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Letters Retreat: "Composition and Its Scope"

MiraCosta's Letters Department retreat this year addresses the topic "Composition and Its Scope."

Discussion will focus on Cynthia Selfe's provocative article "The Movement of Air, The Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing in College Composition and Communication" (you can dowload the article here if you can't find last week's email amidst the annual flex week assault on your inbox: Download CCC0604Movement) and on Service Learning, including this reading provided to us by MiraCosta College's Service Learning Coordinator, Carol Wilkinson: Download Service_learning

The Selfe article web site includes links to several aural compositions from her students. Please try to check them out before the retreat:

• Sonya Bortan: The Legacy of Music
• Elisa Norris: Literacy = Identity Can You See Me?

• Wendy Wolters Hinshaw: Yelling Boy

We also hope to chat about an assignment our own Chad Tsuyuki has used with his students.

• Here are the instructions: Download Radio-Advertisement-Assignment-Final
• And here is an audio file sample: Download 01 Radio Ad - Julian

 

Retreat Follow Up

Here are the two powerpoints that we used during our retreat. I have added our brainstorms about possible writing assignments for and obstacles to service learning. On the obstacles side, I have also added notes on Carol's comments about how to overcome those obstacles:

• Selfe Discussion: Download Selfe
• Service Learning Discussion: Download Servicelearning
  

 Kelly Hagen's Follow Up Explorations

Our beloved colleague, Kelly--the Dean--Hagen, found some inspiration in our conversation and went out exploring on her own. Here is a link to the cool tool she found and another link to what she created:

• Animoto 
• Kelly's Creation!

 

Syllabus Workshop with Mt. San Jacinto College Faculty

  Yesterday I led a syllabus workshop for faculty from Mt. San Jacinto Community College. They were great: energetic, creative, engaged. But I did not feel good about how the workshop went. I had some tech glitches at the that limited what I could show the faculty and the size of the group and limited time with them left me feeling rushed and a bit discombobulated.

For those who attended the workshop and would like more time to think and work through the ideas presented, here is a revised version of my Powerpoint (Download Syllabusworkshop )that you can download and review. You can also visit my syllabus web site. And here is a syllabus and a calendar from this semester that you may find interesting: 

English 202 Fall 2009

• Syllabus: Download 202newsyl_2187
• Calendar: Download 202calsamp

You can find other sample syllabus on my syllabus web site as well as links to some great syllabus development resources on the web.

Even with my concerns about how the session went, I still learned so much from facilitating this workshop. Here is a quick list of a few things I learned while purportedly "leading" a this weekend's workshop:

• The Power of the Invitation: a math instructor shared an amazing invitation question for a College Algebra syllabus--I am going to butcher the language but it was something to the effect of "how can we identify the unknown?" or "how can we determine the undetermined?" or something supercool like that (how sad that I am mutilating her genius!). Her question reminded me how exciting this practice of identifying a guiding question (this is Ken Bain's idea, see his wonderful site for more) for our courses can be. I have been thinking about how Bain's idea of the invitation connects to James Zull's thoughts about teaching, learning, and the brain. I think that is material for a future post and perhaps even a new workshop...

• Rethink How My Syllabus Presents My Assessment Policies: During yesterday's workshop, I realized that the sample syllabus I was sharing does not do a very good job of highlighting the assessment practices that really define my comp course as the students experience it. Specifically the "infinite rewrite" and "outside of class conference based essay grading" elements appear as minor points on my assessment page when I should be highlighting in some creative ways--text boxes, quotes from students, pictures, etc.

• Alignment: One of the ideas that came up in yesterday's workshop--within one of the smaller circle discussions--was the role the syllabus plays in helping the instructor stay focused and organized over the course of the semester. My online teaching hero Lisa Lane recently posted about the struggle to align what we are doing in the classroom / learning space on any given day with our broader objectives. This is definitely a challenge, but the better we achieve this oh so allusive goal, the more sense our course will make to our students. I have been trying to do that in my 202 courses by introducing some visual representations of key ideas that we cover in the course into the syllabus. My goal was that we would return to those pages in the syllabus again and again during the semester. Although including that material in my syllabus has helped me stay focused (and I have frequently used these terms and these frameworks in class discussions and assessment), I have not physically returned us to the syllabus itself to reconnect students with those key visual tools. I think one key step I need to take is to create posters for the classroom from those syllabus pages that I can refer back to each day as we encounter, apply, and explore these ideas.

• Just Say No! I have to learn to say no to shorter sessions--they do not work for me and often confuse or frustrate the participants. I understand how colleagues want to put together rich programs of workshops and offerings, but my session simply does not work when compressed. I should explore presenting just parts of it--that could address some of this--but the key is for participants to have enough time to brainstorm and create--something that is not going to happen in the standard 75 minute session.

Workshops

The Promising Syllabus

A Teacher's Introduction to Blogging