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.