Spring 2005 Advance Course Information

This information effective for Spring 2005. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Writing Program

[WRIT-203]

For information on other Spring 2005 writing courses, go to

http://humwww.ucsc.edu:16080/writing/CourseDescriptionsMain.html

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203. Teaching Writing 1

Note: This is last year's syllabus and dates and assignments are subject to change for Spring 2005.

Instructors:
Virginia Draper
Office: Porter D116
Home: 426-8284; vdraper@ucsc.edu
Office hours: by appointment

Elizabeth Abrams
Office: Porter D116
Office: 459-4188; esabrams@ucsc.edu
Office hours: WF 11-12 and by appt

Course Description:

This course prepares graduate students to teach undergraduate writing courses by introducing them to current approaches to teaching writing and to practical strategies that apply not only in composition courses, but also throughout the curriculum. This course (or its equivalent) is required for graduate students who wish to be eligible to teach Writing 1, Composition and Rhetoric, at UCSC.

Texts: (Available at Bay Tree Bookstore)

The readings provide both theoretical contexts and practical advice to inform our inquiry into writing development. They may or may not be discussed in our class meetings. You should skim over everything in a week's assignments in order to choose what you will read carefully now and what you will come back to later. Some readings you can think of as reference materials to use as needed when you are teaching writing. Some of the more theoretical readings will help construct a way of thinking about the enterprise now and will have increased relevance later as you think more about teaching—and, perhaps, when you interview for a teaching job and want to brush up.

Requirements:

Participation in ten seminar meetings (we will meet at our regular time during exam week) and group conferences. Because we only meet once a week, regular attendance (no more than one absence) is required for successful completion of the course.

Coursework:

• An ongoing Reading Notebook with responses to course reading and reflections on topics/issues that come up
• Facilitation of discussion or other activity in class
• A Writer's Autobiography (informal writing), due Meeting 2
• Oral review of a Writing textbook with 2-page written synopsis and critique (copies for the class), due Meeting 3
• Oral critique of a writing assignment from another course with 1-2 pages of informal written comment, due Meeting 4
• Written responses to student writing, as assigned for Meeting 6 and Meeting 8
• Class observations: two visits to a Writing 1 class by week 6 and an informal interview with the teacher; an oral reflection on your observations in light of course reading and discussions, with 2-3 pages of informal written comment, due Meeting 7
• Syllabus Project: You will design a Writing 1 Syllabus and write a rationale, noting what you want your students to achieve (your goals), and what activities you plan to help them achieve these goals. Your plans will include writing assignments and activities to assist students with those assignments. Your rationale will explain your choices of focus or inquiry, goals, assignments and their sequences, and class activities. Note why you chose to organize the course the way you did, why you have selected particular readings, and what relationships you see (and will ask students to explore) between the readings and the writing you will ask students to do. The rationale should draw upon course readings and discussions to explain your choices.

The Syllabus Project will be due in stages:

• Description and rationale for a possible writing assignment and activity sequence involving reading and writing (3-4 pages): Locate this assignment in the context of your course and describe the activities you will assign and/or do in class to engage students in the reading/writing processes at this point in the course. Explain the relationships between the readings, activities, and the writing assignment; and note the assumptions or theories that guided your choices. (Your explanations could be a cover page, an end page, or inserted throughout in a different font.) Due Meeting 5, April 26
• Draft syllabus and rationale due Meeting 9, May 24
• Complete project due at last meeting, June 7.

Spring 2004 Class Schedule

(Note: This is last year's schedule and dates and assignments are subject to change for Spring 2005)

Meeting 1, March 29

Introductions: to each other, to the course, to the field of teaching writing.
Why teach writing? What is teaching Writing? Composition and Rhetoric?
Writing 1 at UCSC: What it is, its relation to the university

Meeting 2, April 5

What we bring to our classrooms, and what students bring to our classrooms
Designing a writing course; sample syllabi
Textbooks: rhetorics, anthologies, handbooks, style manuals
Voices of Experience: Teaching Fellows Erin Kraal, Earth Sciences; Alexis Shotwell, History of Consciousness; Denise Silva, Literature.
Writer's autobiography due

Reading:
What students bring to our classrooms
WL: Introduction and Ch. 1 "What Students Bring to Our Classrooms"
Rdgs: Rose, "The Politics of Remediation"
Trimble, "Superstitions"
Wiley, "The Popularity of Formulaic Writing (and Why We Need to Resist)"
Wesley, "The Ill Effects of the Five Paragraph Theme"

Perspectives on what the enterprise is; course design
WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition
NB: Introduction: "Locating Freshman English"
Ch. 1 "Charting a Course in First-Year English"
ECW: Ch. 2 "A Map of Writing in Terms of Audience and Response"
WL: Ch. 13 "Writing Requirements and Courses at UCSC"
Rdgs: Irmscher, "Why Teach Writing Anyway?" "What Do We Do When We Teach Writing?" and "Acknowledging Intuition"
Lindemann, "Designing Writing Courses"

Meeting 3, April 12

Composing processes; assisting students during these processes: beginnings, drafts
Designing assignments and assignment sequences
Reading and writing, connections; the roles of reading in a writing class
Text review due

Reading:
NB: Ch. 4 "Using Reading in the Writing Classroom"
ECW: Ch. 13 "The War Between Reading and Writing—and How to End It"
Ch. 16 "High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing"
Ch. 17 "breathing Life into the Text"
WL: Ch. 2 "Getting Involved in the Process"
Ch. 3 "Writing and Thinking: Engaging Students in Learning Through Writing"
Ch. 4 "Designing Assignments"
Rdgs: Middleton and Reiff, "A 'Student-Based' Approach to Writing Assignments"
Lindemann, "Developing Writing Assignments"
Slevin, "Some Suggestions for Devising Writing Assignments"
Gottschalk, "Preparing Essay Assignments"

WWW: Gordon Harvey on Writing With Sources: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~expos/sources/

Meeting 4, April 19

Assignment design and composing, continued
Kinds of writing students do in Writing 1
Genres: exposition, argument, critical analysis; research-based investigatory papers; personal, reflective, interpretive, expository essays, etc.
Topic, thesis, purpose; audience.
Critique of writing assignment from another class due

Reading:
NB: Ch. 5 "Teaching the Research Paper"
ECW: Ch. 11 "Reflections on Academic Discourse"
Ch. 17 "Breathing Life into the Text"
Rdgs: Williams, "Crimes Without Passion"
Excerpts from Textbooks:
Klooster and Bloem, "Summaries: Gist, Outline and Abstract"
Packer and Timpane, "Critical Reading"
Sontag, Introduction to The Best American Essays 1992
Axelrod and Cooper, "A Guide to Writing Position Papers"
Rottenberg, "Understanding Argument"
TBH: John Bean on types of writing assignments
TBH: Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices

Meeting 5, April 26

Class activities (sequenced to make assignments succeed)
Journals, heuristics, freewriting, rewriting
Using Technology in Writing 1
Invited guests: Lecturers Roz Spafford and Derede Arthur
Writing assignment with reading/writing activity sequence due

Reading:
NB: Ch. 3 "Exercises for Discovery, Experiment, Skills and Play"
ECW: Ch. 5 "Closing My Eyes as I Speak"
Ch. 6 "Toward a Phenomenology of Freewriting"
Ch. 18 "Using the Collage for Collaborative Writing"
Rdgs: Ponsot and Deen, "Working With Writing in Class"
Howard and Jamieson, "Assigning and Evaluating Journals"
Moran, "Technology and the Teaching of Writing"

Meeting 6, May 3

Peer responses and writing groups
Responding to papers in writing and in conferences
Responses to student papers due

Reading:
Peer Writing Groups
WL: Ch. 7 "Peer Responders and Writing Groups"
Rdgs: Strang, "Product and Process: The Author-led Workshop"
George, "Working with Peer Groups in the Composition Classroom"
Draper, "Writing Response Groups: From Power Trips to Empowerment"

Responding to papers
NB: Ch. 2 "Conferences and Workshops: Conversations on Writing in Process"
Ch. 7 "Evaluation as Acts of Reading, Response and Reflection"
WL: Ch. 5 "Responding to and Evaluating Students' Papers"
Rdgs: Bolker, "Reflections on Reading Student Writing"
Lindemann, "Responding to Student Writing"
Freedman, "The Impromptu Conference"
Elbow and Belanoff, "Summary of Ways of Responding"
Freeman, "The Challenges of Assessing Writing"
TBH: John Bean on efficient conferences

Meeting 7, May 10

Language use: grammar, usage, style, expanding choices
Revising, editing, proofreading
Goals and Purposes of Writing 1; Writing 1 and its relationships to university discourses

Reading:
On language use
NB: Ch. 6 "Editing: The Last Step in the Process"
Rdgs: Williams, "Understanding Style" and "Correctness"
Trimble, "Readability"
Robinson, "Sentence Focus, Cohesion, and the Active and Passive Voices"
Dawkins, "Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool" (optional)
ECW: Ch. 15 "Inviting the Mother Tongue" (also relates to goals and university discourses)
Rdgs: Delpit, "The Silenced Dialogue (also relates to goals and university discourses)

On goals and university discourses
ECW: Re-read "Reflections on Academic Discourse"
Rdgs: Smith, "Students' Goals, Gatekeeping, and Some Questions of Ethics"
Herzberg, "Composition and the Politics of the Curriculum"
Wall & Coles, ""Reading Basic Writing: Alternatives to a Pedagogy of Accommodation"
TBH: WPA Outcomes Statement (This is listed in week 2, but apparently we didn't hand it out then. Which class do we want to assign it or use it?)

Please bring to class this revised syllabus, Ginny's Writing 1 syllabus, and your calendars for the week of May 24, so we can set up group conference times.

Meeting 8, May 17

Language Use, continued—ESL/Bilingual issues
Working with ESL and Generation 1.5 Writers
Invited guest: Lecturer Nancy Krusoe: 1:10-2:30

Reading:
WL: Ch. 6 "How to Help Students for Whom English is a Second or Third Language"
Rdgs: Zamel, "Strangers in Academia: The Experiences of Faculty and ESL Students Across the Curriculum"
Harris and Silva, "Tutoring ESL Students: Issues and Options"
Leki, "Responding to ESL Writers"

Meeting 9, May 24

Goals and Purposes of Writing 1 revisited; Historical and current contexts
Invited Guests: Lecturers Carol Freeman and Don Rothman, 2:15-3:30

Reading:
Rdgs: hooks, "Confronting Class in the Classroom"
Moss and Walters, "Rethinking Diversity"
Hjortshoj, "Being There"

May 31, No Class: Memorial Day Holiday

Meeting 10, June 7 (Exam Week)

Concerns and ongoing debates
Rdgs: Roemer, et al. "Reframing the Great Debate on First-Year Writing"

Final syllabus and rationale due.
Bring food if you'd like—let's be festive!

Class Activities

Workshop on working with students with learning disabilities
Discussion of the "Great Debate"
WRIT 203 course evaluation

Other possibilities:

Some things we haven't been able to get to—some of them a lot of fun.

If you teach Writing 1, what do you think you will want or need to develop and sustain you and your work? Before you meet your first class? After you meet your first class?

How has what you've done and learned in this class affected how you look at your own discipline? Yourself as a writer?

How has your disciplinary work shaped your plans for a Writing 1?

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