Blog #7 Review of Portfolio Components and Space for Samples of Staged Student Essays and Final Journal Reflection

Hi Everyone!

Thank you for participating in our first ever WID for Adjuncts Online.  I am pasting in below the list of requirements for your WID Portfolio, some, most or all of which you have already posted in individual blogs here.  Everything you have completed will be reviewed and as soon as all parts are completed, we will send you your WID Certificate.

Please use this space to upload a (strong) sample of a student's staged essay (you may remove student's name, or ask his/her permission.  I will write a permission/waiver note and paste it below in so you can copy it!

Also please post a reflection on the research process (your final journal entry)--what worked well?  what would you change? And we welcome any final thoughts on the WID process--suggestions and what worked well for you. As this was our first online effort, we are interested in making this process a good one so your thoughts are welcome.

For those of you who cannot post a staged essay at this point, we will keep this site open and you may post it when your students have completed the assignment.

Here is a review of the WID Portfolio components we have staged on this blog:

1. Copy of your WIDed syllabus* 

2. Copies of low stakes writing assignments included on your new syllabus

3. Samples of well-executed student work

4. Excerpts from your teaching journal (reflections on blog)

5. Copy of staged writing assignment--detailed, all stages and process

6. Indication on syllabus that this is writing intensive course, that there will be writing every week and that writing will count for 20% of the grade.  (This is a college requirement for WI courses.)

*I made a section of the tabs on top of our blog for your WIDed syllabi.  If you send them to me I will post them.  I have also made a tab for samples of student work (primarily the staged essay).  As soon as you have a digital version of a fairly strong essay, please forward to me and I will upload that too.

Also thank you to our Writing Fellows for commenting on faculty work and sharing their own ideas for writing intensive assignments!

Blog # 6: Complete Staged Writing Assignment and Rubric

This is your final Blog for WID Online.  Please read Bean, Chapter 14 "Using Rubrics to Develop and Apply Grading Criteria" and Chapter 9, "Helping Students Read Difficult Texts." 

For this blog you will need to post a staged essay for your course.  e would like you to design and share the stages of this assignment on the blog.  Students may do one longer staged essay or two (or more) shorter pieces that are combined with a reflection.

As you are creating the essay(s) topic(s) you should develop a basic rubric for it using Bean's models or creating your own. (Bean's generic rubric appears on page 271, but you should create one that fits your staged essay well.)

Writing Fellows and I will help you with this process and are available for blog or email conversations about all parts of your WID portfolio.  With the completion of this blog, and the addition of samples of student work (which I will make a space for in Blog # 7) your portfolio should be complete.  

A document entitled "WID Staged Writing Assignment Guidelines" may be found under course documents.

 Please feel free to reach out to us on the blog and if anyone wants to meet to discuss this assignment, please contact me through the blog or at vanph@lagcc.cuny.edu. and I or one of the Writing Fellows will meet with you.

Blog # 5: Staging a Major Writing Assignment

Faculty creating writing intensive courses at LaGuardia are teaching either Urban Studies or Capstone courses.  Both call for a staged writing assignment.  The capstone also requires research.  To begin developing a staged writing assignment, please read Bean, Chapter 13, "Designing and Sequencing Assignments to Teach Undergraduate Research."  If you are not teaching research, specifically, read the chapter selectively.  Here are some recommended sections that will help you with your assignments:

1.  Examples of critical thinking (short) assignments that can be blended into longer assignment: pp. 242-244.
2.  Recommendation memo: p. 234.
3.  Skills and Knowledge Needed to Produce Expert Insider Prose in a Discipline: p. 254

For those teaching the research essay, the following may be especially helpful:
Backward Design Assignment Sequence: p. 246

YOUR BLOG ASSIGNMENT WILL BE TO CREATE, POST, TRY OUT AND REFLECT UPON ONE SHORTER ASSIGNMENT THAT WILL LEAD TO (BE BLENDED INTO) LARGER ESSAY.

(In Blog # 6 you will submit all parts of that staged essay assignment and, at end of semester, include uploaded samples of student work.)

Blog # 4: Responding to Student Work

Please Read Bean, Chapter 5: Coaching the Writing Process and Handling the Paper Load and Richard Haswell's "Minimal Marking." (See course documents.)  Also watch the 8 minute film "Beyond the Red Ink" in which students respond to teachers' comments on their essays.  Here is the url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XluNo599LMY.

For this two-part blog, first share your current practices in responding to student writing.  Then, after reading Bean, Haswell and listening to Bunker Hill CC students in video, what new ideas do you have that might make your grading practices better?  What aspects of the reading and viewing helped you the most, even suggested ways of making your grading practice easier, clearer, more effective?

Blog # 3:Designing Problem Based Writing Assignments

Hello WID Faculty:  for your third blog please read Bean Chapter 6, Formal Writing Assignments, where he focuses on how to create "problem-based assignments to promote critical thinking and active engagement with course subject matter" (89).  This chapter is rich in suggestions on how to vary assignment design (p. 92), how to start with micro-themes (pp. 112-113) and how to design "meaning constructing" tasks by giving students a RAFT (role, audience, format, task) and a TIP (task as intriguing problem) (pp. 98-99).  Take time to browse through this chapter and then begin by designing a micro-theme that fits the material of your course (like the Dear Dr. Science one on p 112).  Share that assignment on the blog, try it out in class and return to blog to share how it went.  We will move to a more formal assignment (still encouraging critical thinking) in our next blog.

Blog #2: Classroom Strategies--Designing Tasks to Promote Active Thinking and Learning

Please read Chapter 8 of Bean's Engaging Ideas, "Designing Tasks to Promote Active Thinking and Learning."  After reviewing Bean's "Ten Strategies for Critical Thinking Tasks (beginning on page 151), write a two part blog reflection: 1.  What approaches do you already use in your course to encourage active learning in the classroom?  What has worked thus far and what hasn't? What Bean strategies do you think would most benefit your students (and are most relevant to your course)?

Please follow up this reflection and reading by designing an activity specific to your course that employs one or more of Bean's strategies.  Post that activity here after your reflection.  Please try to post by October 16, one week from today.  (This activity, like your low stakes assignment in blog #1, will form part of your WID portfolio).  After you have tried out this activity in class, return to this post and add a reflection on how it went, how you would refine it for next semester.

Note: On the subject of active thinking and learning, if you have time, take a look at Ken Bain's Chapter under course documents, "What the Best College Teachers Do."  WID participants have found his essay provocative, convincing and helpful.