CCR 607 Writing, Fall 2004

Rebecca Moore Howard
Office: 237 HB Crouse
Office hours: Mondays 1-3; Thursdays 2:30-4; and by appointment
Telephone: 443-1620
E-mail: rehoward@syr.edu
Home page http://wrt-howard.syr.edu

CCR 607, Composition Pedagogy
Fall 2004
Time: 10-12:50 Tuesdays
Place: 020 HB Crouse
Course website: http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Syllabi/607F04/Syl607F04.html


Writing assignments



In all your work for this course, you should talk with me anytime you have questions or issues that I might help you with.

Chapter summaries

Everybody in the class will summarize five chapters from Clark, Harris, and Tate (and will also write a practice summary of the Price article). Who has been assigned which chapters is on the attached chart; when the summaries are due is on the assignment schedule. Feel free to trade chapter assignments with classmates, but be sure to email me about any such changes. As you prepare to write in this genre, you might find the handout that I posted for an undergrad class useful. Summaries should begin with a full MLA-style citation for the source; should include parenthetical page citations; and should be 300-500 words long, free of quotation as much as possible, and completely free of patchwriting. Distribution: (a) Email your summary to the class by 6:00 p.m. the night before class, and (b) bring a total of 6 printed copies of your summary to class with you, with pages numbered and stapled together.


Writing options

For your additional formal writing for CCR 607, choose from the following. You may choose just one of these options, or you may propose an option of your own design:
  1. Observation analyses of eight teaching events, including at least three WRT classes and at least two consultations.

  2. (a) Observation analyses of six teaching events; and (b) an undergraduate writing course syllabus, with 3- to 5-page attached rationale, citing appropriate scholarly sources that include but also go beyond assigned course readings.

  3. (a) Observation analyses of four teaching events; and (b) 3- to 6-page summary + analysis of three book-length works (cleared in advanced with me) on composition pedagogy.

  4. (a) Observation analyses of two teaching events; and (b) Doctoral exam proposal or dissertation prospectus on composition pedagogy. (Whether you actually use this proposal or prospectus later is entirely your own choice.) This option is available to CCR students only.

  5. (a) Observation analyses of two teaching events; and (b) a 15- to 25-page seminar paper exploring one theory of, philosophy of, or issue in composition pedagogy.

Observation analyses

The "teaching events" that class members will observe and analyze are WRT classes and/or Writing Center consultations. Each observation analysis should be 2-4 pages long (double-spaced; pages numbered and stapled together); should summarize what you observed; and should also analyze it, drawing on theoretical, procedural, or philosophical frameworks in CCR 607 assigned course readings. The Writing Center consultant observations will involve not only your observation but also a discussion afterwards with the consultant whom you have observed.
In class on September 14, we collaboratively drafted the following rubric, derived from our reading of Hillocks' taxonomies. Your classroom observations should proceed from this set of questions, which we will revise as needed throughout the semester: observation rubric questions/areas:
  1. For what percentage of the class is the teacher talking, and what percentage the students?
  2. What kinds of questions does the teacher ask? Does the teacher already know the correct answer to questions? To what extent are these dialogic questions to spur inquiry, and to what extent are they monologic questions to test comprehension of correct information?
  3. What signs do you see of the teacher's anxiety (or lack thereof) about control of the classroom, students, and/or materials?
  4. What is the content of the class session, and how did you determine your answer to that question? What do the students seem to think they're learning?
  5. What language does the teacher use, and what does that language suggest about his or her attitudes, philosophy, etc.?
  6. How comfortable is the teacher with her or his classroom authority, and how did you determine your answer to that question?
  7. What are the students' reactions and actions, i.e., what are the classroom proximics--the nonverbal cues such as where the students position themselves in the classroom, how they behave, what they do, how many of them talk, what dynamics take place between the students, whether they behave as collaborative learners or as individuals?
  8. What worked in this class session, and what might you adopt or adapt from it?
  9. How would you characterize the teacher's philosophy of composition instruction?




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