JCCC Department of English Blog

Ted Rollins: Writing Transfer and Teaching for Transfer

Posted on 02/21/2018 by jmcward

Ted Rollins, professor of English, was awarded a sabbatical for the 2017 fall semester. One result of his sabbatical is a 93-page annotated bibliography on writing transfer and teaching for transfer. This bibliography is now available on JCCC’s Scholarspace here: https://scholarspace.jccc.edu/sabbatical_projects/8/

I’ve copied Rollins’ abstract for his bibliography below:

“Motivated by my interest in the related conversations about promoting writing transfer and teaching for transfer, I have brought together this collection of sources to help answer this research question: As educators how can we design writing programs, courses, and assignments that foster the application of writing knowledge and practice across contexts by our students? Many of the sources in this collection represent scholarship that addresses the extent to which—and in what conditions—learners transfer their writing knowledge and practice from one context to another. Some authors whose work appears in this collection propose broader changes at the institutional or curricular level, while others focus on changes to individual courses or writing assignments. Other sources deal with a related interest—the use of digital portfolios as tools that can enable individuals to showcase, reflect on, and apply their learning. A common thread among the sources in this collection is that they all offer insights into ways to (re)design our programs, courses, and assignments to increase the likelihood of our students making important connections as writers who negotiate a variety of contexts within and outside of the classroom. I hope you find this annotated bibliography—a work-in-progress which I continue to develop as new scholarship is published—a useful resource in thinking about how promote the transfer of learning by students in your courses.”

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Beth Gulley Featured in JCCC Story

Posted on 02/19/2018 by jmcward

Beth Gulley, professor of English, was recently featured in a JCCC story on the college’s website. “Partnering with Pakistan: JCCC President Shares Community Colleges Best Practices” summarizes Joe Sopcich and Gulley’s recent trip to Pakistan in January. Gulley presented on developmental education while in Pakistan and was impressed with how Pakistan schools are working to support women. The article quotes her as saying, “Our colleagues in Pakistan are committed to helping their students. For me, one of the big takeaways was their interest in educating women and helping them find careers. Particularly in this area the schools are doing a lot to support and prepare women for the future. It was a humbling privilege for just to go see how hard they work to make their society better.” As part of our “First Friday” English meetings, Gulley will give a presentation over her Pakistan visit at 2pm on Friday, March 2, in the Co-Lab.

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Essays on Writing from The Chronicle of Higher Education

Posted on 02/16/2018 by jmcward

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published two pieces that should be of interest to English instructors.

“What’s Wrong with Writing Centers” is an interview with Lori Salem, who argues that regular writing center practices “such as non directive instruction, in which tutors prompt students to come up with the right answers themselves; and a resistance to focusing upon grammatical errors — are most effective for privileged students in good academic standing.” Salem’s paper about the problems with writing centers and how they might change won the International Writing Centers Association’s 2017 Best Article Award. You can access her paper, published in The Writing Center Journal, here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/561fea24e4b0355fd7db67b7/t/5a0b6926652dea2f6438af33/1510697254548/Salem%2C+WCJ%2C+35.2%2C+Final+Press+Copy.pdf.

If the Writing Center interview is not controversial enough for you, then you might consider reading “Why I Stopped Writing on My Students’ Papers.” This essay, written by Michael Millner, an associate professor of English and American studies at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, argues that individual conferences with students over their papers is far more effective than marking up the papers. Of course, the author does admit that having only 40 to 50 students a semester makes this kind of grading feasible. Also, in reading the essay, I got the sense that he’s mainly focused on literature students, not composition students, so I wonder how he thinks “grading conferences” would work when there are six or seven papers in a course, as opposed to three or four.

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Grades and Attendance In Canvas

Posted on 02/09/2018 by jmcward

Grades

According to JCCC policy, every instructor is supposed to make their class grades available online to students. Typically, instructors use D2L or Canvas to fulfill this expectation.

If you’re using Canvas, did you know that students can actually go in and change their grades? Well, not exactly, but the “What-If” feature of the Canvas grade book makes it seem as if they can. The “What-If” tool in the grade book lets students add points to assignments or quizzes that have not been graded. In addition, they can change the scores of existing assignments. If you let students see their overall class grade in the Canvas grade book, their class grade percentage will change based on whatthey’re doing with the points. Rest assured, however, that once a student leaves the grade book, the grades revert back to their original grades. As soon as a student changes one grade, Canvas will add a message under the class grade: “This is NOT your official score.” See my screen capture for more detail. The little blue arrows next to some of the scores are changes I’ve made as a student. I can manually revert these scores back to the originals by clicking on the arrows or I could just exit and return later to see all the original scores back in place.

Why would a student want to use this “What-If” feature? Let’s say we’re a few weeks from the end of the semester. The “What-If” feature allows a student to enter the highest grade possible for upcoming assignments to see if there is any way that he or she can raise the class grade up a letter or two. By allowing a student to change an existing grade, the student can determine whether to revise an assignment for a potentially higher grade (if the instructor allows revisions). If the student adds 15 points to their their paper grade using the “What-If” feature, and the student also sees that the class grade rises by a few percentage points, he or she might be more inclined to take advantage of an optional revision.

More information about the “What-If” feature can be found here: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10709

Attendance Tool

Like D2L, Canvas has an attendance tool, but unlike Canvas the days are already pre-populated, so you don’t have to manually enter Week 1, Monday, Week 1, Wednesday, etc. However, if you use the Canvas attendance tool, it will automatically create a column in the grade book, and the percentages given for attendance will be factored into the student’s grade. To keep this from happening, you need to shut off this feature. To keep attendance grades from counting, you need to click on the Roll Call Attendance in Grades, and then on the next screen click on “Edit Assignment Settings.” On the next screen, click the box in front of “Do not count this assignment towards the final grade.” Click on “Save” at the bottom of the screen. Now, the percentage in the Roll Call Attendance column will not factor into the overall class grade, and students will see a message in their grade book that lets them know that the grade doesn’t count.

More information about Roll Call Attendance can be found here: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10725-67952720324

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Common Read Spring Main Event: Robert Sullivan

Posted on 02/08/2018 by jmcward

In conjunction with the English department’s Common Read selection, Just Mercy, Ronald Sullivan, professor at Harvard Law and founder of the Jamestown Project at Yale University, will give a presentation from 11-noon, Wednesday, March 28 in the Polsky Theatre. According to the Harvard Law School’s website, when Sullivan implemented the Conviction Review Unit for the Brooklyn District Attorney in 2014, he found 10 wrongful convictions just in the first year of CRU’s operation. Though exonerated, some of the people wrongfully convicted had already served 30 years in prison. At Harvard, he also is the Director of the Criminal Justice Institute. In addition to his work as a lawyer and professor, Sullivan has provided legal commentary on CNN, FoxNews, and PBS. He has testified before the US Senate and House of Representatives many times. Sullivan received his undergraduate degree from Morehouse College and his law degree from Harvard Law School. More information about Sullivan can be found in his faculty profile on the Harvard Law website. Learn more about Just Mercy here: http://bryanstevenson.com/the-book/.