Fall 2010 preferences, and other news

Attached on the listserv version of this message is a preference form for fall 2010 teaching. You'll see a couple of changes from previous years, including the split between MWF and MW sections. Starting in fall 2010, we're going to try aligning MW afternoon sections with the TR schedule, so beginning at 1pm MW sections will be 75 minutes; 50 minute MWF sections will continue to be held from 7-12. As expected in my previous email, we will not be able to assign fourth sections to any of our part time instructors, so three sections will be the maximum.

Please take a moment to fill out BOTH preferred days/times (middle) and availability (bottom) sections of the form to help us make the best fit between schedule openings and your preferences.

Please return your form by email or to my mailbox by Friday March 5; let me know if you neeed a hard copy to fill out. If you know you won't be returning to teach for English next year, please tell me at your earliest convenience to help us anticipate hiring needs as soon as possible.

On that note, as a reminder, if you know of anyone who is interested in part time instructional work, please encourage them to apply through the HR website or contact me with questions. We're going to try doing most of our fall hiring as we write the first draft of the schedule to avoid undue pressure on last minute hires.

In other news, Meredith told me that she only has spring syllabi from about half of you. I'll try to get a list together this week and start chasing you down--but this can be avoided by simply emailing a copy of your syllabus to Meredith or putting it in her box.

We may be able to hold at least one face to face meeting during spring, probably the April 13 meeting which we had scheduled at orientation. There have been a number of good suggestions for meeting topics over the past few months, and I'm sorry we haven't been able to get to them yet. I'm especially interested in having a discussion, as suggested by one instructor, on dealing with students who depend on arguments of faith/belief in their academic writing courses. We've also had suggestions to address more explicitly concerns of teaching ELL students, defining and dealing with plagiarism, and so on. We may not get to all of these this semester, or have time to only touch on one or more of these issues, but I am trying to keep track of your interests so we can get to them as time allows.

Finally, whether face to face or via the listserv, we will have some news about new 2010/2020 texts, updated assignment sequences, and other important matters later this semester, so please keep your eyes open for notification of that decision and news. Those of you who teach 2010 and/or 2020 should anticipate shifting away from using the Allyn and Bacon Guide and adopting a new text; and we want to give you as much time as possible over the summer to prepare. I'm less sure about the future of Norton Field Guide, but will have more to tell you after deliberation with Grant and Gae Lyn, and your colleagues who are piloting alternative texts this term.

Thanks for your work--see you in the halls.

Copy center codes, and other news

• A note especially for those of you who are teaching in multiple departments (i.e. English along with Basic Comp, Phil/Hum, Foreign Languages, etc.): please make sure when giving work orders to the copy center in SC to use the copy code that corresponds with each particular job, so that each department gets charged appropriately for its jobs and no other's.

• We should be able to start on the Fall 2010 schedule soon, so start thinking about your availability. There's a new option in the works to hold classes MW afternoons, during the same periods as TR classes. I believe we'll keep the MWF hourly schedule through early afternoon (like 1pm), then shift over to 75 minute blocks for the remainder of MW afternoons; MW evenings will remain the same as in past semesters. I'll get a revised schedule preference form out once I'm sure of the new schedule system.

• We'll be interested in hiring new instructors to fill in slots left by instructors who move, go on to graduate programs, and find other employment over the summer. We'll also anticipate continued enrollment growth and the need for opening additional sections. If you know someone who would make a strong first year composition teacher, holds a Masters-level degree (preferably in English or related field), and has some classroom experience, please encourage them to contact me or simply fill out an application through human resources.

• Some of you have already expressed interest in summer teaching. We're not yet prepared to make assignments, but I'll certainly send out a notice to the list a couple weeks before scheduling so that you can get your preferences in the mix.

• Amy passed on some documents (attached through the listserv) from a seminar held by FCTE on plagiarism. I've heard good things from a number of our group about the value of these seminars which cover teaching strategies, integrating technology into classes, etc. Contact Anton Tollman if you're interested in attending their events.

• OK. Keep your eyes on your email for preference forms soon and let me know if there are any questions or concerns in your individual classes.

• See you in the halls.

Spring 2010: First Week in Review

I hope your first days of class--Wednesday, Thursday, or today--went well.

We finally got the schedule finished Friday the 1st, so thanks to everyone for your continued patience and willingness to accommodate an unusual number of shifting needs for full time faculty as this term came into focus during December.

A couple of notes as we get started:

1. I know that for many of you the logistics of your schedule are less than ideal. As a reminder, the master schedule is produced by articulating class size to room size, with little to no consideration of other factors (like pedagogical needs), so our classes pay for smaller size with smaller (and typically less desirable) rooms.

Second, like many of you, full time faculty members have also been scheduled to rush too far across campus in too little time. I've also spent my first couple of class days figuring out how to get from Trades to LA in 10 minutes; it may take a couple more days, but I think we can all figure out ways to make it work.

Third, there's also the challenge of having to deal with unpredictable resources in the classrooms--like going from a fully wired room in LA to one with a chalkboard and overhead only in Trades. Again, this is a situation that's shared by full time faculty as well (myself included), and we simply have to make do. Please do though try to take advantage of media resources available for checkout in Trades and other more remote campus locations. You can get a key card for the media closet on the 6th floor of Trades from the circulation desk in the library.

2. We were unable to assign any part time instructors to fourth sections. Not only were some of you hoping for that possibility, I was as well, since it's an option that's been instrumental to our successfully completing the schedule in past terms. This change has been burdensome all around, and I hope to see the fourth class option return in future terms.

3. For the time being, we will not be able to offer monthly professional development meetings. I'll be working to get those reinstated some time in the semester though, since I enjoy being able to see you all and I believe the meetings are an essential part of a successful program. In the meantime, we'll use the listserv and blog to distribute information, and I hope more of you will become contributors to the blog. More online participation will help us at least to use that resource to share successes and share strategies for addressing challenges.

4. Please provide Meredith (Meredith.Bennie@uvu.edu) with electronic copies of your syllabi as soon as you can--let's say by the end of the second week of classes. We have to increase the rate of participation, so you'll probably see me more aggressively pursuing you to turn in your materials earlier in the term than in the past.

On that note, the same goes for portfolios. Thanks to those of you who did turn in portfolios from fall 09, and I'm sure that more of you will be able to get your in now that we're all back on campus (there's a drop box on Meredith's desk). We are committed to building a successful assessment instrument for our program, and as Gae Lyn showed last year, the portfolio is, according to the field's best practices, the way to get this started. Please ensure that you will be able to provide end-of-term portfolios for all of your first year writing courses for all students randomly selected. If you need a reminder on required portfolio elements, let me know.

5. Finally, we're expanding the piloting of two possible texts for Engl 2010/2020. We'll keep you informed of the progress of the pilot and the plan for shifting to a new text in the coming academic year.

That's probably enough information for now. My thanks to each of you for all of your work and contributions to the program and the university. See you in the halls.

portfolio selection launch

We launched the portfolio request last night and completed sending out notifications this evening, so please check your email inbox to find out which of your students have been selected to participate in portfolio evaluation.

If you have students who were selected but are no longer attending class, or who fail to submit a portfolio, please let Meredith know. Also, don't hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or needs as we proceed through this first run of selections. Just as a reminder, the portfolios should include the following documents:

1. An informal piece of diagnostic writing (first day or between the first two class meetings)
2. The first graded writing assignment (in 1010 the problematizing essay; in 2010 the informative/surprising essay)
3. The final graded writing assignment (in 1010 the exploratory research project; in 2010 the formal research project)
4. A reflective essay.

Since so many of us use multiple email addresses, I included a list of selected instructors in the version of this posting that went out over the listserv as a way of helping you cross check. Meredith has made good efforts to send notifications to multiple addresses, but it also strikes me as a reminder of the importance of checking--or, better, auto-forwarding to a preferred account--your UVU email.

spring 10 schedule and meeting notes

I think we have the spring 2010 schedule wrangled into shape--at least enough so that Samuel will place notifications in your mailboxes by this afternoon. Please take a look at your proposed schedule, then sign and return it by Thursday Dec. 3.

As predicted in our November meeting, we will not hold a monthly meeting in December. If you have any needs that have to be addressed before the end of the term, please contact me, Grant, or Gae Lyn.

In other news, sorry I've been behind on posting notes from our November meeting. Briefly, we discussed:

1. Our upcoming portfolio evaluation launch. I believe we're still on track to begin this semester, so expect to get an email from Meredith informing you of the students whose portfolios have been selected for evaluation. I will also send out an email to the entire list at that time so that in case none of your students were selected, you won't be waiting needlessly for notification.

2. A reminder to avoid using the front office for collection of large numbers of student papers at the end of the term. Please, too, do not expect the front office to hold your papers and redistribute them to students. Consider alternatives, including inviting students to give you a stamped envelope for the return of their final work, or, holding papers for the first two weeks of the following term then destroying them.

3. Continuing to pilot new texts for 2010/2020 in spring. I have extra copies of both texts, so if you'd like to get in on the expanded pilot for spring, let me know which text you'd like to see/use by next week, and we'll expand book orders for your classes. This is a good opportunity to test one of these texts and have your voice heard as we prepare to make a program wide shift in the 2010-2011 academic year. If you're interested in From Inquiry to Academic Writing by Greene and Lidinsky, please contact Gae Lyn, who's been organizing that book's pilot this semester; if you're interested in Writing Arguments by Ramage and Bean, please contact Grant.

4. A review of policies for end of term grading and evaluation, including UW, E (F), and I grades. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about assigning these grades--particularly UW and I.

Thanks.

November meeting this evening

Sorry for the late notice, but our monthly meeting is this evening, 5-6 pm, SC 206A. Please make every effort to attend this evening, since we'll be covering issues that will take us through the end of the semester, including:

1. Portfolio project update;
2. State of the spring schedule;
3. Expansion of 2010/2020 text piloting;
4. Discussion on semester research projects, which should be in progress in all first year composition courses at this point;
5. Discussion on end-of-term concerns, such as grading, collection and distribution of final projects, etc.;
6. Handout(s) and, if time, brief discussion of supplemental texts to develop readings in course textbooks.

See you this evening.

Hope everyone's semester is going well so far. Here's an update on where we are in both completing our responsibilities for this semester and getting ready for spring 2010.

Syllabi: about half of you have turned in syllabi to the front office. If you're in that half, thanks; if you're in the other half, please make sure you either send an electronic copy to Meredith (Meredith.Bennie@uvu.edu) or place a copy in her mailbox as soon as possible. (Blog update: we've gotten some more since I sent this post to the listserv, so let's keep up the momentum for those of you who have yet to turn in syllabi)

Spring 2010: schedule preference form for next semester is available at the engladj listserv (or email me for a copy). Please fill it out and return it either electronically or to my box by October 15. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or concerns prior to returning it.

October meeting: Tuesday October 13, 5-6pm, SC 206A; also an ideal time to submit your preference forms. Topically, let's pick up where we left off last month, getting some discussion about how we bring the course texts to life and make them relevant to our students. Consider ways that you supplement course texts with readings of your and/or students' choices; how you explain assignments and concepts with familiar examples and models, and so on. Consider, also, where you identify shortcomings and/or weaknesses in course texts and how you overcome them.