Programs and Areas

Second Year Writing Program

Sample Course Materials

Overview
This material is designed to provide a model of how a 367 assignment sequence might look. Included here are the following items:
- Course description & syllabus
- Protocol on Small Group Work
- Statement on Assessment
- Sample Essay Assignment #1 & Evaluation Rubric
- Workshop Protocol with Workshop Response Sheet
- General Observations on First Essay Assignments
The main goal is to make as transparent as possible the process of moving from reading and discussing course texts to drafting, workshopping and evaluation of student writing. All these materials may be handed out to the students at the beginning of the course. Please feel free to use these documents as you need in your class.

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Sample Course Description and Syllabus
ENGLISH H367.01
The US Experience: Education in America

OVERVIEW
The goal of this course is to foster in you the ability to recognize and develop connections between various texts and to reflect on these connections relative to personal, academic and cultural needs. Through a sequence of writing assignments, you will be asked to analyze essays, poems and fiction with an eye toward developing arguments about education and popular culture in America. In doing this, you will be asked to explore your own beliefs about the processes of teaching and learning. Such self-reflection is empowering in that it allows us to reconsider the value and usefulness of critically-centered education in a democratic society. Two guiding principles of this course are that a) reading and writing are related activities and b) that readers bring a wealth of previously acquired knowledge to bear on a given text. To recognize these points of intertextuality and to reflect on them enables you to better understand your own cognitive processes and compositional strategies. A typical class period may consist of writing workshops, discussions of essays or film clips, small group activities, reflection on the writing process – or combinations of all of these.

COURSE TEXTS Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, Educating Rita by Willy Russell, The Longman Pocket Writer’s Companion by Chris Anson; “Dangerous Minds” (film); several very important handouts.

WRITING WORKSHOPS
A great deal of in-class time will be devoted to writing workshops and peer reviews. In a writing workshop, a rough draft of an essay is distributed to and read by class members, who then comment on strategies for rewriting. Each student will have at least one whole-class workshop during the semester.Each time the class has a workshop, you will be asked to fill out a reader response form. This response will be given to the person whose essay is being workshopped, who will then hand it in with his or her essay. Reader responses are important to the success of workshops, and you are expected to take them seriously. Important: You are responsible for providing copies of rough drafts for either whole class or peer reviews; each class member's rough draft is due on the same day (see schedule) regardless of whether it is being workshopped. A schedule of workshops will be developed as the quarter progresses.

EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT
This class uses a portfolio system, with a modified grade contract. You'll receive from the instructor written evaluations of your writing continuously throughout the semester. However, you'll be assessed (i.e., get a grade) only twice, at the end of week five ("mid-term") and at the end of the term. These assessments will be based primarily on your writing, but will also take into consideration other factors, such as being prepared for class and willingness to engage in discussions.
The base-line grade for this course is a "B", which you'll automatically receive if you do the following:
- miss no more than three classes
- hand in late not more than two assignments
- show clear evidence of desire to revise writing
- demonstrate good copy editing
- give useful feedback in workshops
- prepare for and participate in class discussions
- show the ability to make connections between the various readings
A fair grade ("C") will be considered when these criteria are not met; an excellent grade ("A") will be considered when these criteria are exceeded.

RESPONDING TO THE READINGS: STUDENT-LED DISCUSSIONS
In-class discussions will not proceed from lectures, but from your responses to the material at hand: your questions, your challenges, your concerns. You will need, therefore, to be prepared to speak about the readings on the designated days, and you'll be expected to contribute to the evolving classroom conversation.

PARTICIPATION
Attendance is required. Your participation in workshops and class discussions is integral for successful completion of the course. More than three absences will affect your grade, and more than four may result in failure. If you come to class more than ten minutes late, a half-absence will be assessed. If you are unable to attend classes due to an emergency or illness, please let me know. You are expected to hand in all work on time. If you are unable to hand in work due to an emergency or illness, please let me know.

CONFERENCES
I am available for conferences Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, by appointment. A conference can concentrate on a particular problem with an essay you're working on, or a writing issue in general -- the choice is yours.

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
There are two main kinds of writing for this course: rough and final drafts of your essays written in response to assignment, and Workshop Responses. Rough drafts should be at least 2 pages, which will be used in workshops and/or for instructor response; evaluation drafts should be 5-7 pages. You are required to write a Workshop Response for each in-class workshop (see “How to Write a Workshop Response,” below.) See course schedule for due dates and specific assignments.

A NOTE ON PLAGIARISM
This is the official OSU English Department Writing Programs policy on plagiarism: “All academic work submitted to the teacher must be a result of a student’s own thought, research or self-expression. When a student submits work purporting to be his or her own, but which in any way borrows organization, ideas, wording or anything else from a source without appropriate acknowledgment of the fact, he or she is engaging in plagiarism. When a student submits work in his or her own name that has been written wholly or in part by another person – regardless of whether or not it has been taken from unattributed source materials -- he or she is engaged in a kind of plagiarism known as collusion. Collusion should not be confused with the kind of collaboration that arises in writing course during workshops, peer responses and student/teacher or student tutor conferences, all of which are endorsed by writing pedagogy; collusion involves receiving ‘unauthorized’ aid. Both plagiarism and collusion are considered major academic infractions, and should be treated with the utmost gravity by the teacher.”

RESOURCES
Writing Center: Besides giving feedback, these English graduate students can help with other writing issues such as topic development, organization, coherence, clarity, and self-editing. Call 292-5607. Ombud: Since the instructor for this course is also the Ombud for the Writing Programs, all concerns should be directed to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Chris Highley, 292-1833.
Office of Disability Services: Students with disabilities who need accommodations should be registered at the Office for Disability Services. Call 292-3307.

COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1 (March 30 & April 1)
Readings: Freire, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”; “The 20 Most Common Errors”. Writing: In-class activities; Essay #1 assigned.
Week 2 (April 6 & 8)
Workshops: Essay #1 rough draft due M; workshops as scheduled.
Week 3 (April 13 & 15)
Film: “Dangerous Minds” (in-class viewing)
Writing: In-class activities. Essay #1 Final draft due 4-16
Week 4 (April 20 & 22)
Readings: “The Achievement of Desire” (HM). Writing: In-class activities; Essay #2 assigned.
Week 5 (April 27 & 29)
Workshops: Essay #2 rough draft due M; workshops as scheduled.
Week 6 (May 4 & 6)
Viewing: “Dangerous Minds” (film).
Writing: in-class activities.
Midterm Portfolio due 5-7.
Week 7 (May 11 & 13)
Reading & Viewing: Educating Rita
Writing: In-class activities.
Weeks 8, 9, 10 (May 18, 20, 25, 27 June 1 & 3)
Workshops & Conferences: Final Project

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Small Group Work Guidelines
Overview
367 is well-suited to small group work because of the essentially interactive nature of the course: rather than lectures, most classes involve workshops, discussion of course readings, or in-class activities. Small group work is a good way to take the attention off the teacher as the repository of knowledge and instruction, and to place it on the students as active participants in their own education. When students do the work themselves, they learn better and get more out of the class. Further, small group work is not only pedagogically sound, but structurally expedient as well. Rather than you preparing lectures or trying to engage reluctant students in large group discussions, small group work can give students relevant, hand-on experience with the issues that are central to your course.

Finally, small group work is a way of giving students something to say. For many of our students, 367 has the lowest enrollment of any class they will ever take at OSU; some of them will have never been asked to participate in a class discussion. Small group work allows them to think through what they want to say beforehand and therefore facilitates large group discussion.

BASIC PROTOCOL
The small group task
- needs to be clear and specific ("Do A, B & C, takes notes, draw conclusions, write results on board" etc)
- needs particular end-goals, which should be clearly stated ("At the end of the allotted time, each group should have a statement that describes what you have found.")
- needs a specific time frame (in minutes)
- should be neither too easy nor too hard
- should make the student think, not merely reiterate what has been already stated
- should reflect issues or problems relevant to the class
FIND AND USE
There are basically two kinds of tasks for small group work: find and use.

Find: Small groups are a good way of getting students to explore and articulate their questions concerning class material. One very basic approach is to ask groups simply to form questions and/or statements about the course readings, list those questions and statements, and share them with others (this may be done on the board). In this way, you can see what the important issues are for the class and can therefore address those issues or find ways for the students to address them.

In terms of the Freire chapter on the banking concept, you can ask the small groups to come up with three questions and three statements about Freire’s essay. These go up on the board: some statements answer some questions, and the rest give you a good idea of the student’s concerns.

Use: Small groups are also a good way for students to apply content already learned in productive and useful ways. Instead of lecturing at length about subject matter, you might first provide an overview of critical terms (or use critical terms that the students themselves have “found”), and then ask students to apply those terms to given situations.

For instance, once the students have articulated their understanding of Freire, you might ask them to apply the concepts of banking and problem posing to teaching and learning in various disciplines. What would a problem posing approach to teaching reading or history look like? What about math, biology or physics? In this way, the students can reflect on Freire’s concepts in “real-world” settings.

THE TEACHER'S ROLE
Small group work calls for a re-evaluation of your role as teacher. When you are no longer constantly the center of attention in the classroom, students may feel empowered to express their viewpoints more readily, and generally become more vocal. However, you still have a responsibility to respond to their thinking in useful and productive ways, to reiterate valuable points and de-emphasize tangential ones, to take what the students have come up with and shape it into a coherent form. Sometimes this can't be done immediately. You might want to take notes on class discussions, bring them home, and look for patterns in the students' responses to the task. See what they understand and what they're missing. In the next class, begin by reviewing the previous task, explaining trends in their responses, drawing out further questions for discussion, and setting a new task that expands upon the conclusions they've already arrived at. In this way, the students can begin to see learning as a recursive and ongoing process rather than a discrete series of assignments to be completed.

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Sample Statement on Evaluation and Assessment
Means of Evaluating

Holistic

Is the essay acceptably within the parameters of the assignment(s)? If not, has there been an effort to creatively transform the limitations of the assignment in such a way so as to commend the writer's ability to make arguments unforeseen in the original prompt? In other words, how has the writer understood and/or transformed her role in this particular writing situation?

Argument

Is there a coherent argument? Do I feel a strong sense of the writer's control of instantiation, of generalization, and of connections? Further, is there a sense of the value of the argument being put forth? Likewise, is there a sense of the limitations of the argument being developed?

Evidence

Am I impressed by the sufficiency, cogency and force of the reasons given? Do I find the writer's position effectively supported? Is the writer demonstrating an awareness of the audience? Am I getting enough information to understand the argument?

Conventions of Usage

Has the writer adopted appropriate conventions of usage and grammar? Is my reading facilitated by consistently effective use of writing conventions -- syntax, punctuation, spelling etc.? If not, to what degree is my reading distracted by lapses in convention?

These are the kinds of expectations that will be made of you in college writing. The "I" in all the questions will naturally change from course to course, but the kinds of questions that go through most readers' minds remain pretty much the same. Much of your success in writing will depend on anticipating these questions in advance and addressing them in your writing and rewriting process.

Quantifying Evaluations

Holistic

Excellent essays engender a sense of mastery of the writing task; one gets the sense that the writer has converted the prompt into an exercise not merely of logic, but also of imagination. Good essays engage the prompt in a thorough and intelligent way; arguments are logical and coherent. Fair essays are those in which the reader feels a less than compelling commitment to the writing task; there may be a sense that the writer has not understood the nature of the writing task.

Argument

In excellent essays the argument seems to evolve naturally and there is no disjuncture felt between the value of the argument and its expression; generalizations seem inevitable, yet not didactic. In a good essay, there is a clear control of the argument, although generalizations may seem less than compelling. A fair essay demonstrates a lack of necessary argumentative development; argument may be incomplete and generalizations vague.

Evidence

In an excellent essay the evidence supports argument in a compelling way; there is the sense that the writer is in full control of the subject matter and is able to present it cogently and conclusively. In a good essay the evidence sufficiently complements the argument, although there may be questions concerning the way the writer draws connections between the two. In a fair essay there may be weak or inappropriate evidence, and no sense of the connection of evidence to argument.

Conventions of Usage

Excellent usage mean that surface errors are virtually unobserved and the writer demonstrates complete control of all appropriate conventions: there are no distractions. Good usage indicates an occasional lapse, but not enough to seriously distract reading. Fair usage is typified by repeated patterns of mistakes which distract the reader and imply that the writer is either unaware of conventions, or worse, that the writer doesn't care.

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Sample First Assignment & Assessment Rubric

“FREIRE & ME”
(This essay assignment can be found in Ways of Reading, by Bartholomae and Petrosky)

Anyone who has made it through twelve years of formal education can think of a class to serve as an example of what Freire calls the “banking” concept of education, where students were turned into containers to be filled by their teachers. If Freire is to be useful to you, however, he must do more that enable you to call up quick examples. He should allow you to say more than that a teacher once treated you like a container – or that a teacher once gave you your freedom.

Write an essay that focuses on a rich and illustrative incident from your education and read it (that is, interpret it) as Freire would. You will need to provide careful detail: things that were said and done, perhaps the exact wording of an assignment a textbook or a teacher’s comments. And you will need to turn to the language of Freire’s argument, to take key phrases and passages and see how they might be used to investigate your class.

To do this you will need to read your account as not simply the story of you and your teacher, since Freire is not writing about individual personalities (an innocent student and a mean or rude teacher or thoughtless teacher), but about the roles we are cast in, whether we chose to be or not, by our culture and its institutions. The key question, then, is not who you were or who your teacher was, but what roles you played and how those roles can lead you to better understand the larger narrative of education as an organized attempt to “regulate the way the world ‘enters into’ the students.”

"FREIRE & ME” ASSESSMENT RUBRIC
Holistic
- a story of an educational experience
- a working understanding of Freire's terms of analysis
- the ability to apply Freire's ideas to your own story
Argument
- an introduction that sets the stage for the essay to follow
- an introduction to Freire's terms
- a story that is appropriate for this assignment
- interpretation of that story through Freire's eyes
- attention to the idea of "the roles we are cast in" as students and teachers
Evidence
- facile use of Freire's terms via both direct quotes and summaries
- a clear and well-rounded narrative
Conventions
- consistently correct word choices, spelling, punctuation, grammar, paragraphs
- a readable and coherent form
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Sample Workshopping Guide
FORMAT
1. The rough draft to be discussed should be read aloud by the writer, who should be present for the entire workshop process.
2. Readers should be specific in their criticisms, and speak directly to the writer.
3. The writer is under no obligation to respond to the readers, though an occasional explanation may be necessary.
4. The readers should know the specific needs of the writer in two contexts: the demands of the writing assignment and the writer's own personal agenda. If the assignment is unknown to the rest of the class, then it will need to be explained; if it is a common assignment, then readers will already understand its demands. Additionally, if the writer prefers more feedback on a particular aspect of the draft, this request should be made beforehand.
GENERAL STRATEGIES
The main goal of the workshop is to enable the writer to more effectively convey his or her ideas. To that end, keep these five main issues in mind:
1. Writers may need to write more reader-oriented (rather than writer-oriented) prose.
2. Writers may need to place key ideas in up front and highlighted positions.
3. Writers may need to distinguish between purpose (reasons for writing) and result (argument).
4. Writers may need to unpack, deflate, decompress, and simplify sentences.
5. Writers may need to be vigilant about both common and personal "little-picture" pattern errors.
WORKSHOP RESPONSE FORM
After you read the paper carefully, prepare for the workshop by responding to the following questions. Write on a separate piece of paper; place your name in the upper right hand corner and the author’s name on the first line on the left.
1. What is your overall reaction to the essay? Select three passages in the essay to which you had a strong or interesting reaction. Describe your reactions. You do not need to interpret why you feel the way you do at this point.
2. What is (are) the main point(s)? Summarize as succinctly as possible. Can you distinguish between the reasons for writing (purpose) and argument (result)?
3. What evidence does the writer offer to support his/her argument? Is that evidence sufficient and convincing? Where is it convincing, and where not?
4. Offer specific suggestions for revision. Write out your suggestions as completely as you can, because not everyone will get a chance to cover these in the workshop session. If you were the instructor of this course, what advice would you give to the writer?
  1. subject matter points to be considered
  2. writing or language points to be considered (select a sentence you think might be revised, and revise it)
Sample Response to Rough Drafts
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON FIRST ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS
Because of the large number of rough drafts, I've put together a general guide to rewriting. Some or all of these points may apply to your drafts: see my notes on your essays. If you need more specific feedback, schedule a conference with me.
1. It's important to make your reasons for writing as well as your argument clear. It helps to have a statement of purpose somewhere in the first hundred words, so that your audience (the known community of unknown individuals called college students) understands why this essay is even being written. Likewise, it also helps to have a thesis or hypothesis early on as well. These argumentative signposts should point not only toward the results of the analysis (i.e., how you "read" your classroom experience), but also toward the driving question of "the roles you were cast in" in the learning situation described.
2. An adequate summary presentation of Freire's ideas is essential for making the essay work. You can't assume that your audience knows Freire. You need to provide relevant textual references (terms and definitions, as well as the parameters of Freire's larger agenda) before you apply them in analysis. If, in the course of the essay, you use a previously unused term or definition from Freire, it must be defined at that time.
3. It's important to pay attention to the issue of "the roles we are cast in as teachers and students." This point will let you generalize from the specific educational incident you're portraying toward the larger concerns of a democratic society. What happens when a banking student leaves the classroom? How does that contrast to the ways in which a problem posing student (i.e., one inclined toward critical thinking) would interact with the world outside school? (For Freire, what happens in the classroom is reflected in the culture at large, and vice versa.)
4. Please remember that it's not your job in this essay to "solve the educational problem in this country today." You don't need to make recommendations or suggest alternative approaches to education: simply analyze your own experience and suggest its possible larger implications.
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Programs and Areas

Second Year Writing Program

Sample Course Materials

Overview

Sample Course Description and Syllabus

Small Group Work Guidelines

Sample Statement on Evaluation and Assessment

Sample First Assignment & Assessment Rubric

Sample Workshopping Guide

Sample Response to Rough Drafts