Abrahams 1 Course Rationale The underlying theme of my syllabus is First Year Experience. This syllabus is set up to get the students to see themselves as part of a whole, as a contributing member to our Chico community, the campus and the larger CSU community. I want this semester to function as one of self reflection. I know that I want to help them become better researchers, I know that I want to help them write academically and learn how to navigate the university. I want my 130 class to be a space where I can be a university resource to the students, to create an authentic, safe space where students can talk about their opinions with one another. Thinking back to my undergraduate education, I had this constant feeling that I should know all of this. I feel like I didn’t really have a first year experience and I believe it’s so important for students to know that it’s okay to be who they are, that the transition process from high school to college student doesn’t happen overnight. This syllabus is set up with more choice than restrictions. The students have the choice to take the course in an order that is helpful for them. I believe that although they are entering this new sphere and community, they are still adults and can make informed decisions for themselves. Examining liminality, being in the middle space, I think this theme of FYE will really resonate with the students, even if some may not be in their first semester. There is still growth to be had, and I’m fairly confident they haven’t written a paper with “Unicorn” as its title. It’s important for the students to know that it’s okay they come to 130 not knowing how to write annotations, craft inquiry questions, or know where to find reliable sources. Purdy and Walker “contend that academic research practices need to be connected to students’ existing practices rather than set up as wholly separate from (and better than) them.” I want to open up the classroom and practices to discussion, and show the students that there is more than one right way to do something. Most of the students are coming from a place where inquiry and curiosity has been stifled, and there has only been one right way to “do” school, where in reality there are far more than one. If these new modes of inquiry are “discredited, students may be less likely to find value in or critically interrogate them and therefore may be ill­ prepared to effectively participate in civic activity” (Purdy & Walker). Identity is a common theme that we all sway towards and I think it’s great! I believe that beginning university students are still getting used to all this peripheral information, whereas in their previous experiences, they were living in a society of blinders. Reading part of Suzanne Pharr’s “Homophobia­a Abrahams 2 weapon of sexism,” I became aware of how important it is to be true to yourself and be given the opportunity to discover your identity. Although identity is not the overarching theme in this course, it will prompt the discussion of larger issues, in which the students play a part, making it part of their identity, as college students. The students will be working with a number of different modes for writing, ranging from uninterrupted Free Writes to research quests (annotations), that should all contribute to their larger written papers: solution oriented challenges (“Unicorn” and “Superhero”) that will funnel into a collective piece that we write together as a class, the “College Survival Guide” (CSG). The CSG will be a compilation of the students’ “Unicorns” and “Superheros” where each challenge will attempt to find a solution for a problem or practice relevant to our campus community and student body. The CSG will be housed in a wiki with interwiki links, accessible anywhere online. A typical class might look like this: The first part of class is reserved for writing. We will get straight to work on our free writes, get a chance to chew through some ideas; our free writes, in a sense, represent mini challenges. Then, they’ll get some time to talk it over with a classmate. This will help kickstart discussion! Après discussion, we will talk about the “thing” we’re supposed to do in class (aka, what’s on the calendar). Things can and always do, change. So, we’ll prepared to do a variation of all of those things posted on the course site. Abrahams 3 Syllabus & Rationale The intersection of communities, first year experience, and liminality liminal |ˈlimәnl| adjective technical 1 of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. 2 occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. English 130: Academic Writing Fall, 2014 Instructor: Amanda Abrahams email: [email protected] Location: TBA
Office: TBA
Office Hours: TBA
Course Description and Mission: English 130, “Academic Writing,” is a core General Education course that introduces you to the challenges of university level writing, reading, and critical thinking. In this class, you will: ● Write and read in order to enter ongoing public conversations and investigate pressing issues ● Pursue authentic questions with intellectual openness and curiosity, making connections between multiple areas of our lives ● Find, evaluate, interpret, and synthesize primary and secondary sources and integrate our own ideas with those of others ● Revise texts into focused arguments for specific audiences and purposes ● Respond in depth to other people’s writing and use peer and instructor feedback effectively in our own ● Learn, analyze, and apply genre conventions such as organizational styles, forms of evidentiary support, modes of presentation, and citation practices ● Reduce errors in grammar, syntax, punctuation, and spelling Full Disclosure: All writing­intensive GE courses require a minimum of 2,500 words, and students enrolled in English 130 must demonstrate the ability to criticize, analyze, and advocate ideas with persuasive force in writing. A grade of C­ or better is needed to pass this course. Class Theme: Our specific section of English 130 will aim to identify and discuss community and identity within the first Abrahams 4 year experience at the university. How does our participation/membership in different communities change who we are or how we perceive the university and people in the university? This section of 130 should help you transition from High School to College, helping create that sense of security and comfort, because you make up an important part of this campus, you are the future of Chico State. English 130 is a place where you are allowed to ask questions and encouraged to do so! Your job is to become a researcher and develop pertinent questions that will help you navigate this thing that we call the university. Through the use of primary and secondary sources, you will get closer to finding an answer to your questions. The end product of our course will result in a compiled guide for incoming freshman, a “College Survival Guide” (CSG). Throughout the course of the semester, you will document your first (or second, third...seventh) semester at Chico State. In the background of the semester, ask yourself how your experiences could help someone who is coming into this for the very first time. This will give you material for your final project. Your final project is a video of your first (or second, third, fifth…) semester. I want to know what you’ve learned, how you’ve learned to navigate the university, how have you grown? What are some choices that you would change if you had prior knowledge? What is something you really enjoyed on campus that you would recommend in a heart beat? Required Materials: ● laptop/tablet/device that allows you to connect to the internet and type/upload written work that you will produce in class. If you have one, bring it to class each meeting. ● Online accounts: ○ Dropbox ○ Diigo ○ Wordpress ○ Google Docs ○ Prezi (it’s a lot, I know, but we will take care of it in class!) ● Online readings Most of our work together will involve the use of a computer and/or the internet. If you do not have access to a computer or internet at home, please come see me ASAP! The university has many resources at your disposal, and part of my job is to show you where to find them. Email: Sending me an email with questions, concerns or a simple greeting is welcomed and encouraged. Please identify yourself and use the subject line, and always use my CSU, Chico email address at the top of the syllabus ([email protected]). Remember that it’s important to use formal, professional email etiquette when contacting professors. Abrahams 5 [Some things that we can’t negotiate] Attendance Come to class! This is not a lecture­based class. Our work depends on your home preparation, group reflection and discussion, and in­class writing. Attendance is mandatory. However, I understand that life happens, so I allow you to have six absences. If you will miss more than six classes, you need to come have a conversation with me BEFORE you are absent, so we can decide on the best way for you to continue participating in class. If you neglect to inform me about absences beyond your freebies, that will be seen as a lack of effort on your part, and your grade will be affected accordingly. For every extra absence, you will lose a half of a grade on your final grade. I expect you to participate. Participation is the floor not the ceiling, find a way to participate in class that works for you! *You will also be required to make an appointment to chat with me­about the course, life, challenges, your assignments, and things you find hilarious (not necessarily in that order) ­TWICE during the semester. We will sign up for these appointments in class, and missing your appointments without contacting me will count for an absence. *Note: this class requires that you attend our Rough Cut Festival/Common Final on Tuesday, Dec 17th, from 4:00­5:50pm in Langdon 300/302. Late Work I work very hard to give you all plenty of time to complete each assignment. Late work will not be accepted. I understand emergencies occur and are unpredictable so don’t wait to the last minute to submit work. “The internet was down,” or “my computer crashed” isn’t valid. Time management is important and integral to university life and if you are having any difficulties managing time or getting your assignments in on time, please come talk with me immediately and we’ll work together to develop your time management and utilize the resources you have available to you. Chico State Non­Discrimination Policy: According to the University Catalogue the California State University does not discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, disability, race, color, or national origin. The CSU complies with both the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the American Disabilities Act (1990). If you have a disability and need reasonable accommodation for equal access to education and services at CSU, Chico, please talk with me or call Accessibility Resource Center (x5959). For other concerns about discrimination or harassment, please talk with me, your advisor or department chair, or Student Judicial Affairs (x6897). [Other things we can] Determining Your Course Grade: Abrahams 6 We will be working with contract grading this semester. In short, this means that you will decide on the grade you want at the beginning of the semester and then do the work that fulfills the contract for that grade. Overall, your final grade for this course will be based on two things: your participation in class according to the contract and the quality of the writing you complete over the semester. If you follow the contract for the entire semester, you will receive the grade you contracted for. If the final revisions of your writing are exceptionally strong, your final grade will be higher. If you fail to meet the contract in one or more areas, it will be lower by a half­ or full grade level. Contract grading is intended to shift our focus in useful and meaningful ways. A contract system allows you to focus more on your development as a writer. It assures you that, if you work hard and complete the contract, you will receive the grade you want, no questions asked. So instead of feeling pressured to receive a particular grade, I hope this will permit you to concentrate on what your writing does. As a class we will clearly define “effortful writing” for each assignment, and work that does not show effort will not receive credit. However, if you put in the effort to revise work that does not at first receive credit, you can change your evaluation. For the larger assignments, we will follow a similar process to work as a class to define assessment criteria and determine the weight each should hold in my evaluations. Again, if you do not like my response, you are welcome and encouraged to revise, and revise....and revise. However, just like in the real world, you will eventually have to let go of the piece, and by that time, we will make sure that you are presenting your absolute best effort. *Revisions will only be accepted if you made the effort to finish and submit the assignment on time! Please remember, though: I do not accept course assignments by email unless you’ve discussed it with me ahead of time. **The only exceptions to my revision policy are blog posts and in­class assignments. These cannot be made­up/revised if you miss class, do not do them, or do not do them to a standard we determine shows real effort. Come to class! Participate! Do good work! How this all fits. Below, you will find instructions on how to complete your Core Challenges of this course. Follow the Logistics to effectively complete your Core Challenges. Then, you will find your Core Support: smaller quests that support your Core Challenges. After successfully completing your Core Challenges, you will have completed the steps you need to create your Final Reflection, Auto Ethnography, and ePortfolio. Finally, we will have all the pieces in place to work on our baby, the “College Survival Guide” Logistics­ Abrahams 7 ● Title your document: Lastname Firstname_Title of challenge ● Upload to Google Docs in each challenge’s respective folder ● Each version of your work will be saved in the same document. Mark new changes in blue or another universally agreed upon, easy to read color (NOT YELLOW/RED). Make a key in the top margin of the document identifying revisions. Example: Revision 1 Revision 2 Revision 3 Your Name Abrahams ENGL 130 Date Title Core Challenges
Avatar ­ Written Assignment (2­3 pages) You are to build your Avatar to navigate this course. Using an avatar generator to accompany your written portion, this assignment will be the only prompt that we all have in common. After discussing Cooley’s concept of the looking glass self, think about how this relates to your own experiences and what that means for the various communities you are involved in. I also want you to tie in the concept of masks. How does a mask change or affect who you are in your community? The poet Charles Boebel once explained his view of personal writing: “There are many masks buried deep inside each of us and when we write, these masks, sometimes one, sometimes more than one, surface and are expressed in our written works” (ICEA 2002). The discovery of our masks, or more appropriately our submerged identities, is often a positive, though sometimes painful, event. Through critical self­exploration, you may find yourselves adjusting, altering, and interchanging these masks to accommodate an ever­changing world of ideas. Thus, you are engaged in a process of exploring such concepts as Mikhail Bakhtin’s “others” and integrating this otherness into an ongoing reexamination of self (Halesek 96). ● First, make your avatar on doppel.com (or another avatar generating website) ● Then, think about your identity: this challenge is designed as a very low­stakes way into thinking about your identity and how you fit into the university, how has your community affected who you are today? I am interested in finding out about your backgrounds and where you come from. What was your life like before you started college? How has that changed? What Abrahams 8 changes, if any, have you noticed? ● After you’ve completed this challenge, (once you’ve created your avatar and submitted the written portion), insert your avatar into our class assignment sequence. This assignment serves as an icebreaker, I want to use this as an opportunity to identify their interests, motivations, and the Avatar assignment can help identify motivations they’ll need for the other two assignments and relevance to the course. This will serve as a nice introduction to the class, following the theme of First Year Experience. I’m giving them a page limit because I want this to be brief, whereas in the other two assignments, they are to write until they believed they have fulfilled the paper expectations. This assignment is meant to introduce students and feel comfortable with writing. The scaffolding assignments are quick writes that should help the students say what they need to say. After reviewing and discussing the reading, students are asked to think about how that concept plays into their own lives. This assignment will also serve as a unique way for the students to get to know one another on a deeper level than a simple introduction or interview could give. It doesn’t involve extensive writing, so even those students who come in without conceptions of themselves as writers will not feel anxiety about participating. Further questions for the students: What does it take to be in a community? What aspects are present in a community? What communities are you involved in? Do you see yourself as an active member? Will you be as active/involved in 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? Unicorn & Superhero ­ Written Assignments These assignment titles “Unicorn” and “Superhero” represent practices that up until now you’ve seen as unattainable. They are referred to in our class as challenges. You can choose the order you wish to take on these challenges, but you will complete both. I want you to craft pertinent questions and using your research skills, find plausible solutions! Your writing should be solution oriented. I am aware that these assignments are probably very different from what you are used to, or what you were expecting. However, I invite you to trust me. Take the leap, try it out, and I think you will surprise yourself with where you end up. Use these challenges as practice for the ultra mission, creating and adding to a class “CSG” that you will pass along to the next person sitting at your desk: use this class as vessel to “pay it forward.” Here at Chico State, we believe in the strength of our community and that we should always pays it forward, especially to fellow Chico State students. We are and will forever be united under the Meriam Library breezeway, through the pillars of Kendall Hall, by the rose petals of the Rose Garden, if this doesn’t make sense, it will soon! Once you’ve taken on your first challenge, we will divide the class into our respective teams, Team Unicorn and Team Superhero, and we will have some in class work days. Your work will funnel into the “CSG”. Abrahams 9 Your challenge should: ● Argue a claim or claims related to your area of interest. ● Be addressed to an audience of college­educated people who are interested in, but not necessarily knowledgeable about, your research. ● Include and discuss primary and secondary research. ● Support your argument(s) with specific evidence and careful reasoning. ● Reach some wide­ranging and thoughtful conclusions about your research. ● Document sources using MLA in­text citation and Works Cited.7 Unicorn Unicorns are beautiful, mystical creatures that, as of current research, have only been spotted in your dreams or the internet. The goal of this challenge is to help you identify your “unicorn” and catch it! Sometimes, when you enter a new community that demands a new role, practices associated with or specific to that community may seem like you’re being asked to catch a unicorn. The goal of this challenge is to become more resourceful at the university, become aware of the community you are now a part of, and become an insider. This will help you navigate your journey at Chico State. For this challenge, you are to: ● identify a struggle or common difficulty (like finding and catching a Unicorn) that is identified with a first year student, what are your experiences with this struggle? An example of a unicorn would be: graduating in four years, studying abroad, becoming AS president, how to efficiently move out of the dorms, things that are present at our university that may seem unattainable to you now. Usually it takes people a couple of years to understand the university and how it works, how to be a successful college student. You have the opportunity to start right away! ● Then, you are to find a solution or solutions to alleviate this struggle. The struggle is real, and it’s your job to get through it, and help the next person too! ● Once you’ve selected this challenge, move your Avatar into the “Unicorn” portion of our class assignment sequence on Prezi. I titled this assignment “Unicorn” because as a freshmen, I saw the university as this magical place where I had no guide to help orient my path. I felt as though I was trying to catch a unicorn when asked to complete assignments, it felt so unattainable, so impossible to me. I think that by making the assignments something real, that the students can use and care about, is worthwhile and fosters growth and critical thinking about what’s ahead. If the students choose this assignment first, they are looking at their possibilities within our campus community and then the Superhero paper allows them to blow it up and expand their realm of capacity into something larger than them. I want the students to be clear that this is a metaphor. This paper should connect to their first written assignment and help them think beyond them and into a larger Abrahams 10 community. I want them to identify the struggle, confront it, and figure out how to find the right tools/strategies to overcome those struggles. We could develop chapters and sections in the survival guide where common themes may go. By identifying something, it becomes more real and easier to maneuver, less like catching a unicorn. Superhero You will need practice hours in the dojo of research, and explore multiple sources to complete all of the paths in this challenge. Can you look past the struggles on our campus and find the larger problems that need to be addressed? For this challenge, you are to: ● identify a social injustice within the CSU system This is bigger than your Unicorn. Think global: How can you contribute to our community? An example of a Superhero might be rising tuition debt, campus safety, the role of GE, student­professor ratio, furloughs, classroom size. ● devise a plan to tackle and defeat it! Anything is possible but use legitimate research to back it up. You should be far along in your Recon Mission to rely on your research. This challenge should help you contribute significantly to your Recon Mission. ● Once you’ve selected this challenge, move your Avatar into the “Superhero” portion of our class assignment sequence on Prezi. I want the students to find their inner superhero and think about the larger problems that we all face as college students. Awareness of this larger institution that affects them and their education is important. The students should start seeing themselves as adults and active participants in this community. This paper is, as is the Unicorn paper, solution oriented. The Superhero assignment asks students to delve a deeper into the concept of identity, and specifically how it plays into our community here in Chico and larger in the CSU. I can bring in HigherEd, The Orion, papers from other universities, to have a closer look at what are other colleges struggling with. Maybe they don’t care about those things, but they should! If the students choose this paper first, they are looking at the change they want to see and can later find a way to enact it locally. Core Support ● Free writes ● Blog Posts ● Research Quests (Annotations) ● Peer Response ● Recon Mission (Annotated Bibliography) Free Writes (every class period) These are to help get in the flow of writing. We are going to set up routines and consistent behavior in Abrahams 11 the classroom to help you get into a second nature of the thing. The more consistent we are at doing something, the easier it will come. Free writes can be about how hard it was to get out of bed, what you thought of your last conversation partner meeting, how long it took you to get a scantron, or about the horrible heat in Chico. These will more often be focused around some aspect of the reading and I expect you to use the Free Writes as a way to open conversation about your readings, blog posts and connect to your Research Quests. Don’t forget to notice how utterly beautiful Chico is in the month of October. We should write about the fall colors one day that month! After you’ve written down your beautiful, insightful, smart thoughts, turn to a partner or get in a small group and share. We’ll use this to kickstart our class discussion. (I want there to be consistency in our practices, these can mirror journal entries, getting the students comfortable with writing. I want these to add to the their database of research for their final project where they will have a ton of stuff writing about their first semester and what it’s meant for them. Free writes will serve as a catalyst for the writing process. Consistency is important because then we can move past that awkward silence and just get into it, knowing what we need to do, and while the students are in it, the real magic can happen. Students learn to write by writing, not by sitting on the sidelines and hearing a lecture on how to write.) Blog Posts (1/week) The only way to get better at writing is to actually write. Throughout the semester, you will use the blog on our Wordpress class site to respond to readings, ponder questions we raise in class, and write to develop your own thinking in an area you choose to research. You will also use the blog posts as a means to bridge the assigned readings to a Research Quest. Half of these posts should be in the form of video. Be creative and think of the big picture, your auto ethnography. We will agree in class on what constitutes “effort” in your blog. I expect there will be writing ­ I’m not going to count your words ­ but it can also include images, and links to websites or videos that help to explain or further enhance your readings or discussions. Use this as a digital/physical drawer of messy and interesting thinking, ideas, concepts, dialogue. These are to bridge the reading that we’ve done in class with something you’ve found, relevant to the current challenge. These are due before class time on Mondays of each week unless we decide otherwise. (These low­stakes writing assignments afford the students opportunities for “writing to learn,” a key objective of this course. I want this directly on the blog because although it’s nice to see it all on Gdocs, the posts do not interact with one another, something that I can appreciate from a blog website or another online platform, unavailable when just uploading or creating Gdocs.The public aspect of the space will also encourage students to consider audience in their writing, and will give them a chance to explore others’ thoughts and reflections on the readings and the course. These are to help the students put into words what they’ve been thinking about, what they think about readings, and how they connect to something else they’ve found, presented in their Research Quests (annotations)) Research Quests (Annotations) (each week, early thru late semester) Through the use of Research Quests, starting week 3 and going until week 12, you will be advancing your research and keeping track of your work. These should reflect your research. Find at least one Abrahams 12 source per quest and explain why it is relevant to your current assignment. These Research Quests are to be uploaded into Google Docs on their assigned due date (see Calendar). Go out and do some research! Interview students, professors, graduate students, people in the field, club presidents, club members, community members! Get started by looking over all of the blogs, readings, and discussions we’ve had in our first few weeks. (Here is an example of a student who conducted primary research and used that as the majority of her sources.) Of the weeks that require Research Quests, find at least 5 scholarly articles that are relevant to your work at the time (whether you’re working with your Unicorn or Superhero). I want you to get used to supporting your work and writing with that of scholarly sources. Each Research Quest feeds into your recon mission; doing the work one piece at a time will help you see the bigger picture at the end when it’s time to present your Recon Mission (compilation and dialogue of Research Quests). Each Research Quest should explain the following: 1. a brief background of the author and their research 2. a brief description or summary of the source 3. what ideas you plan to use from the source within your own research. Make sure you are not vague, use specific language 4. how this source relates to at least one other source. Again, make sure to use specific language, make your connections explicit. Each Research Quest will be about 200 words. They will then become entries in your Recon Mission. These are due by midnight on Fridays of each week unless we decide otherwise. (These are to help the students keep track of their research. After posting to our class blog that Monday, they have a source connected to the reading that they can discuss in class with their peers. This helps the students practice their use of MLA citations while practicing effective and engaged reading.) Peer Response and Feedback (various times) You will be asked to provide feedback to your peers regularly in this class. This is something that we will be working on all semester, and you will get really good at it! Constructive criticism, not just positive feedback, will make a paper stronger. Students have often said that they come to understand their work most deeply when they talk and write to each other about texts and ideas. They also say that writing the response helps them to reflect on their own approach to an assignment by seeing how other students handled a similar task. Written peer feedback offers an immediate audience that should be very useful at all stages of your writing. On the day of a Peer Review, you will share papers on Google Docs with a member of your group Abrahams 13 (Unicorn or Superhero). The author of each paper will include a memo at the top directing feedback. In at least 250 words (due by the following class meeting), review and discuss ways they can better fulfill the stated requirements of the assignment. As you do this, you will focus on the ideas in the drafts. Acknowledge any typos or grammatical errors on the drafts if you want to, but do not comment on grammar in the written review you write. You are looking to help your peer with content, not grammar and spelling. The following class period you will have a meeting with your peer to discuss revision plans. Guidelines for peer response will be considered in class and discussed at length. (In the first half of the semester, peer response will be informal and in small groups, as students learn to see themselves as having the ability and authority to comment on other students’ work. In the second half of the semester, we move towards more formal, academic writing. Accordingly, the peer response becomes more formal, as students comment in writing on each others’ assignments, and offer reflection and critique on a global level. This will give students the chance to see how others are approaching the assignments, as well as giving them important feedback on their own compositions.) Recon Mission (Annotated Bibliography) Upon leaving our English 130, you will be given a plethora of future tasks in your respective disciplines. Most of you will be given reconnaissance missions that are masked under names such as “Literature Review” or a “Synthesis Paper.” The aim of this mission is to summarize, synthesize/highlight crucial information, and then conclude how you plan to utilize this information in your own argument or claims. You will need to do sufficient reconnaissance of the beasts you’re dealing with: unattainable “unicorns”, and social injustice in the CSU! The recon mission should serve a few purposes: ● collect data to better help you pursue and address your inquiries ● give you a place to put your data and information. The recon mission will guide you throughout your writing, keep in mind that your sources should be in conversation with one another, whether you are working on “Unicorn” or “Superhero”. This mission requires you to look at the source not in order to summarize it, but in order to create cohesion and synthesis between your sources. It is a list of citations to books, articles, and other resources. You need to put 4­5 sources in dialogue with each other about each challenge, make sure you are well versed enough to tackle these beasts. This means that you will probably have to read more than 4­5 sources in order to uncover the larger themes in the conversation. This is a difficult task. Therefore, we will take a lot of class time to discuss, share, respond, and edit them. (I see the Recon mission as a blend of a lit review and annotated bibliography, in that they continuously contribute to their papers. I want the students to use this to keep track of ALL of their research. The Recon mission is to help them get used to reading and writing and use this as the impetus to use primary and secondary sources. “Research instruction for introductory students, in particular, is usually the responsibility of first­ year composition teachers...We are calling research identity that confluence of skills, knowledge, attitudes, and practices that combine when an individual engages in research activities. Such identities can be crucial for how students approach both further work in the academy” (Purdy & Abrahams 14 Walker, 9). Many research papers require a literature review, making it an important genre for students to practice. This assignment also gives me a vehicle for exploring the research process in the university, and talking about moves like forwarding and countering, and generally working on their writing.) Final Reflection, Auto­ethnography, and ePortfolio Final Reflection Your first goal is to reflect on the work you’ve accomplished this semester. Look at it as a whole. It’s really amazing how much we’ve done. I want to know: what has your first (second, third, fifth) semester shown you? What are the identities that are present in you? What communities do you belong to? Are you same person you were at the beginning of this class? This is exciting because you have 16 weeks of video, journal entries, notes, blog posts, data and papers to draw from! You can use all or some of your data to make a claim about some sort of growth/change that has happened to you this semester. This final assignment serves as a chance for you to do several things: to reflect deeply about your work this semester, to summarize what you feel are your strengths as a writer and researcher, to discuss the challenges you face moving into future classes, and to argue for the grade you deserve. What drove your curiosity? (Your blog posts should help keep track of this for you). All of our work this semester has brought us to this point. You know who you are as a writer. You are engaged in a conversation you are interested in. You know what other important people are saying. So basically, you are almost done! Then, I want you to argue for a grade. Tell me what you think you deserve, and then show me why. Quote yourself a lot! You are the expert on your learning. Look back through all of your assignments to find moments of composition you are proud of, and that show your growth through the course. Use links! Cite bits of your blog posts, refer me back to an assignment draft, a peer critique, or part of your multimodal project, and be clear about why this presents your best work. Define what “best” means for you. Maybe it means perfect prose, maybe it means marked improvement, maybe it means messy but brilliant ideas, or maybe it means something else. This is a chance for you to show me the most important writing and thinking you did during the semester. Have fun with it! (The rationale behind this assignment is pretty simple. I want the students to have a chance to reflect on what they have done well. I also want to give them the opportunity to raise their grade by showing me what they learned. I envision many different definitions of success in my class. By giving students the option to define their own “best” work, I am leaving it open for them to show me different visions of their success. Hopefully, this assignment will also help them to feel successful. An integral part of succeeding in the University is having the confidence in yourself and your abilities to enter those difficult conversations, and to claim your own voice. My ultimate goal for the class is to help students understand that, and to feel comfortable approaching any future writing assignment they receive, knowing we are rooting for their success.) Abrahams 15 Auto Ethnography An auto ethnography is a reflective piece that you write about yourself. Through the use of : ● blogging ● video logging (vlogging) ● journals ● tweets ● recon mission ● Research Quests ● short papers ● ePortfolio You will showcase and demonstrate the growth you have attained this semester in ENGL 130 and at CSU, Chico. Using some digital platform (we will discuss this in class) put everything together into a video and upload it to our Wordpress site. (This part may be new to you, but it’s not difficult—and I’ll give you time in class to try things out.) (I am picturing time lapse clips but that probably won’t be the case. I want to introduce this assignment early enough so that students are aware that everything they do will lead to creating a video showing their growth. I am still working out the kinks on how to support this but I want them to show me the ways in which they’ve grown and to really self reflect on their semester, because before you know it, you’ve graduated! I know that I would have appreciated something like this to remind myself of who I was as a college freshman, or at least to laugh at myself. Their final reflection paper should help them with the flow of the ethnography.) ePortfolio You will create an online portfolio and create folders for the work you’ve done, where you will showcase all your best work. Dropbox is a great resource for you to keep your work, on and offline. Google Drive is also a great option! The mighty Dropbox will defeat the most evil of work saboteurs. Dog ate your homework? Computer crashed? Couldn’t reach a printer? No problem! Dropbox has your back. You can choose to use Google Drive or Dropbox but provide a rationale for the way you have organized your work. You should be adding your readings (those downloaded from class and those you find on your own) and writing to this portfolio throughout the course of the semester. And all of this will lead us to… “College Survival Guide” ** We will negotiate in class how all of this will be expected to come together We will have two main components: Abrahams 16 ● how to navigate our campus (Unicorns rendez vous here!) and ● how to become an active member in our CSU community, how to contribute and and become a global citizen (Superheros, get in there!) This guide will also house your video auto­ethnographies (I’m so excited to see how these turn out). Here, you get a chance to pass along some very useful information to the next person. We will post this to our class site. We will also work together as a class to ensure our manual is user friendly. We will work together in class to create the following teams: ● Design Team ● Editing Team ● Tech Team The creation of a College Survival Manual will be really exciting and I hope that the students will pick up on the enthusiasm I have for the class and subject matter. This compilation created by the class will be a great memory for those involved and serve as a great resource for those to come. It really highlights the theme of thinking ahead and becoming experts in the field that is being a beginning college student at our university. [Course Resources] The Student Learning Center: In addition to your classmates and me, the Student Learning Center provides an opportunity to talk with writing assistants about the work you are doing for this and other classes. They are located on the third floor of the Student Services Building (SSC 340). You can reach them by phone, 530­898­6839, or by email: [email protected] Chico State Non­Discrimination Policy: Cal State does not discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, disability, race, color, or national origin. The CSU complies with both the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the American Disabilities Act (1990). If you have a disability and need reasonable accommodation for equal access to education and services at CSU, Chico, please talk with me or call Disability Support Services (x5959). Americans with Disabilities Act If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability or chronic illness, or if you need to make special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible, or see me during office hours. Please also contact Accessibility Resource Center (ARC) as they are the designated department responsible for approving and coordinating Abrahams 17 reasonable accommodations and services for students with disabilities. ARC will help you understand your rights and responsibilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act and provide you further assistance with requesting and arranging accommodations. Accessibility Resource Center 530­898­5959 Student Services Center 170 [email protected] The Meriam Library: Our library is full of resources to support your work as a student here. Click around on the Research Station, especially any of the categories in “Research Help.” You’ll find a ton of clear, well­written handouts and tutorials on how to do research. Use them. Refer other students to them. We’re doing active and challenging research in this course, and you’re required to go through the databases for most of it. So get comfortable with the Research Station as soon as you can. Click around and explore. Your Instructor: Feel free to drop by my office hours with any questions, problems, or concerns. Although you are required to see me twice, don’t hesitate to come by more often! Abrahams 18 Weekly Calendar & Goals (with weekly rationale) Week
#
1
Monday
Monday, August 25
Wednesday
Wednesday, August 27
Introductions
Quick Write:
Post about yourself on the
blog, introduce yourself to
How to use Wordpress (Captain Up), Google Docs. the class! Make sure you all
set up with your online
accounts. We will be using
We’ll talk about the other Google Docs and Wordpress
mediums when we cross a lot in this class.
them. Themes: Liminality,
Community
Friday
Friday, August 29
Reading:
Cooley: looking glass self
Homework: Create your
digital space on Prezi.
Introduce Avatar
Reading:
BP1 Due
Week 1 The first class should mirror what the semester will be like, I want this class to be really playful but keeping in mind that we have a lot of serious work to do and problems to address throughout the semester. I want the first class to be unlike anything they’ve previously experienced at Chico State. We might have class outside if it isn’t too hot. This is also a good time to introduce the class norms for the semester (free writes, blog posts, and lots and lots of writing). I want to use the free writes to explore the themes we are going to discuss, using it as an opportunity to find out more about their perspectives. This week, I’ll introduce them to the course theme, and their first challenge: Avatar. For Wednesday: We can start with a Free Write (5­10 mins) leading into the discussion of the reading (15 mins) and then work on the thing that day (20­30 mins). Having an established structure sets up a comfortable environment where the students know what to expect and how to successfully navigate the class. For Friday: Using discussion on Friday about Cooley and identity, it may help hash out some ideas they’ve come up with for their Avatar paper. I want the students to create a blank prezi to visually represent the connections they will make between assignments. If students are interested in international issues, point them in the direction of ALCI: sign up for ALCI Conversation Partner Program, email [email protected] Abrahams 19 2
Monday, September 1
Wednesday, September 3
Friday, September 5
Labor Day. Campus Closed.
Steer clear from Sacramento
River...just sayin’.
Quick Write:
What makes a community?
What are the factors?
Assign the
Recon Mission
BP 2 Due
Due:
Avatar
Reading: something on
liminality
Week 2 This week will be a time where we jump start into higher gears and start getting familiar with our class routines. For BP2, I want them to consider the reading on liminality and find another related article, gif, tweet, anything that helps them better understand the reading. Later in the semester, the BPs will be more substantial and the students will be expected to be making bigger connections to a variety of sources. Some things to consider while writing the FWs: what are the constraints that create our guidelines? Why do we as a society follow or believe in these things? How have we (collectively or individually) been shaped as a society to follow or believe things? I anticipate that these questions will help the students start to see the communities they’ve come from and notice that there is a state of growth happening (or at least I hope, it’s only week 2). Also, if the students are working with international issues on campus, I really want the students to be involved with the ALCI conversation partner program. I want them to draw on the experiences from their interactions to help see their world from a different lens. Follow up with those who are doing conversation partner:
what types of misunderstandings do you anticipate stemming from your interactions with your conversation partner? Looking at citations this week and walking students through the benefit of hyperlinked sources, as well as including other modes in their papers (memes, images, gifs). 3
Monday, September 8
Wednesday, September 10
Friday, September 12
Quick Write:
Sources:
RQ1 due.
Abrahams 20 How do things happen in the
university? How is this any
different from where you’re
coming from?
Discuss sources, what is
reliable, what is unreliable?
Are your sources open? Do
they adequately support your
ideas?
(Make sure you are using
your blog post to bridge
your Research Quest to
the assigned reading. )
Optional Supporting Events:
Go to a Study Abroad
Meeting, or another meeting
that fits into your “Unicorn”
or “Superhero” challenge,
insert that into your blog!
Reading: (how to find
scholarly articles)
BP3 Due
Week 3 This week, I want to look closer at intercultural communication. Possible FW questions: How your language is interpreted by someone else? What do your words mean to you? How do they change depending on the audience? I want this FW to kickstart discussion and make connections to BPs. Their first RQ (Annotation) is due this week. I want to talk about sources and how to find a reliable source. I don’t expect them to find a scholarly article on their first try, I want them more to use the first RQ as a practice run for more academic writing that they’ll be doing throughout the course of the semester. I want to practice this on Monday, maybe revisit on Wednesday so the students feel confident and comfortable to submit something by Friday. Readings: Something on what constitutes a source as dependable, scholarly… Discuss the terms of the sources, and how you use the source in a specific context. They have to bring in two scholarly sources and the other ones they use can be whatever they want. If it’s pertinent and fits what they need it to do, I am leaving it up to them to decide if it’s a valuable source or not. What are some common themes that come up in the reading? 4
Monday, September 15
Wednesday, September 17
Friday, September 19
Intro
“Unicorn”/”Superhero”
BP4
Claims
RQ2 due
Abrahams 21 Reading:
http://educationnext.org/co
llege-prep/
Choose one article to read
(Brown or Schwartz)
What are some sources
you’ve been thinking of? Try
student newspapers,
University websites to find
out more about common
issues (Superman) or The
Orion (Unicorn)
Week 4 This week we will be examining Communities of Practice. Using the Free Write, I want to ask them about their communities: FW: How does your community of practice help you transition from one group to another? How have you evolved as a member of your community in your time in college? Readings: http://educationnext.org/college­prep/ This reading is interesting in that these people are asking if everyone should recieve College Prep, I want the students to start blogging about the ideas or questions that form from reading these articles. I also want to talk about claims and what constitutes a claim. I want this to be open to discussion and I can go in and fill the blanks with the class, leading them closer to academic writing. 5
Monday, September 22
Wednesday, September 24 Friday, September 26
BP5
U1/S1
Peer Revision Workshop
Feedback U1/S1 Due
RQ3 Due
Week 5 At this point, they have completed two and are working on their third RQ, I think it’s an appropriate time to discuss their methods for bookmarking. I want to show the students the way I read articles and present them with a number of different ways to look at a text. Our class discussions will be centered around research practices online bookmarking­ I want to use this time to talk about Diigo and how to tag your readings, going through and showing the students how I read an article and what it meant for me. Their first version of Unicorn (U1) is due and we are going to use that Wednesday to discuss peer revision techniques and what effective feedback looks like. I want the students to work in pairs or trios and discuss their work. We will be sharing the papers in Google Docs and they should give some significant feedback by that Friday night. Abrahams 22 In terms of talking about the types of feedback, we wear different lenses for each draft, you don’t read a first draft the same way you would read a final draft. The lens is about big picture for the first draft, we are not spending time looking at grammar and punctuation, we want to dismiss that all together and look at the big picture. I want to spend some significant time in class discussing and agreeing upon what lenses we will be using at different times in the semester. 6
Monday, September 29
Wednesday, October 1
Friday, October 3
BP6
Prewriting strategies
URev2/SRev2
Feedback URev2/SRev2
Due
RQ4
Week 6 This week I want to look at prewriting strategies. They’ve been working enough with their paper and looking at it from another perspective could be useful for their next paper. I want to assign some other readings that can complement the work they’re doing. Let’s try to discern how other people talking about these issues, what are the ways people are talking about this. I want to get them to read around and look at how others are talking about these issues to specify their research questions. A goal this week is to help students defend their argument in a clear and academic way. Something that stuck with me from one of Matt’s posts, “A successful education is defined by an individual’s ability to write effectively and, what I believe is most important, an ability to “negotiate life” post­college.” I love this. I want the students to write about their strategies during the Free Writes this week, asking them questions like, “what do you all do before you ‘start’ a paper? What are some of the ways you gather your ideas together, make sense of them, and start to outline what you want to say in your paper? Have you had to do this for other classes? What did the process look like? What works best for you in terms of prewriting strategies?” By asking the participants to brainstorm their writing strategies and share, we can learn from one another what writing strategies are and how to become a better writer. This will help reinforce the community in the classroom. 7
Monday, October 6
BP7
Wednesday, October 8
URev3/SRev3
Bring sample texts from a
community you’re a part of.
Prezi check-in
Multimodal texts-what does
that mean? Persuasive
Friday, October 10
Feedback URev3/SRev3
Due
RQ5
Abrahams 23 power of different types of
modes
Week 7 This week, I want them to think about the research they’re doing. The Recon Mission is coming up soon, so I’ll need to see where the students are in terms of their research. I also want them to bring sample texts from a community they are a part of to get them to make connections to their current community. We might try some mapping activities or other visuals to help them see how their involvement in other communities overlap. I’ll ask them to start thinking about the connections between the three challenges as we’ll be doing concept maps in a few weeks. This will help set up or guide their recon mission as well as give them more language to talk about the connections and relationships between the challenges throughout the course. I want to talk about multimodal texts and what that means, show them examples and ask them to produce a quick sketch of their understanding in class to assess where their needs are. By allowing images, videos, hyperlinked texts in the papers, we can examine the persuasive power of different types of modes. Although multiple modes make the text more engaging, I want them to keep in mind that they should use multimodal options sparingly and wisely. 8
Monday, October 13
Wednesday, October 15
Friday, October 17
BP8
Peer Response Workshop
U/S Final Due
RQ6
Audience concerns and
context collapse
Contract grading evaluation
Week 8 I saw “audience concerns” on Chris Fosen’s syllabus and I knew that I wanted to address it at this point in the semester. I believe that if they start writing and get into the routine of writing and slowly, I introduce aspects of academic writing that will help make their writing stronger, they can layer and compound their knowledge to create a polished product for their final revisions. I also want to check in with the blogs and vlogs, remind the students that they should have half of their blog entries as videos. The peer response workshop is to become aware of other students strategies and open the class to discussion to find other ways to do what they’ve been doing all semester. This is where we check in about the contracts. They can choose to continue with their current contract or reevaluate their needs and progress in the class to negotiate their contract. On Wednesday, I want to have a Peer Response Workshop where we will be doing speed feedback: Abrahams 24 I’ll place a timer on 10 minutes, 3 rounds, total of 30 minutes for feedback, encouraging the students to move quickly through their feedback. 9
Monday, October 20
Wednesday, October 22
Friday, October 24
BP9
Intro Superhero/Unicorn
Recon Workshop
RQ7 due
Side Shadowing
Week 9 The Recon workshop will help the students check in and have a chance to talk through some questions or clarify before we start sharing for feedback in week 10, due week 11. I really liked what Chris said once about side shadowing. I think it provides students the chance to look at their paper with a different lens and spending all of class on Friday to discuss and work on it will be useful for the students to revise their papers. For our Research Workshop, they will be helping their peers reshape, revise or rethink their research question. They should be looking at sources in terms of purpose. I’m interested in what they’re saying, structure is also important but those are secondary importances, surface level concerns should be last, in editing. For the purpose of this week, they will need to know how to properly and correctly write a paper, following grammar rules but I’m really interested in knowing how they’re using their research to back up what they’re claiming, following, asking. 10
Monday, October 27
Wednesday, October 29
Friday, October 31
BP10
SRev1/URev1 due
RQ8
Feedback due SRev1
Reverse Outlining
Week 10 This week, I’ll assign feedback groups for the Recon Mission, I want the students to read for clarity and content. How does the text meet the goals of the assignment and the purposes of the writer, see if the paper flows in a way that is comprehensible for them and others. This week, I want to look at Reverse Outlining as another revising strategy. I’ve noticed in the French writing workshops that having them work on the same task with their papers in a small group can help prompt discussion among themselves about the moves they’re making with their papers. We will probably do this on Monday and Abrahams 25 Wednesday, to really help clean up their peer response on their papers. I want this week to work closely on establishing goals and objectives, I want the class to work together to collectively create a rubric. This reflects the collective work we will be doing for the CSG. 11
Monday, November 3
Wednesday, November 5
Friday, November 7
BP11
SRev2/URev2
Concept Mapping
RQ9
Feedback for Recon Due
Concept Mapping
Rough Cut
Week 11 This week, I want to work heavily with concept maps. I think that they take some time and that the students could greatly benefit from learning another new strategy. I tried to get some students out of the box in French writing workshops, and received more pushback than I anticipated. I understand that there may be some resistance to few or many of these ideas but I believe that it’s important for the students to try new things, and extend their writing skills to concept mapping, though most of the them probably don’t see it as writing. I briefly want to talk about Rough Cut, let them know it’s coming up at the end of semester, and that way we can be thinking about some options (infographic/film project/some interpretation of their papers). 12
Monday, November 10
BP12
Start Video
Wednesday, November
12
SRev3/URev3
Friday, November 14
RQ10
Feedback for
SRev3/URev3 due
turn in Phase 1 of the
video
Answer the following
questions:
1. what is your film
going to be about?
2. What style are you
going to use?
3. what types of
materials or tools
will you need?
4. will your group
need to define
specific roles?
Abrahams 26 5. start drafting/
scripting potential
introductions for
your film.
Week 12 I want to introduce their ethnographic videos and that Friday, have them turn in Phase 1, where they’ll complete a lot of the preliminary planning to their video ethnographies. Although the work is centered around their personal experiences, they could be doing some work together if a few people decide to do similar types of films. I want to show them some models (yet to be found), and spend a significant chunk of the remaining semester working on the auto ethnographies. This will tie in smoothly (hopefully) with the CSG. Their videos can get the ball rolling on organizing the survival guide. I’ll probably have extended office hours this week and conferences with the students to see where they are. I think it isn’t too far in the semester to catch up or assess where they are in case some fall behind. On Wednesday, I want to check in with the students on what their plan is. The film project can be worked on individually or in groups, groups no larger than three or four. 13
Monday, November 17
Wednesday, November 19
Friday, November 21
BP13
script
Script
Superhero/Unicorn Final
Due
Rough Cut check-in
“College Survival Manual”
Designate Roles:
● Design Team
● Editing Team
● Tech Team
If you feel like working
over break, start
storyboarding!
Week 13 This week, I want them to think more about models as they’re setting up to become role models for the next group of students in English 130. Do we have a model self? Can we identify it? I want to have a discussion about the effectiveness of models, in writing and in real life. On Wednesday, we’re going to designate roles for the CSG and what that is going to look like. We can agree as a class as to what that is going to look like. Have the teams present a few different options and the class can vote with a Google Form or something? Their final revision is due for their third paper, they are allowed to revise until the end of the semester but only if they’ve met the final Nov 21 deadline. Turning in their paper late is a minor breach of their grade contract. At this point, there are a lot of things going on, but I want them to be able to work more on something if it isn’t as strong as it should be. I want to check in with them about Rough Cut, see if they have any ideas on what they might be doing. I can show them Abrahams 27 models at this point and see what they’re thinking about doing. Maybe we could present our CSG? It’s a good idea to let them know what we have left to do before the end of the semester. They need to turn in Phase 1 in order to receive Phase 2 after break. Although I want the class to be run at the students’ pace, they will still benefit from checkpoints to mark their progress. Hopefully, they’ll be (closer to) where they need to be after Thanksgiving Break. [Thanksgiving Break] 14
Monday, December 1
Wednesday, December 3
Friday, December 5
storyboard
Storyboard/Film (click on
the link for sweet
resources!)
Film
Phase 2- Rubric
methods for effective film
making
CSG
CSG
Week 14 They’ll have had a week of stuffing their faces so we need to hit the ground running on their films and the CSG. Monday I want to spend time discussing and creating a collaborative rubric for the films, as well as methods for effective filmmaking. I love asking students to build a rubric, to elicit what’s important to them, highlighting some solutions, talking through ways that they were able to answer or not answer the questions they started out with. They should start filming and editing on Wednesday, at the latest Friday. They should have a lot of video to work with, they might need more footage to compliment their vlogs, where class time would be appropriate to work on that. Storyboarding is a really effective stepping stone to creating your video and getting your ideas from script to video. 15
Monday, December 8
Wednesday, December 10
Friday, December 12
[dead week]
Film workshop
CSG
Final Revisions Due this
day
Phase 3:
Editing & reflection
Final Videos Due
Rough Cut Festival this
week!
Week 15 This is the last week they can turn anything in, they should be finishing up their videos, we can have a workshop day on Monday where they can share for some feedback before turning in the thing on Friday. The majority of our time this week will be spent editing and working off one another to clean up Abrahams 28 their final submissions. 16
Finals week
*Note: this class requires
that you attend our Rough
Cut Festival/Common
Final on Tuesday, Dec
17th, from 4:00-5:50pm
in Langdon 300/302.
Week 16 What happens during finals week, stays in finals week. No seriously, the binging and purging of information is terrible.