TLDR Syllabus?

This semester I decided to not only make my syllabus fit on two pages but also format it as a brochure in hopes that students will read every word of it and have an easier time referring back to it for useful info. It has a blank cover and then opens to "Course Outcomes" and "What I Expect from You." The inside flaps reveal "Service-Learning" and "Grading." When closed, the back cover lists contact info for "Resources" and a simplified list of due dates. Let me know what you think & I'll let you know how it works in class.

Reading Group Meeting--1/5/12

While we discussed many ideas at the reading group meeting, we wanted a major focus to be practical tips/new ideas that we could integrate into this upcoming semester. Here are some of the ideas that I wrote down (and others who were there are free to add to this list in a comment, another post, or in an addition to this post if that's possible):

• Teach students the importance of writing an effective, professional email. Take class time to do this.
• Choose a reading that you haven't read before, so you can model how to make sense of a (difficult) reading.
• First-day activity: ask the students what kind of major is likely to have the least amount of writing, then discuss (and surprise the students) with how important and awesome writing is.
• Analyze a film/tv show as a cultural artifact. This has the benefit of taking something the students are already comfortable with ("expert" at) and adding a level of analysis they usually don't get. I'm partial to in-class analyses of award-winning animated shorts, but I like the idea of a writing assignment.
• The I-Search essay as a Unit One essay.
• Have students write for thirty minutes on the back of their essays before they hand them in: what was a strong aspect of their essay, what was a weak one, and how would/will they fix it when/if they revise?
• Have students write a response to a long reading. Then have students exchange responses outside of class both as a way to test document exchanging, and as a way to respond to each others' work. This could pave the way for a out-of-class peer review.
• Have a class peer review for a sample paper. Model comments, and ask, "what if you would have gotten that comment? Would it have been helpful if you would have gotten the 'great paper' type comments?"
• After peer review, dedicate significant time to have the writers interrogate reviewers about their paper (so there's no/limited dissatisfaction with peer review).
• Have students write a reflection on the comments you made on their paper. Responding to those would be comments on comments on comments--I love it!
• Have students do a reflection on how they could have done better on peer-review/in-class discussions.

Word of the Day

Word of the Day and Language Principle

Many people often have the mistaken idea that good writing is simply grammatically correct writing—while our teaching must focus on more important ways to help students strengthen their writing, we would be doing them a disservice to ignore basic grammar principles in our teaching. What follows is one possible approach to assisting students with learning and mastering grammar.

How it works

At the beginning of the semester, students sign up to present a word of the day and a grammar principle to the rest of the class on two separate occasions. I’ve learned that demonstrating how this should be done for the first week helps them get the hang of it. I recommend that they choose a grammar principle that they personally have struggled with or currently struggle with and a meaningful word that they have learned recently (no supercalafragalistical words). It should take no more than five minutes. I provide them with a list of grammar/formatting issues they can choose from to increase variety:

• Pronoun-antecedent agreement

• Subject-verb agreement

• Parallelism—what it is, and how to fix unparallel

• Sentence length variety

• Shifts in verb tense/voice/mood/person/number

• Misplaced/Dangling/Disruptive modifiers

• Fused (run on) Sentence and how to fix

• Sentence Fragment and how to fix

• Comma Splice and how to fix

• Commas—Restrictive vs nonrestrictive

• Commas—unnecessary commas

• Commas—compound sentences

• Vague pronoun reference

• Punctuation—apostrophes, ellipses, semicolons

• Lie vs lay; sit vs set; rise vs raise

• Active and passive voice

• Avoiding stereotypes, gender/race/age assumptions

• Punctuation—hyphens vs dashes

• MLA—quotation marks vs underline/italicize

• MLA—In-text citation

• MLA—formatting works cited page

• MLA—formatting documents

• Capitalization—tricky examples

• Spelling—tricky examples

• Homonyms—what they are, tricky examples

• Wrong Words—tricky examples

After defining the word/principle, the students give a (preferably real-world) example of what this looks like in a sentence. I also usually comment on a student’s presentation, explaining things that may not have been clear, giving ways to remember, or sharing my own examples.

Strengths

• Students are more likely to pay attention to “boring” grammar lessons for five minutes at the beginning of class (when they’re fresh) as opposed to a full grammar day/week.

• The word of the day/language principle can act as an introduction to the class—a kind of transition to let students get into the mindset of English.

• Having students teach other students is more effective than the grammar sermon/monologue. Teaching a principle is sometimes the best way to learn a principle.

• Making grammar lessons be a short, consistent part of the daily lesson is a great way to keep from forgetting to teach about some of these principles.

Potential Pitfalls

• It can be a lot of work to provide students with the proper motivation/attitude towards it. Often students will look at it as yet another way you’re trying to ruin their lives, or as something they want to put as little effort as possible into completing, or (perhaps worst) as an opportunity to show off/be funny.

• Figuring out how you want to grade this can be challenging. Grading should be visible, accurate, and meaningful; it’s going to be time-consuming if you do it right, or a source of frustration for everyone involved if you don’t.

• Students can be confused about how this is going to help them in their assignments or in the class in general. Without scaffolding (or even with), it can feel disconnected, repetitive, and tedious.

Alternate Versions/Addendums

Class Recorder: In addition to sharing a word of the day and grammar principle, the student who presents is responsible for taking notes about the class and posting them to the class blog that day. Their post should start with the WoD and LP, then continue with a (relatively detailed) description of the class/instructions/reminders. It’s nice to have a record of what went on that day, but some of the same pitfalls apply to this as well.

Incorporation into Unit Cover Letters: At the end of the unit, students incorporate X number of words and X number of grammar principles into their cover letters. They bold or mark what they’ve used and describe why. Again, there are motivation issues to consider so students don’t feel like they’re being forced to go through the motions.