English 7506X
Spring 2016
Wed., 4:30-6:10
jmoser@brooklyn.cuny.edu
website: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/moser

Required Text: All readings will be available online

Syllabus
Course Description: This course will introduce you to scholarship in the field of composition studies and allow you to use knowledge of historical and contemporary movements in composition in preparing to teach the first-year composition course. At each meeting, there will be a discussion of the assigned readings (with students taking turns leading the discussion) and a practical application of theory.

By the end of the semester, students will:

• be familiar with scholarly journals in the field and
• will have read articles that represent major theoretical concepts in composition studies over the last forty years, including but not limited to conversations from such fields as rhetoric, approaches to grammar, cultural studies, women's studies, psychology (social, cognitive, educational), critical theory, assessment, new technologies.
• be familiar with some of the textbooks and materials available for teaching freshman composition
• draft sample syllabi for a first-year composition course.
• apply theories presented in the readings to practical assignments
  
  Course Requirements:
• 1. This course meets once a week and much depends on your active participation. You are allowed one absence; each successive absence will result in a lowered grade for the course. If there are emergencies, please let me know.
  1. Five 1-2 page response papers, related to that week's reading, submitted before class and used as starting points for class discussion. These responses may take a variety of forms: questioning, supporting, amplifying, applying theories represented in the reading. YOU MAY CHOOSE TO WRITE ON ANY 5 ARTICLES---BUDGET YOUR TIME AND INTERESTS ACCORDINGLY.
  2. Each week, one student will be responsible for leading the class discussion with a 15-minute presentation based on one of the assigned readings for that week. Since we will assume that everyone has read that week's essays, discussion leaders will refrain from summarizing the main arguments of the readings and will instead fashion class discussion around questions or problems encountered in the reading.
  3. In-class assignment design: in response to discussion of readings (small group work).
  4. Literacy narrative, in class writing, first day of class.
  5. Statement of teaching philosophy --- due last day of class. Search Google for "sample teaching statements pdf from Yale Center for Teaching" for a link to some interesting ways of framing your teaching statement.
  and Rob Jenkins, "A Philosophy of Teaching," http://chronicle.com/article/A-Philosophy-of-Teaching/129060/.
  6. Journal research: Choose one of the theories we've discussed in class and find a recent (post-2008) article in a comp/rhet journal that echoes, elaborates on, or refutes that position. 3-5 pages. Click on this link for a list of current journals: http://rhetoric.eserver.org/ Due: Mar. 23 by email (this is a conversion day---follow a Friday schedule)
  7. Final project: Choose one of the suggested topics below or, if you have an idea for a different topic, consult me.
  a. Devise an annotated syllabus for either English 1010 or English 1012. This should be a syllabus that you would be happy to use when you actually teach the class. It should contain all the elements that we've discussed in class, including but not limited to course objectives, texts, week-by-week topics and assignments; evaluation criteria. For class presentation: teach a 15-minute sample from your syllabus.
  b. Write a paper that you would submit for a regional or national composition conference or to a scholarly journal in the field. For class presentation: deliver the paper.
  c. Create a website for either English 1010 or 1012. This could be an amplified online version of topic 1, with visuals, links to supplementary materials and sites, interactive blogs, etc. For class presentation.
  d. Report on a current discussion in composition theory, summarizing the main arguments on both sides and entering the debate with your own arguments. To be presented in class.
  e. Text book analysis for either English 1010 or 1012. Choose at least 3 texts and analyze the pedagogical underpinnings, strengths and weaknesses, similarities and differences, level of difficulty, appropriateness of inappropriateness of the material in each text for use in our freshman English course. For class presentation.
  
  
• Grades:
  20% -- response papers
  15% ---philosophy of teaching
  20%---participation
  15%---journal research paper
  30%---final project and presentation
  
  
  Good site for overview of comp theory: http://www.english.ohiou.edu/cifer/cifer_theory5
  

Tentative schedule:
Week 1, Feb.3: Introductions and beginnings. Syllabus. Composition experiences. Snapshot of student population in freshman English.
Literacy narrative--written and shared in class.
Sign up for discussion leaders.

Week 2, Feb.10: What composition studies can do for you......
Stanley Fish, "What Should College Teach?" (NYT, 2009) Discussion leader: Monika
Patricia Bizzell, "Composition Studies Saves the World," College English 72.2 (2009): 174-87. Discussion leader: Stacy

Week 3, Feb. 17: .Overveiw of composition studies
Fulkerson, "Composition at the Turn of the 21st Century"" CCC 56.4 (2005): 654-87. Discussion leader: Kevin

Week 4, Feb. 24: Process and cognitivists
Anson, Chris, "Process Pedagogy and its Legacy," 212-226. Discussion leader: Andre

Week 5, Mar. 2: Faigley, Lester. "Competing theories of process." College English 48.6 (1986) 527-42. Discussion leader: Mac
Flower and Hayes, "The Cognition of Discovery: Defining a Rhetorical Problem." CCC 1980 Discussion leader: Michael M.

In class: sample student essay; craft writing assignment that is based on process theory

Week 6: Mar. 9: Social constructivists
Ann George, "Critical Pedagogy: Dreaming of Democracy" , (forgive the underlinings---they aren't mine. I have clean hard copies for you on Wednesday). 92-112, Michael S.

Supplementary reading:
Ira Shor, "Critical Pedagogy is Too Big to Fail".
Trimbur, John. "Taking the Social turn: Teaching Writing Post-Process" CCC45.1 (1994) 108-18

Week 7: Mar. 16: What is academic writing?; expressivism; academic discourse
Discussion of Elbow/Bartholomae, Find Online:
Elbow, "Learning without Writing Teachers" Discussion leader: Alexandra
"Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow CCC, vol. 46, No. 1 (Feb. 1995), 62-71; 84-92.
Bartholomae, "Inventing the University" Discussion leader: Kristen
Rose, Mike, "Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University," College English 47.4 (1985), 341-59. (book 586) Discussion leader: Bella

AND---here's an essay by David Foster Wallace that you may find interesting

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html

In practice: Assignment design from Oscar Wao based on Bartholomae and Elbow readings

DUE Mar. 23 (Conversion day---follow a Friday schedule; this assignment is due by midnight by email) : Journal article summary and analysis due: 4-5 pages, must date from after 2008 (the links to current journals in the first section of this web page are for journals with online archives up until 2008.
This should be a three-part response: 1. Place the article in the context of its critical approach (expressionism, process, product, cultural studies, Marxism, academic discourse, etc.); 2.summarize the article; 3. analyze how this author fits with previous scholarship---what does the author bring to the debate, what's derivative, what's new, and what do you think of his/her contribution.

OR: Look at an entire year in a composition journs (CCC, College English, Journal of Basic Writing, CEA Forum, Composition Studies, Teaching English in the Two-Year College, etc.) and discuss, with specific examples, an over-arching theme of that year. How does this theme relate to composition concerns that we've discussed?

Week 8, Mar. 30: Collaborative learning
Read Bruffee, "Collaborative Learning.pdf'" Discussion leader: Jon
Rebecca Moore Howard, "Collaborative Pedagogy."
Guest speaker: Heidi Diehl

In practice: Design an assignment for small group work

Week 9: Apr. 6: Responding to and evaluating student essays
Sommers, Nancy. "Revision Strategies of student writers and Experienced Adult Writers" CCC 31.4 (1980) 378=88. (ook 323) Discussion leader: Elizabeth
Sommers, "Responding to Student Writing" CCC 33.2 (1982), 146-156 Discussion leader: Kelly
http://www.jowr.org/articles/vol1_2/JoWR_2009_vol1_nr2_Patchan_et_al.pdf

In practice: Sample student paper for grading and commenting.

Week 10:Apr. 13 Second-language learners:
Ortmeier-Hooper, C. "English May Be My Second Language but I'm not ESL." CCC 59,3 (Feb2008), 389-419. Discussion leader: Priscilla

Week 11: Apr 20: Multimedia; technology in the composition classroom.
Clark, Elizabeth J. Digital Imperative in Computers and Composition 27.1 (March 2010), 27-35 Discussion leader: Adesh

Week 12: May 4: Textbooks and syllabi. .Discussion leader: Anna

In class: evaluate sample textbooks
Look at the Brooklyn College composition website for sample syllabi. Download and print out one sample syllabus you would adopt.
Be prepared to discuss the strong and weak points of the syllabi.

IF YOU WANT THE CLASS TO REVIEW YOUR STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY, BRING 4 COPIES TO CLASS ON MAY 11.

Weeks 13, 14, 15: (May 11, 18, 25). Presentations: sign up by email. 20 minute time limit.

May 11: Kelly, Kevin, Bella, Andre
May 18:
May 25: Monika, Michael S., Adesh

Final papers due by Tuesday, May 31 by email, or hard copies due by Wednesday, May 25 (last class meeting)

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