Writing, more than any other task, brings one face to face with important human responsibilities." John Gage

Required Texts:

Gaines, Earnest. A Lesson Before Dying

Practice in the English Classroom.

Lamott, Ann. Bird by Bird: Some Instruction on Writing and Life.

Sebranek, Meyer, Kemper. Writers Inc.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

This course focuses on how to teach writing to secondary schools students by introducing future English teachers to the theories and practices of using writing and reading in language arts classrooms. The overall course goal is for participants to develop a coherent philosophy of literacy instruction based on the range of course readings, researched topics, fieldwork experiences, and self reflections about writing, reading, and learning.

A number of assumptions inform and give shape to the ability to become what Donald Schon

has called the "reflective practitioner" who is able to learn and try out a range of teacher research activities (interviewing, observation, case studies, and classroom based reports). To begin, our classroom will model the kinds of activities and responses that might take place in a secondary school language arts setting so that we can experience these for ourselves: writing in multiple genres, practicing informal and formal writing, learning about teacher response, integrating media an technology, and designing curriculum. Since teachers of writing need to write themselves, we will organize a reading/writing community where we will practice the stages of the writing process by writing together, responding to each others drafts, revising, and compiling writing portfolios. The philosophy behind forming this community is that reading, writing, listening and speaking are essentially social acts that gain meaning through dialogue and conversation with others. Language arts teachers need to model their own communication skills in their classrooms by adapting their curriculum for a range of student learning styles and diverse cultural backgrounds.

Nulla dies sine linea

Pliny

In compliance with the Universitys expectations I will explicitly state the learning goals for English 322. Through the readings, assignments, and class activities, the students will:

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Attendance/ Participation: This class is totally dependent upon participation, involvement, and immersion. You are expected to be ON TIME and be prepared to contribute to the ongoing class discussion, and to be engaged with the class writing and peer response activities. You are expected to know everyones namea skill you will need when you become a teacher yourself.

Reading/Writing Notebook: You are asked to keep a journal/notebook, learning log for this class to be used for a variety of purposes. Your journal will include some in-class writing exercises and notes from your peer response groups but will be used primarily to react to the wide range of readings you will encounter in the course. Each time you read a chapter or article, you will write about it in your journal. These responses should not be "summaries" of the readings but show an attempt to weave connections between your own ideas and the readings.

I will expect two pages of response to each days readings, sometimes on an assigned journal topic. You may respond in dialogue, double entry journal, fiction or nonfiction prose style. Your writing should be legible or on a computer and you should leave some room for me to respond. For your first entry, explore the following questions: Why do you write? Why should we teach writing in schools? What do you think should be the focus of writing instruction in schools?

evaluation: Since as a teacher you will be involved in the process of evaluation yourself and you will be asked to evaluate student writing on the Praxis exams, we will practice may different types of evaluative criteria in this course. Your evaluation will be based on ungraded informal writing, form papers and a writing portfolio. Your journal will be collected several times and accounts for a portion of your final grade as does a collaborative project. Your writing portfolio, which will include several short papers ( 3-5 pages) that will go through the processes of peer review, conferencing and revision, will be a major part of your final grade. For your portfolio you will be asked to reflect on and evaluate the work you have done for the course by considering your own class participation, the quality of your written work, and your overall understanding and commitment to the ideas and materials of the course. Your self evaluation and philosophy of teaching writing statement will accompany your portfolio. Finally, your performance in this course will be evaluated with respect to presenting yourself as a future English teacher.

Select 15 pages of your formal and informal writing from this class to be handed in for evaluation. This may come from journal writing, in class exercises, your more formal papers such as the Literacy Moment, Hanging Out, Classroom Observation, Lesson Plans on Gainess novel, or Creative Writing Exercise. In addition to these revisions, you will write a 2-3 paged case study of yourself as a writer and a reflective letter introducing the portfolio which will include your philosophy of teaching writing.

"In teaching writing we are tacitly teaching a version of reality. We are not simply offering training in a useful technical skill that is meant as a simple complement to the more important studies of other areas. We are teaching a way of experiencing the world, a way of ordering and making sense of it." James Berlin

" Writing was the only work I did that was for myself and by myself. In the process, one exercises sovereignty in a special way. All sensibilities are engaged, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes sequentially. While I am writing, all of experience is vital and useful and possibly important." Toni Morrison