on these - and if you send me revised documents at some point - I will give written feedback if you want it.


For next class:
1. I will return the commented on papers with comments.

2. Send me a copy of your draft syllabus + calendar, assignment series, lesson plans for the second lesson.  I will accept these in any form you send them.  We will workshop them in class at whatever stage they are in.  

We will also set up your porfolio.

Have a good Thanksgiving and see you next week!

11.12 Calendar, commenting, and getting ready for next week

We started class by revising the calendar so that it was essentially a list of workshops for the pieces you will include in the portfolio.  The dates and topics are listed at the previous post.

The middle of the class was devoted to a discussion of Nancy Sommer's excellent booklet on Responding to Student Writers, followed by some talk about how to respond to the writers whose work we brought to class.

After talking through three papers, you observed that:

• One effective form of commenting was to challenge writers with questions.
• Appropriate feedback needs to include adequate information so that the student can understand and apply the suggestion.
• It is important to distinguish between the kinds of comments made in marginal and end comments.
• Comments should focus on high order concerns first (if necessary).
• It is important to find positive, successful features in student writing.
• Effective comments should connect to the issues and language you are emphasizing (teaching) in class.
• Comments that reference books/readings from class (or handbooks) can increase students' agency.
• Comments to drafts focus on how to work on issues for the revision; comments to final essays emphasize how to apply what the student learned from this writing experience to the next essay. 

We also observed that because commenting was essentially a conversation - there aren't really going to be "generic" comments. At the same time, for any given assignment, certain writing issues will probably come up repeatedly - and may be the basis of a "lesson" presented in the class where the papers will be returned.


For next class:
1. Finish commenting on the "set" of papers that you want to include in your portfolio.  There should be more than one, less than 5 papers to illustrate how you respond to a variety of writing issues.  Send your sample papers via email so I can look them over.

2. During the first part of class you will workshop your classroom observations.  To prepare for this workshop, you should read through the criteria for student-teacher classroom observations (listed on Lewis' blog) and then choose one or a combination of several of your blog entries to use as data for your observation.  This draft is a start - and may send you back to the classroom for further observation.  In the workshop we will identify the focus of your observation (the point you are making), work on the effectiveness of the description, and think about whether and where there should be connections to theory.  \

3. During the second part of class you will revisit your teaching philosophy.  I am hoping each of you will give an informal presentation -and we can have some open discussion about how you want to develop your piece, followed by supportive discussion.

See you next week

11.12 Calendar for the rest of the term

11.12  make calendar, de-brief teaching/lessons, class exercise on comments

11.19  Workshop classroom observations, draft teaching philosophy
11.26  Syllabus + calendar, assignment series,. lesson plans => initial set-up for portfolio

12.3  text book reviews, introduction to portfolio (reflective pices on what is in your portfolio)

12.10 workshop anything you want =finish setting up portfolio

12.17 presentations + celebration

11.5 After the storm

I hope each of you is safe - and that your families and homes are safe as well.

I'm good - but no power.  I will be on campus as soon as Kean is open (especially  because Kean is likely to get power before I do). I am assuming we will focus the rest of the term on creating your portfolios.  We will work out a tentative schedule for workshopping/drafts due dates when we meet, hopefully a week from today.

Take care and be safe.

10.22 First lesson, commenting, and creating your portfolio

We started class with your (awesome) presentations of your lesson plans.  We set up the protocol for your talks, as follows.

Presenter’s want feedback => state what kind fo feedback you want

-         Identify any questions you have about your process or handouts

-         tell us about your concerns ( so we can watch for you)

-         observers should bring their perspective to the observation + make suggestions

Provide context for lesson (what the class has learned so  far and how your lesson fits in)

Provide overview of the lesson with reference to the printed lesson

Point out any areas you are concerned about => and TEACh those (walk through the language or activities you will use)

Discussion

I think you are all well prepared for your lessons - and am looking forward to hearing your reports.

Commenting on student writing.
During the second half of class we through strategies for assessing, and commenting on student writing.  

We began by acknowledging that assessment has different purposes: evaluating (as in giving grades and deciding how/whether programming/teaching is working = summative assessment; and giving feedback on how to move forward = formative assessment.  Most of our discussion focused on formative feedback for student writing.

Strategies for commenting on student writing:  Clark observes that many issues in student writing can arise from incomplete or confusing directions for writing assignments.  She pointed out that the audience, purpose, form, and style for writing assignments needs to be clearly set forward so that students can make appropriate decisions about what to write.

In light of this comment, I described the expectations for audience, purpose, and form for the writing posted on the last blog, and we developed a rubric for summative evaluation of that writing.  We then assessed the summaries in light of that rubric and found that we generally ranked the essays in the same order, and that overall we had similar reasons for that ranking (though not exactly the same).  We also found that we assigned different grades.  This led to a discussion of what grades are meant to meaure (effort? level of competence? completion of requirements?) and the difference between giving a grade and providing feedback.

I passed out the Sommers book on commenting - though we didn't talk about it - and set you up to comment on papers for next class.

For next class:
1. Keep posting to your course blogs (observations of your mentor's class).  
2. Grade + provide comments for 5 papers from a set of papers from your class. Make sure to include a range of writing issues and levels of proficiency.

We will begin by hearing your reports on your lessons and doing some debriefing (what went well, what you want to work on, and brainstorming for how to do that work).

We will then spend some time discussing effective comments to student papers.  Remember that one of the components of your portfolio is a sample of "graded" papers - so this would be a start on that.

Finally - we will spend some time talking about observations (another component of the portfolio).  We are going to do a rhetorical analysis for the kind of observation you want to include - and cruise around some web sites on writing observations.  

See you next week. 

Peter Elbow's Freewriting  http://mgunby.wikispaces.com/file/view/Freewriting.pdf

Sample summary 1

            Peter Elbow’s essay, “Freewriting,” simply states the effectiveness and benefits of the writing process of freewriting.  By doing so, Elbow creates a clear distinction between freewriting and writing: in the regular writing process editing consistently interrupts the natural creativity the mind discharges.  According to Elbow, if freewriting is done frequently and appropriately, freewriting will solve one’s editing qualms.  Practice will eventually make perfect and the once tedious, sporadic process of writing will eventually become an efficient and cohesive process.

Furthermore, Elbow uses another strategy to explain the usefulness of freewriting: analogizing it with speaking.  He explains how one’s voice and one’s words connects to an inner power and exhibits it proudly.  Elbow states this inner strength can only be displayed if one is completely proud and confident in his or her words.  Freewriting, Elbow claims, will ultimately dissolve any uncertainties that editing exhibits.

Consequently, the concept of freewriting allows a writer to be comfortable with what he or she is saying.  Elbow argues freewriting is a fundamental writing technique each writer should use in order to become a successful writer.

Sample summary  2

In Peter Elbows essay titled Freewriting, he explains how free writing can help improve your writing.  Freewriting is a way to relax and improve your writing skills.  All freewriting is, is writing nonstop without correcting or checking what you already wrote. According to Elbow, you should try to free write at least three times a week, and each time write for a few more minutes.  If you get stuck you should simple write “I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write,” until an idea or statement pops into your mind.  Elbow states that it doesn’t matter what you write because your freewrite is only for you to read unless you decided to share your work with others.  He also explains that you shouldn’t stop to correct spelling or grammar or even to re-read what you already wrote.  A lot of people get nervous when they write because their scarred their grammar might be wrong or they might be misspelling a lot of words, but when you freewrite spelling and grammar shouldn’t be on your mind.  Elbow explains that freewriting is non-editing, while you’re writing you should be concentrating on writing, not spelling, grammar, or what you previously wrote.  After you freewrite you can go back and correct any spelling mistakes or grammar that you may have used incorrectly.

Sample Summary  3

In Peter Elbows Free writing Essay he expresses many examples and great ideas on how free-writing improves your writing. Throughout the essay he points out many different examples. Elbows thinks that practicing free-writing will make you better at it, then essentially make you a better writer.   He explains how to free-write so well that it makes sense to everybody. In the essay he tells you not to edit while free-writing. Editing while free writing puts a block on your thoughts, when you have a block you can’t write. Since you’re not editing he says to just write, no matter what your writing, just to write This essay will make it easy for people around the world to free write without any worries.

Sample Summary 4

            According to Peter Elbow, Freewriting can and should be utilized as people develop and enhance their writing.  In the essay entitled, “Freewriting” Peter Elbow begins by explaining the process of freewriting.  Elbow states that writers should write for a period of time without stopping; no matter how coherent or incoherent.  He believes this will greatly improve a person’s writing.

            Elbow goes onto explain that a person’s  freewriting  can be read by another but not evaluated, due to his belief that freewriting can be coherent or incoherent.   Elbow believes there is too much editing while producing.  Elbow explains in freewriting one should not think or edit, just write.   Elbow then compares freewriting with speaking, because we tend to speak freely without worrying about consequences.  Unlike writing where we have an opportunity to edit our thoughts and make them perfect.  Elbow states, if practiced regularly freewriting can break the habit of constant editing while producing.

According to Elbow most people struggle at the beginning of a writing, which leads to constant editing and then has a negative effect on the entire writing.  Elbow points out not to get discouraged at the beginning of a writing, we can always go back and edit when finished writing.  Elbow explains that constant editing can diminish the writer’s power and voice. Elbow concludes by saying that eventually some of your freewriting voice and power will carry over into your regular writing.

Sample Summary 5

The article we read is called “free writing” by peter elbow. The main idea of the essay is how free writing makes writers better. When we write we tend to proof read our work while we are writing things down. Elbow wants us to stop doing that and just write. It doesn’t matter what it is but write whatever is on your mind. In the article he explains how to use free writing and how to use your whole time while free writing.  We all proofread while we write because we are so afraid to be wrong. We want to sound correct when we write, so that we sound educated, You write to get all your thoughts and emotions out on paper, to know that they are not all bottled up inside.
              To me what elbow is expressing is that each time you write add more time on to the time before and so on and so forth  but do not stop and check your work or stop to think of what to say next. Elbow wants you to get lost in your words in your thoughts even if they make no kind of sense, writing helps clear your heads and thoughts, and it allows you a way to express your feelings. Hopefully when you are done free writing and after you do it for awhile you will be used to writing in that format and you can carry that over the your regular writing, never doubt yourself even when writing a free write, just let the words flow.

10.15 Analysis and Textbook Review

We spent the first half of class working on how to teach analysis.  I gave a sample lesson on how I teach analysis.

My lesson plan:
Objectives:
to engage students in DOING analysis = they will analyze a logic problem
to engage students in reflecting on the "moves" they make as they do analysis
to develop a list of moves that describes analytic process
to name and classify the moves associated with analysis
to describe how to apply analytic processes to problems different from the problem in the lesson
to identify aspects of analytic process that should be included in analytic writing  

Materials
logic problem

List of activities
Ask students to write/list what they think of as analysis
Collect students' language through whole group discussion and put it on the board
Identify the language students use to talk about analysis (about 10 minutes)

Put students in groups
Introduce the problem solving activity by describing the problem and telling students that they are both to work on the problem AND to notice the "moves" they make to solve the problem
Define what is meant by "moves"
Ask groups to say back the directions
Hand out problem (about 5 minutes = the whole set up should take about 15 minutes)

Work in groups for about 20 minutes
Circulate among groups - watching for signs of frustration and re-enforcing identification of moves
Provide graduated "hints" to move problem solving along
Prompt students to write down moves through out process
Allow students to work until all groups solve the problem
Celebrate solving the problem

Harvest group findings (about 10 minutes)
Ask groups to report the moves they made
List all moves on board
Classify moves
Develop sequential list of moves that define analytic process
Identify language associated with each set of moves (introduce the terms naming, classifying, patterns, hypothesis, and theory)


Apply analysis of the puzzle to everyday analysis students do (making decisions about what to buy, what to write, how to interpret social situations, etc) (about 5 minutes)

Apply analytic language to rhetorical analysis (name moves for analyzing audience, purpose, form, content for a particular writing task => constructing Lewis' portfolio) (about 15 minutes)

Reflect on what we learned, call for questions, set up next class (about 5-10 minutes)

Total: 75 minutes

And that is what we did.


Textbook review.
During the second part of class we looked through about 10 freshman writing texts, and talked about what they did, what kind of students they would work for, and which one fit with your writing philosophy.

Your textbook review is your opportunity to represent your perspective on what makes a good textbook.  It should be the book cited in your syllabus, and it should be the book used for your assignments + asssignment series.

After you chose a text to review - we talked about points to include in your review

Description of the text
physical features: size, weight, price, visual appeal
style
organization
areas of focus theory of writing (implied)
theory of teaching (implied)
readings (effectiveness as model texts)
power to explain writig process


Evaluation
Usefulness to your students
Relevance to your approach to teaching (what it allows you to teach)
How and whether it includes what you see as the important features of composition theory + process

For next week:
Because Joe was absent and because Lewis and Wayne wanted to work more on their lessons for analysis - you will be presenting your lesson's THIS week.  You should send a written plan (like the one posted above= it does not need all the points that education majors have in their plans)

Continue to post your class observations - we will use these for the observation you need to include in your portfolio.

Read: Clark, Chapter 5, Assessing Writing
BRING PAPERS WITH COMMENTS FROM YOUR CLASS.

In class we will spend the first half working on your lesson plans, and the second half working on responding to writing.

See you on Friday!

10.09 Teaching philosophy workshop - plan for rest of term

What we did in class:

1. Set up dates + focus for lessons (first lesson)

Joe:  Thursday Oct 18 Chapter 9-10 revision  or Tuesday 23, review for exam

Wayne:  October 24 analysis

Lewis:  October 26 = rhetorical mode of analysis or nov 2 introductions + conclusion

Next week you will email me a copy of your lesson plans (which I will make available to classmates).  In class, you will talk through your lesson plan - and "teach" any parts you want/need to try out - so you can receive feedback.  

Lesson plans will include:

Purpose/goals/objectives

Activities

Materials

Set up - introduction

Description of the sequence of activities + how long each will take (timeline)  

Wrap up activity = to make sure students' got it

Student reflection/ assessment

2. Develop a rubric for teaching philosophy + workshop your teaching philosophies

We used the assignment sheet, Wayne's draft rubric, and the rubric Joe found at GCSU to develop a set of measures to evaluate at 3 levels (outstanding, meets expectaions, needs work).  We will talk more about development of descriptors (the language to assess the level) as we work on assessment. 

Rubric for assessing your teaching philosophy: 
Reasons for Wanting to Be a Teacher
Your pedagogical connections to composition theorists

Examples/illustrations of how to make connections to students/classroom applications fo theory 

Appropriate audience

Logic and Clarity Grammar and Format (visual presentation)

Reflection

3.  Decide what to put in portfolio (see previous post).

Good class.  

For class October 15:
Turn in your lesson plan + come to class prepared to teach your lesson

We will look at textbooks used for composition classes and create the assignment sheet for the textbook review.  You should think about which textbook you want to review (it should connect to the syllabus/calendar you develop) so that you can make a choice by the end of class.  

Tentative description of Teaching portfolio

• (last)A 3-4 page portfolio rationale in which you connect your teaching philosophy, your course and assignments, your lesson plan, and your responses to student writing to the theories of composition we’ve been reading about and discussing in class
• Oct 8 :  a 2-3 page teaching philosophy
• a 2 page 1A observation reflection (from class observations) = Oct 29 = review your blogs and choose the one you want to write up
• course calendar + syllabus  for a course you would teach
• presentation of an assignment series for one of the major writing assignments in your calendar
• Oct 15 and in Nov  (then choose your best for the portfolio) a lesson plan for a class day in your course
• responses to two student writing samples (bring papers with comments Oct 22)
• text book review (introduce Oct 15 - draft due presentation Nov 19) 
• video of teaching (optional = from lessons)

10.1 Home study week

In response to health issues for me and Joe, I looked at the schedule and because this class demands so much time ( by essentially having you attend two courses) and because you are clearly excellent independent workers, I am going to suggest that we cancel class tonight - and that if you want to talk over what we read for this week or the sample portfolios you are looking at on the web - that you schedule a conference - and we will catch up next week.

So that we don't get  behind =>for next week

1.  email me your teaching philosophies, and I will give you written comments.

2. create a draft rubric to evaluate the teaching philosophies.  DO NOT make it more complicated than a 5X3 = five features to evaluate with key words for assessing high competence, competent, and not competent at each word (3 levels of competency).  Use the writing rubric in your handouts for College Composition as a model.   Do not include writing process as one of the features to evaluate.  Make sure your 5 features choose the points that you want to learn/teach with respect to creating a teaching philosophy. 

3. Read Clark on revision

Our calendar says that next week is as follows:

M Oct 1

Discuss revision (having read Clark)

Revise assignment sheets + rubrics for teaching portfolio

Workshop element from teaching portfolio

Presentation of student lesson

Discussion of notes from class

Read:  Clark, Chapter 5 - Assessing writing

Bring student writing samples (if OK) + the assignment sheet for the response essay,

Our revised plan will be:

quick discussion of Clark re: audience AND revision

review + consolidate your draft rubrics (I will post the assignment sheet)

preliminary discussion to identify the focus of the lesson you will teach in your classroom

Discussion of your notes on the classes you are observing + talk about developing a class observation/reflection on a class observation as part of your teaching portfolio

As usual - we will respond to issues that come up in class.  

Have a good week and be in touch if you have questions.

9.24 Teaching philosophies, invention, and engaging students

Rhetoric and Invention

We began our discussion of classical rhetoric by asking why Clark chose to take a historical perspective grounded in Plato and Aristotle in a chapter focused on rhetoric.  You pointed out both that it is the academic position - to discuss theory in light of the history of development of those theories, and that it was an "ethos" move => to establish her authority over the material.  You also pointed out that this approach provides us with a history of how others have solved writing/thinking/speaking issues associated with developing a flow of language.

General overview of Clark's general overview of classical rhetoric. In the introduction to her discussion of what classical rhetoric can tell us about invention - Clark reminds us that the understanding of what constitutes knowledge (or whatever it is we ought to be inventing- for that matter) has changed.  In the time of classical rhetoric. knowledge was "located in communal learning" and understood as "the collected wisdom of those who are knowledgeable" and it was related to "addressing issues of public interest that had generated some disagreement or dispute."  Today - knowledge is both more personal (in that it is conceived as located in one of many possible perspectives) and "out there" to be discovered or created, transferred or taken in.

After covering the rhetorical structures Clark identified as associated with processes for invention - examining techne, exploring the artistic proofs (ethos, pathos, & logos), tapping into the topoi (topics) = places in memory where knowledge is stored.  Within Aristotle's system the topics are definition, comparison, cause-and-effect, and authority.  

At this point we moved into more practical considerations associated with where/why writers need to resort to invention.  We paid particular attention to Clark's observation that "the kind of essay being written and the subject being addressed strongly determine the type of invention strategy that is most appropriate for generating material.  We made a list of circumstances where writers need invention strategies.  For the first two circumstances we brainstormed some invention strategies (see Clark's list  beginning on 58). The rest - are there for you to think about.

1. Not understanding the writing task

State in your own words what you have to do – get feedback

Look at a model text

Define key terms

Ask students to give examples of key terms or distinguish between different definitions

Have students write a little bit of the task and give feedback on whether they are on the right track (can do in groups)

Group brainstorming

2. Lack of motivation

You are an adult talk

Make task useful

Work with class dynamics

Focused freewrite

Why this is an impossible topic to write about

Cruise around the internet see what others have written

Write a list of topics you ARE interested in = make a connection

Re-craft the assignment + check with instructor

3. Stuck inside conventions or some other rigid rule

4. Unusable assumptions about composing process

5. Authority issues

6. premature judgment of writing product

7. not enough expertise in the subject area

8. unidentified focus (need to narrow/clarify ideas)

9. fear of taking risks

10. unwillingness to deal with chaos

11. unwillingness to incubate

Discussion of class observations:  We then took a look at the notes you have been taking in your classroom observations.  You are doing a great job on these.  Great details - with lots of information - and lots to think about in terms of how teaching works.  We focused on the past weeks' notes in terms of the question = what teaching moves lose/keep student attention.  We came up with the following lists.

Moves that lose students

reading aloud for more than a few sentences

sarcastic over-the-students'-heads jokes

too many similar moves in a row

lecturing

being rigid - too many rules

not being responsive to student culture

Moves that draw students in

dialog

jokes on self

rasing voice/change of inflection'

change up in the interaction dynamic (changing activities)

change up focus

asking questions

At the close of this discussion we asked how some of the rhetorical moves we are reading about in Clark might help us think about how to engage our students - and what kinds of  on-the-fly audience analysis that can help you make decisions about attention in the classroom?

For next class:

Read: Clark, Chapter 4 - Audience

Read: Sample teaching portfolios=> come to class with several links to portfolios that you think are exemplary (for particular audiences).  We will use these portfolios to identify the components that you will include in your portfolio, and to develop the standards for a "good" portfolio.

Bring a draft of your teaching philosophy for a workshop.

The discussion of your class observation notes will focus on the teacher's role in determining the classroom communication dynamic.  You will notice what the teacher says, does, implies; where s/he stands, how s/he talks/behaves - and the role those actions play in setting classroom dynamics and laying the basis for leanring talk that takes place within the room.  

We will also give Joe some feedback on the easy-bib presentation (he will go first! if that is OK with Joe - so we don't run out of time again).

We will negotiate who will take teaching responsibilities for which parts of the evening . . . 

GREAT CLASS tonight.  Thanks!   And see you next week.

Some things to talk about

Attending RNF.  You might want to consider submitting whatever you have done so far (or what you plan doing) regarding your thesis project as a work in progress for the Research Network Forum at the 4Cs conference.  Proposals are due by October 31 (see call for proposals), so you have some time to think about it.  Attending the conference will give you a chance to meet many of the theorists we have been reading -and to attend panel presentations on topics connected to your research - or just anything you are interested in.  Presenting your work at RNF will give you a chance to network with other researchers in your area - and to receive (and give) feedback.

Also =>Forwarded to me by a colleague:

On October 19, 2012 at 2PM at the CUNY Graduate Center English Ph.D. Program (365 Fifth Avenue @ 34^th Street, Room 4/409), the CUNY Mina Shaughnessy Speaker Series will present Sondra Perl (Lehman College & CUNY Graduate Center) and Charles Schuster (University of Wisconsin) in their discussion Composing a Life in Composition: A Story in Revision.  They will reflect upon their coming-of-age in the world of composition and rhetoric in the 1970s. From their insiders' views from the past 40 years, they describe their development as scholars and writers while tracing movements in comp/rhet. As leaders in this ever-evolving field, they illustrate how social and intellectual currents in this discipline shaped their careers and sustained an enduring friendship. Please join us for any or all of this event-filled day, and share these notifications with any colleagues who you think may be interested.

Also on that date prior to the speaker series, the WPA Metropolitan Affiliate will meet in the same place. During this meeting, we will discuss the affiliate’s plans in the upcoming year as well as other issues that concern this evolving group. Prior to the official meeting, people will meet for a get-together (buy-your-own) lunch hour around 12:30PM in a near-by location (TBA), and then we will convene for the more official meeting at the CUNY GC English Program lounge at 2PM. Please join us for lunch and the WPA Metropolitan Affiliate meeting on October 19.

So if you are in the NYC area on October 19th, please join us for this event-filled day.

9.17 Plan for course and Clark chapter 1

Philosophical discussion of the calendar.  It seems there was some missunderstanding about how to finish the calendar - but each of you did do some work on adding to, re-arranging, re-thinking the proposed calendar. In particular - you had to decide on readings (since none were listed) and you had to face the dreaded decision about what to teach first (without teaching EVERYTHING first).  Some of the particular suggestions you made were to put more readings up front, to introduce and start working on the portfolio earlier, to work on lesson plans and teachng earlier, and to start on the teaching philosophy early.  I will definitely work with these suggestions - and the overall plan for how classes will go (see below) should help us meet these expectations.  I think this collaboration on how to organize the calendar was extremely successful (and we might think about features of this work that made it successful - I'm thinking about the discussion of collaboration in the second half of class where you raised the problems mentioned by Clark and we talked about why some collaborative work doesn't go well for students).

Overall, as observed by Wayne, it is harder than expected to both provide students with background information so they can build on their experiences - and keep from overwhelming them.  The "chunking the semester" into parts method was not necessarily the best approach - but you gave it a try - and now have that to draw from if you ever need it.  Other strategies you raised were using model calendars, revising an existing calendar, and paralleling the table of contents of the text book for the course. So it sounds like you have some experience with this - and have some tools to tackle this job.

General plan for classes.  One "product" that came out of our collaborative discussion of the calendar was a general idea about how to organize classes.  We came up with an idea to integrate your planning and teaching into the class - throughout the term- so that you will have experiences planning and teaching lessons on the material we are studying.  The overall organization will be:

• discussion of a theory/ chapter from Clark (led by Sally or student), 
• presentation of component from portfolio + collaborative development of rubric for that component (Sally);
• workshop or lesson on writing that component (student led); 
• workshop/presentation on lesson prepared for College Composition (student led lesson + student led feedback on the lesson); 
• directed discussion of class observations (Sally + student led).  

The order of presentation may vary - but hopefully most classes will hit these components.  Toward the end - classes may shift toward a more workshoppy focus as you prepare your portfolio, and we may shorten up our meetings (to account for the fact that you have essentially put in double classtime because of the requirement to observe the composition classes).

So that will be the "theory" for our calendar.

Lesson planning.  I did an kind of impormptu presentation on the parts of a "lesson"  in response to the fact that Joe was going to give a presentation on easy-bib for his class next week.  There are many more detailed discussion of lesson planning and execution on the internet - and in composition texts (e.g. Thomas Newkirk's Nuts & Bolts, John Bean's Engaging Ideas).  You will be planning lessons beginning next week - so we will use some reflective thinking about what you did as a way to add to our "how to" list.

Pre-writing for writing philosophies.  Because - as you pointed out - the teaching writing philosophy underlies pretty much everything you will be doing for this course - and because your course calendar's indicated you wanted to move this item forward - we had atheoretical discussion of what a teaching philosophy included - and you did some freewriting for what you might refer to in your philosophy.  In the discussion of what a teaching philosophy includes (the points it hits), you came up with the following list:

• theorists who influenced your thinking 
• a re-casting/re-arranging of those theorists/theories so that they reflect your unique perspective
• your place within the "traditions" for teaching writing
• specific examples of how your would apply theory/
• explanation of the relationships between your philosophy and the actions you would take in the classroom
• perhaps an analogy or carrying metaphor to make your discussion coherent and artful
• discussion of important teaching issues and how your philosophy addresses those issues

As you read the sample teaching philosophies - think about what you want to add to this list. Also think about length - and what you will "cut" for the short version.

Sharing notes from composition classrooms.  You created invitation only blogs to post your notes.  Wayne and I will be discussing these - "mining" them for teaching issues - and developing a protocol for discussions of classnotes for the rest of the term.

For next class
Read:  Chapter 2, Clark = invention.  Be sure to read Rose's article at the end of the chapter.
Read:  sample teaching philosophies linked from the calendar
attend your composition class + take observational notes, and post them on your blog
Prepare a "lesson" for your part in next week's class

What we will do in class
Sally: discussion of Clark + discussion of teaching philosophies
whole class collaboration: develop rubric for teaching philosophy
Lewis:  lesson on invention (activity to develop/move forward with the teaching phiolosohpy)
Joe easy-bib lesson
Sally & Wayne directed discussion of notes

Sally will post the revised calendar


Great class.

9.10 Syllabi & calendars

Tonight was the introductions night - and we are introduced.  We talked through the syllabus & the calendar - so you should have an idea of our "contract" = how we will get through the business of this course, and  a general overview of course content.  The calendar is still quite general - since part of your first assignment is to "fill in the details" for our class by class schedule (see below).

Teaching mentors.  You chose your teacher mentors - and at this point you all should have been in touch.  Everyone seems well pleased with the arrangement - and we will see how it goes.

Ethnography, participant-observation, and taking fieldnotes.  We started class with a conceptual discussion of how to watch and take notes on your in-class experiences with your mentor teachers.  We established that you are NOT taking notes on what happens in the classroom as a way to document the RIGHT way to teach.  Rather, your notes should document particular teaching moves - and students reactions to and interactions with those moves.  By discussion your notes with your classmates and me - we will begin to think about what kinds of learning is set up by different moves, and you will start to form your ideas about which moves you would like to try out or integrate into your teaching repertoire.

I had you look at excerpts from an article by Robert Emerson, one of the co-authors of Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, one of the early textbooks to teach ethnographic observational/writing practices.  We zoomed in to pages 8-11 - the section on creating "jottings" while on site.  We then talked about some of the practical approaches to taking notes in an interactive research setting, and some of the ethical/interpersonal concerns.  This list should be in your notes. The article - and Emerson, Fretz and Shaw's book (available at Amazon) can be point of need references for you.

You then had a chance to practice taking ethnographic notes during the "creating a syllabus lesson."
You noticed that:

• it is impossible to write down everything
• you moved between taking "content" notes (what was said) and process notes (observations about the language, mood, setting, interaction dynamics = descriptions of HOW the communications took place).
• some "threads" of observations may turn out to be irrelevant (as in Joe's observation about noting where Sally walked as she spoke)
• it was often not clear what was relevant and what was not (since as Wayne observed the walking was sometimes linked to keeping class attention during periods of extended talk)
• shifting focus on the kinds of observations you wrote down allowed for a broad, robust description
• you remembered additonal information as you looked back through your notes and were able to flesh out your observations with "head notes"
• it is important to write up your notes as soon as you can
• you should always keep a copy of your original notes (make after the fact addtions in a different font/color or on a different document)
• and other things. . . 

Creating the course calendar.

Your next practice note-taking was on an interactive exercise where you worked as a group to create the calendar for the course.  This exercise did not go the way I envisioned it (yeah - it happens all the time).  It seems the 3 of you have very different ideas about where to start and what & how to teach.  And actually that is GREAT!  Here are some partially edited notes from the beginning of your discussion.

Joe sent doc

Lewis question about how to use doc

Wayne in referen ct to week 1 - suggested discuss teaching philosophy

Joe I'm still under the impression that we want to chunk notes file Joe was resisting working week by week - was suggesting that the group make a list of activities for each 1/3 of the course as suggested by Chandler

Discussion about how to proceed

Lewis Organize ideas in notes into weeks in lesson

Wayne so if we're looking at teaching philosophy

Joe moved that up to first week

Lewis what are the readings?

Wayne need something to read - to have something to think about

Joe - put at beginning & ending - justification

Wayne yeah put together - but have to have a reading - how would they know?  I think you need to put the two together

Joe I think that is for a later lesson

Wayne - can catch students cold - (without reading) give assigned reading.

Lewis - with Clark book, she goes through different steps - first chapter process. 

Joe - draw from own experience for first philosophy

Lewis - wants to draw from Clark -use first chapter for overview

So - your first work on this document was to negotiate the philosophical questions surrounding 1) what kinds of materials come first; and 2) how to work on the calendar.

By the end of class, we'd spent some time discussion what we will do in the course - and you had some practice taking the kind of notes you will take in your class observations.  So = good job!

For next class:

1. Meet your teaching mentor, attend class & take notes.  Bring an electronic copy of your notes to class - and we will post them in a way where we can all access them.

2. Read Chapter 1 in Clark.  This chapter provides an overview of approaches to teaching college writing and will set us up with common language for talking about the practices + issues you see in the classroom.

3.  Finish creating the course calendar.  Your calendar may look a lot or little like the proposed calendar I handed out in class.  We will negotiate the details in class.

4. As you observe your class and as you read Clark, think about the theories and practices that are central to the way you want to teach.  

In class we will: 

• negotiate the calendar
• do some experienced based talking/writing about your teaching philosophies
• identify main ideas/key vocabulary from Clark
• post your notes and do some analysis to give you some ideas about how you can use observation and reflective analysis as a way to explore your ideas about teaching.

Great class - see you next week.

9.4 Preparing for the first day of class

For those of you who were unable to attend the College Composition Orientation during August, you should stop by my office (CAS 324) to pick up your copy of the the orientation materials.

During our first class on Monday, September 10, we will go over the theory and practices outlined in the orientation materials - and plan or agenda for the up-coming term. I have selected a textbook (a collection of readings on teaching writing) and developed a sample/possible calendar, and I am willing and able to provide guidance in the areas you want to work on to strengthen your teaching.  That said - our first day of class will be devoted to creating the course calendar for THIS course - to ensure that you cover the materials that will best prepare you for your future teaching.

At the Orientation, I asked for a listing of College Composition Instructors who would be interested in having a graduate student intern (you) in their classes - and more than a third of the instructors volunteered - so they are very enthusiastic to have you in their classes.  During our first night of class we will also spend some time looking over the available schedules and matching you up with a Teacher-mentor.

This is the first time we are offering a teaching apprenticeship for our graduate students - and everyone I have worked with during development for the course has regarded it as a much needed addition to our writing studies program.  I am excited to get started - and looking forward to working with you!

Yes - this course starts before September

Attend College Composition Orientation
Identify your teaching partner