First Class Nerves

I just met with Ms. Furby who will be working with me in my English 101 section. We discussed what the course was going to be like, what the requirements would be, and what we anticipate as we began the semester. Just as Dr. Randle talks about in his first blog entry, the unknown of the new semester is a bit unnerving. This section of English 101 is experimental in several respects. We obviously think that the experiments are going to move us and our students in the right and necessary directions in writing, but there is always the possibility that there will be glitches or that activities that we think should work, simply won't.

So like every good "researcher," I have to be content that some things will work--and work well--and others will need to be revised. In fact, that is a lot like the writing process. Good ideas need to be "translated" into clear communication. Sometimes I have an idea about how a class should go, but when I'm in the class, things turn out differently. That happens in writing as well. Even this blog entry has changed since I first started writing it.

So we are all approaching the start of classes with the same feelings, wondering what will work, wondering how it will work, wondering what we will do when they don't work. Luckily, we will have time to conference, to revise, to rework and re-present as we go along.

Evaluation and Engagement

Yesterday, the English department had a day long workshop devoted to English 101. Specifically we discussed ideas about how to evaluate and respond consistently to student writing and how to get students more engaged in the writing process. What we discovered is that we as faculty shared some common ideas about what we wanted to see in good student writing: clarity and complexity of thoughts, good organization and presentation of those thoughts, careful attention to grammar and mechanics during the final editing steps. What we also discovered is that we often use different language to talk about these common ideas with students. The result of using those different terms, we speculate, probably leads students to think that we are talking about a range of issues in writing and not the same basic ones.

How do we solve that? Well, yesterday's workshop was a step in that direction. We began to discuss whether we should start trying to use a common language and whether we should use a common rubric for essay evaluation. I may experiment with some rubrics this semester, and I may enlist the help of the students to construct a usable rubric for essay evaluation.

We also talked about how to get students engaged in the writing process. At one point we were asked what our "wish list" for students might be; what would we change about our students if we could? Nearly all of us mentioned that we would like students more connected and enthusiastic about improving their writing. Now, I fully realize that part of that enthusiasm and engagement has to be provided by me. I have to create a class that "matters" before students will understand how writing "matters." But beyond that, we talked about how to conduct conferences, peer review sessions, and even one on one appointments so that we move forward on improving writing and do not simply keep rehearsing what makes writing bad. I am thinking about some of the ideas that were presented and am going to try to implement them in my Eng 101 class.

But I need some help. What are the best ways to engage students in this class? What works in composition and what doesn't? What are the best characteristics we should be looking for in academic writing? How can I make "writing matter"?

First Thoughts

This morning, Dr. Jordan, Dr. Price and I had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel on I-55 in Jackson. We had a lot to talk about: faculty workshops, ways to evaluate student writing, and plans for English 101. Among the items we discussed was the idea of having students blogging about their first semester freshmen experiences at Mississippi College in light of one of the five developmental goals of the MC missions statement: intellectual development, spiritual development, social development, emotional development, and physical development.

Somewhere in the discussion one of us suggested that we, as professors, should be blogging too. This would allow us to participate in the same experience, but from a different perspective. So, here we go.

Each week, I'm going to pick an event from that week that affected me in one of the five developmental areas. And I'm going to blog about it, trying to reflect on it, offer it to you and see if you have comments or responses to it.

Of course, for this week I've already picked the event: the Cracker Barrel breakfast discussion. It was a lively exchange as the three of us brainstormed ideas, asked questions, clarified out positions, laughed, puzzled, and thought about what would work and what wouldn't. We expressed some fears about the blogging assignment. We expressed some hopes about what would come from it as well.

Personally, I think this will be an interesting discipline for me, helping me to take time each week to think back over the week and say something about how this week has shaped me in relationship to my idea of mission at Mississippi College. Thanks for reading the start of this adventure. Who knows where it will end in December?