Nichole's Weblog

Rubrics

As an adjunct teacher with many other responsibilities, I’ve tried to memorize and apply every technique for becoming a quicker grader I’ve heard throughout the years.  Someone once suggested only grading for a few things at a time per paper since (1) it’s quicker, of course, and (2) students learn better when they can concentrate on only a few issues at a time.  So I’ve tried to make that my practice. For each assignment, though I may mark a few extra things on the paper to let students know about things they can think about for future papers, I only evaluate and figure into the grade a few certain items that I announce beforehand.  Since each assignment is different and tests different things, my rubric changes. 

For example, in an “academic essay” with an audience of English teachers, I teach the dreaded 5-paragraph essay and MLA format.  The requirements for that paper are:

• MLA      format (heading, font, spacing, margins, etc.)
• 5-P      structure (thesis statement, topic sentences, paragraph coherence)
• formal      diction (no 1^st person, no contractions, few grammar mistakes, etc.)     

Accordingly, my rubric is pretty simple for that assignment: Each topic sentence and thesis statement is worth a letter grade, so if students have all those elements, they automatically begin with an A. From there, MLA format and language are each worth a letter grade as well, though only if there are enough mistakes to be really distracting. I confess that I use minuses and pluses to let students know that they barely made this grade and need to work harder next time or to give a little extra encouragement.

Then, in another assignment, say a persuasive business letter, I’ll be looking for different things—for example, adherence to business letter format (no indentations, brevity, heading, and so on), articulate argument, things like that. 

But I’ve never created anything as thorough as the CPE grading rubric—I’ve just sort of kept a scale in my head, but maybe that’s not as fair as a rubric.  I do give my students a list of exactly what things I’m looking for ahead of time, but perhaps something really thorough like the CPE rubric would take away some of the anxiety of waiting to get their papers back and give them a better idea of what kind of grade they’ll receive.

Teaching Philosophy

Thought maybe I should post this:

“There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” –Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

 88% of statistics are made up on the spot. Including that one. We continually receive messages, and accept many of them without question. In my English composition classes, I stress doubting as the means for what Paulo Freire calls conscientization—coming to a mature, understanding relationship with the communication around us and being willing to engage with and challenge it, including even the messages coming from myself, the teacher.

 Recent understanding of texts has extended beyond mere verbal media, so we are not limited to reading words in my class. We begin with exercises in reading body language, weather, charts, tone of voice, and even styles of jeans. I like to put off the first paper for a few weeks because a very important part of communication is, rather then simply waiting for a turn to speak, actually listening before responding.  We start out with only summaries of items they read because, as one of my students once said, “You have two ears and one mouth, so you should listen twice as much as you speak.” Later, though, I invite them to respond in writing to the texts we view/read in weekly “responses” (I’m particularly resistant to calling them journals because students can never truly journal when I’ll be reading it). 

 The other end of communication is the audience reception, so I place every assignment in an authentic writing context in which students are graded by how well they accommodate their audience.  Our first paper is an analysis of a magazine advertisement, and the audience is an English professor, indicating requirements like MLA formatting and a clear thesis statement. The next assignment is an argumentative article geared toward an audience of their peers, for publication and circulation in a mini-magazine across campus. This assignment invites home discourses and inventive problem-solving. Third, their last major writing assignment (before departmental final exams) is a business letter of persuasion, in which they choose something regarding education that limits them (“never accept the unacceptable”), and they collaborate in groups of 3-4 to design a professional letter, suggesting solutions, and then make a group presentation to the class.

 However, teaching at a community college has recently led me to revise the end-of-the-semester “paper that incorporates sources.” I used to assign magazine articles written for the magazine of their choice, in which they would use magazine formatting, art, pull-out quotes and appropriate discourse. I really enjoyed getting those assignments in because they were so fun to read and evaluate; however, due to student interest at my college, I’ve switched to a Personal Research Paper. In this paper, students compile information on their chosen careers; this information ranges from the money, GPA and time that will be required of them to job market projections and the average age of retirement within their career choice. I’ve gotten some pretty enthusiastic thanks for this assignment, so I include it as an option at the end of the semester.

 The mark of a good teacher is when she has taught her students to question even her own assertions, so I encourage my students to challenge my statements and even my assignments. The result is that they have more of a hand in choosing course materials. By the end of the semester, our classes are comprised almost solely of the information that students bring about social issues and current events. In effect, they teach me, and I in turn challenge them to organize their thoughts into something they can communicate clearly. 

Reading vs. Writing in English 101

How do you think about the role of reading and writing in your courses--how do you connect reading or writing assignments to your course goals?

I'm not sure how I feel about assigning reading in composition class.  I used to assign tons of reading, but that was when I was fresh out of my masters program, having been taught mostly by a very Bartholomae-ish professor.  If students can only learn how to join the conversations by imitating models, I believed, then there was no option in the matter: they must read a lot, even though it was a writing course.  Now at CUNY, though, I've been influenced by Sondra Perl and Ira Shor, who both lean toward light reading, but for different reasons.  Perl stresses that it's a writing class, so why spend all that time reading?  And Shor espouses a type of literacy that transcends verbal texts ("reading the world"), so he assigns charts, brief newspaper articles, statistics, and things like that.

Besides those influences, I've moved away from assigning heavy readings because I realized I was just assigning all that work b/c I thought that was what teachers were supposed to do.  I didn't always tie in the readings with our discussions very well, b/c I didn't like them that much; more often, I simply felt obligated to assign lots of readings to justify requiring my students to buy such an expensive textbook. I very much like the idea Peter brought up in Bass's article of "being intentional," which is why I'm pleased with assigning fewer readings. Not only that, but in the last year, I've realized how busy my students are, especially at a community college, so I've tried to assign as little outside work as possible, meaning I've replaced our discussions of readings with time for the students to begin their papers.  I like this method because, one, it circumvents the writer's block that an empty, intimidating computer screen can inspire and, two, students can ask questions when they run into problems instead of guessing at home.

Consequently, I've cut down the readings as much as I could for English 101 with a few things in mind.  First, the next required English course will be focused on literature, so I don't have to assign "literary" texts (but what does that mean?, I know).  Instead, I assign lots of short articles and charts, like Shor.  Next, because I want to provide models of academic writing for my students, as Bartholomae suggests, I do give them examples of the kind of work I expect.  However, English 101 textbooks rarely contain academic essays (mostly personal narratives and reflective journalism), so the examples I provide are mainly successful student papers from past semesters.  Finally, because my class is indeed a composition course, like Perl, I focus on writing more than reading.  Now, I include lots of informal, in-class writing to help students practice articulating their thoughts in low-stakes assignments so that the words flow a little more freely in high-stakes writing.

Of course, I might swing the other way when I move back to a four-year institution, or perhaps here at QCC as I learn more about effective pedagogy. 

Bartholomae and Stearns

First part: parallel in literature and composition studies

I wondered if Bartholomae’s understanding of academic relations between students, professors and educational standards was to cognitive theory what deconstruction was to new criticism.  I mean that proponents of new criticism tried to depoliticize texts by neglecting to consider outside influences and moral or political statements, and instead limiting themselves to a scientific analysis of textual devices like irony, paradox and meter. A poem could be good or bad on its textual virtue alone.  Then deconstructionists came along and still focused on close readings but only in light of, as Barthes put it, what had already been said.  Thus, a poem was good or bad based on its context (all the “already written”), not its own virtue.

 

Likewise, the process movement before Bartholomae sought to depoliticize composition classes by limiting studies to the subjects doing the writing (scientific laboratory conditions, cognitive studies).  Bartholomae actually quotes Barthes in “Inventing the University” concerning the context in which students write: “The voices, the presence of the ‘already written,’ stand in defiance of a writer’s desire for originality and determine what might be said.  A writer does not write (and this is Barthes’s famous paradox) but is, himself, written by the languages available to him” (597). 

 

Second part: what I got from it

I don’t think Bartholomae took it this far, but one conclusion I reached in reading this essay was that, in acknowledging the context (power struggles) students are writing in, one can see the responsibility of the society for the failure of some students, rather than neurological flaws or LDs of individual students (who tend to come from working class backgrounds for some reason). I never thought about it before, but the special ed classes that are full of students of color are perpetuating the same old racism: these students are “inferior” based on “genetics,” not a societal structure that favors the manners and discourses of white, middle-class males (all problematic generalizations, I know).

 

Therefore, I like Bartholomae’s analysis and I agree that I should “equip” students with this academic discourse and “demystify” the manners that accompany and earn power. However, the problem I run into is that I’ll just be reifying this structure, won’t I? The conundrum: how to equip students for success in this structure while not supporting it.

 

Ironically, Stearns’s article doesn’t really acknowledge any political structuring of universities or even general education, though it’s written over 15 years after “Inventing the University.”  Stearns, like Bartholomae, doesn’t blame students for not knowing academic discourse (he blames their high school education), but he still doesn’t acknowledge that the “skills [and] habits of mind” (44) taught in general education are based on power structures.  Rather, he writes that they are inherently understood by people who are cultured enough “to appreciate a variety of issues, to think independently and critically, and to learn independently” (44).  Stearns appears to embrace Freire’s critical pedagogy by opposing “a factual coverage approach” (45); however, he fails to define why certain “habits of mind” are good and others bad. Though it was not Stearns’s intention to address power structures, I found his presuppositions and conclusions disturbing.

Syllabus Analysis

First of all, I never imagined a syllabus could communicate so much to students.  Never thought of analyzing them as texts. Very revealing exercise.

The MAD Syllabus:

The teaching philosophy seems to be a hands-on approach.  Students are expected to process in writing or try out nearly everything they’re taught in the lab.

I feel like students in this class are imagined as typical college “kids” who have continued their high school routines of attending classes but who need to consider that a real career awaits them.  The class seems to stress professionalization (résumé skills like Microsoft programs for “-future teachers-”) and maturity (presentation and respect).

The class seems to be both discipline-centered and student-centered, because the students learn both the “essentials” of this field (Babylonian numeration system, proper data collection) and excellent skills for personal development (studying tips, paper conservation). The professor appears to truly hope to usher the students into a professional capacity, rather than simply cover the material. The grading seems designed to assess how well the students can apply themselves instead of how much they can memorize—the midterm is a take-home exam and the final is an e-portfolio.  

I searched for something clever to say, but I can’t think of anything elkse I’d want to know about the course.  The syllabus is really informative. If I were a math student, I imagine I’d already know what MAD stands for.

The Telecommunications Syllabus:

The teaching philosophy seems to be something like “You don’t want to be here and I don’t want to be here, but let’s just get done with it.” Is that a legitimate teaching approach? What are some teaching philosophies, by the way?  I realize I don’t really know how to talk about this.  Are there words and categories that we can use to describe different approaches? I can only think of the “banking model” because I’ve read Freire’s article criticizing it and I know a little about “critical pedagogy,” but what else is there?  

I think these students are imagined as clueless and confused young people who need everything explained in detail. I felt like, if I were taking the course, I would be tempted to take on the persona of the lost student, perhaps feigning misunderstanding if I failed to do my work adequately. And sometimes it seems as though the professor “speaks down” (“you’d better read the following carefully”)—almost in a babysitter tone, or the older sibling who resents having to bring along little sis or bro (“I won’t like it any more than you will”).  

I honestly can’t identify this course as teacher-, student- or discipline-centered.  Could it be work-centered? It seems to be focused on simply getting the material covered, not necessarily teaching it.  I didn’t have a positive feeling about the class, like I did with the MAD syllabus, which inspired me and made me feel I would benefit from everything in the class. I did like the April Fool’s New Product release assignment, but it’s funny how the assignments seem like scams (“fool some magazine or newspaper” and a “trick” that “brings in some cash”). Even the WI assignment seems like a joke instead of a helpful exercise: “write down what you think of this whole WI concept.  Feel free to tell it like it is.”

As I read it, I wanted headings so I could identify sections quickly, especially when I re-read it and wanted to find information quickly. I also wondered how this class will benefit me in my other studies or my career, beyond knocking out another few credits.

... when learning took place.

My assignment: Describe a moment in one of your classes when learning took place (a vivid memory where you "saw" it happen).

Two come to mind: one in which I was the standard, inspiring teacher and one in which my students showed their stuff. I like the second one better, but the first is probably better for a portfolio.

1. It was the day I had students break up into groups to design their own cell phone ads—one geared toward businessmen, one toward housewives, and one toward Beyoncée fans.  As the groups each presented their ads to the class, demonstrating the cues to lead viewers’ eyes through the whole “story” of the ad and finally rest on the message, I saw lightbulbs coming on.  They were applying what we’d been studying in other ads, and they were getting it.  One student in particular lay back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest, nodding with a wisened look.  It was difficult for all the students to learn how to read a new text, of course, but this was the first time I saw this particular fellow connecting with any material at all.  When he came to me after class and announced he’d decided to go into graphic design, I couldn’t stop smiling.  I was extremely pleased to have helped someone connect with a passion of which he’d been previously unaware.

2. Last semester, I taught a night class at a community college.  Have you read the failure statistics at these campuses?  Less than 10% succeed!  And I think it’s because of the literacy myth out there in all those subway ads that promise to make them successful if they attend just 2 classes a week.  What a load.  It’s about personal contacts and cultural capital and all that.  And a little education. 

So I tried a new approach.  Second day of class, I had them get out their calculators: what’s ___% of 30 students?  12 students?  Ok, these two rows alone will return to continue their degree next year.  What’s ___%?  Ok, this aisle here will receive their Associates in the next 10 years.  And ___%?  Right, well, this guy here will be the only one to finish his two-year degree in two years. 

The looks I got that night!  It wasn’t that “young grasshopper” look—students lapping up my grand wisdom.  It seemed to be that we were all adults discussing reality, me taking responsibility for my position of authority and them taking responsibility for their positions of democratic self-governance.  I sincerely believe that my surrendering the literacy fairy tale made room for them to teach themselves.  That class ended up being the most dedicated and outstanding class I’ve ever had.  In their final research papers, in which they researched their own careers, they mapped out their specific plans for not becoming one of those community college statistics.  Best research papers I’ve ever seen.