AU05109

Course Description

You may have taken English courses in the past in which you read and wrote about topics you already knew well or which you were coming to know about primarily through reading books. And you may have developed ideas about what "good writing" is in those contexts. In this course, we will be expanding our own understandings of "good writing" to look at literacy in a variety of contexts: digital media(web sites, online exchanges, e-portfolios), magazines, public schools classrooms.

While you will be reading two texts and writing about them as a way to explore the topic of literacy, you will also be learning about literacy through some very hands-on work that doesn't come through a book. This service-learning version of English 110W asks you to combine intensive reading and writing about literacy, language, community, and culture with online exchanges with students at Johnson Park Middle School (JPMS) in east Columbus.

Here's how our class will work. We'll meet three days each week in our regularly scheduled classroom: University Hall 028. Beginning on September 26, we'll meet each Tuesday and Thursday in a computer classroom, Denney 308. On those days, you'll use computers to do a number of tasks.: You will serve as online editors to a group of middle school students at JPMS who are writing and producing a magazine about their school.
: You will exchange your own writing with class members and with graduate student tutors at the OSU Writing Center.
: And you will use what you observe and what you learn through the these online meetings with your literacy partners back into our classroom discussions and use that information to study your own reading and writing practices, as well as the ways others at the University read, write, and think.
Habits of Mind: One set of questions that we'll use to connect our work in and outside of classrooms at Ohio State are five "habits of mind" that Deborah Meier, a school principal writes about. We will try to use these habits as we read about, think through, and write about issues of literacy and education.: 1) How do we know what we know? That is, what is the evidence? How do I know when evidence is good?
: 2) Who's speaking? What is her point of view? What's mine? Does my point of view affect the way I listen to him?
: 3) What causes what? Where are the patterns and connections? How much do they impose on the randomness of life?
: 4) How might things have been different? Can I imagine two or three alternative scenarios, and what might have made them happen?
: 5) Who cares? Is this topic really important? If so, to whom? Is it still important when it matters to a few but no many?

(Meier, Deborah, Theodore R. Sizer, and Nancy Faust Sizer. Keeping School: Letters to Families from Principals of Two Small Schools. Boston, Beacon Press, 2004, 51-52.

Literacy Partnerships: Because one of the goals of our literacy work will be to act as online editors for our JPMS literacy partners, we'll talk about that process of learning in the public schools. But we'll also talk about how we can all act as editors, interacting with middle school students.

Writing: This course will give you an opportunity to write about ideas you're in you're learning about "good writing" in a variety of contexts and to look for connections between adolescents' literacy processes and the learning you are doing in other classes at Ohio State. You'll write three writing projects and one final exam during this course.

The first (Writing Project #1) is a literacy autobiography (a narrative that describes the significance of an active learning experience or that helps you to identify and reflect on the influence family or community have had on your literacy).

Writing Project #2 will ask you to choose several specific texts (both digital media and "traditional" ones) and to analyze these texts in terms of their purpose, audience, etc. You may use Meier's "Habits of Mind" or you may generate a new set of questions with which to analyze these texts. The goal of this assignment is to look closely at the characteristics of "good writing" in at least two specific context that you choose.

Writing Project #3 will be a collaborative project. In writing groups of 3-4 students, you will write a guide for students who will be taking this course in future quarters? What tips do you have for working with middle school students? What would you do differently now?

Your final exam will ask you to pull together your experience and a learner, as a reader and as a writer with the work we've done in class this quarter. In an essay you write during our final exam period, you will explicitly tie together your own literacy processes with what you've learned about "good writing."

Journals: In addition to writing essays and reading books, you will be required to keep a journal. The journal is a place to practice writing, a place where you won't be criticized, where you can take risks and experiment with ideas. Except journals explicitly labeled "in-class," all journal entries are to be completed before you come to class so that you can work with them and the ideas you've written about once we meet together. Most weeks, you will write at least four entries. From time to time, you will choose your own subjects for journals, but there are certain journal topics that you will write on every week.

1. One entry each week will be a response to reading.

2. A second entry will be a reading/writing assessment, in which you'll describe a reading or writing assignment from another of your courses and analyze its goals and expectations.

3. You will also write reflections on our work with JPMS students school.

4. And you will also write about other activities that we do in class.

Reading: We will read two books for this quarter, as well as some other shorter excerpts I will provide. You can visit the OSU bookstore online at http://ohiostate.bkstore.com/

Hickam, Homer. Rocket Boys. New York: Delta, 2000.
ISBN: 0385333218

Chandler-Olcott, Kelly and Kethleen A. Hinchman. Tutoring Adolescent Literacy Learners: A Guide for: Volunteers (Solving Problems In Teaching of Literacy Series). New York: Guildford, Publications, 2005.
ISBN: 1593851294

Computers: An additional element of this class is that the essays you write for class will be written on computers. All of your essays (all drafts, not just the final ones) must be written with the use of a computer. This process helps make revision easier. If you don't have access to a computer, there are a number of computer labs across campus-in dorms, in libraries, in classroom buildings. ON DAYS WE WORK WITH HARD COPIE OF YOUR WRITING, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO PRINT OUT YOUR ESSAYS BEFORE YOU COME TO CLASS. If you do not have access to a printer in your home or dorm room, please make sure that you find a printer that is easy for you to use before you come to class.

Most of our class meetings, we will be using the computers to support in some way the other activities of the course, discussion of reading, responding to each others' texts, etc. To facilitate that work, you should always come to class with your OSU electronic account user name and password.

Attendance. Because we do so much work in class together, of your attendance is required. Often what we do in class one day will dictate changes in what we do the next class meeting. Therefore, much of the work we do together in class just can't be made up individually outside of class.

Excused Absences. In the case of illness, a physician's note will excuse the student and allow the student to complete the work for a grade. Other excused absences include religious holidays, a death in the family, jury duty, official college competitions, etc. For such absences, written notification before the absence is expected.

If you need to miss class for any reason, you should let me know ahead of time. You can talk to me in class, contact me by e-mail (wright.7@osu.edu) or by telephone at the Writing Workshop (292-8134). If there is no one available to answer the phone, you can leave a voice message 24 hours a day. Unless there is an emergency situation that prohibits you contacting me ahead of time (for instance, if your car breaks down on the way to class), your absence will be unexcused, and you will not be able to turn in work that you have missed.

Anytime you miss class, you will not be able to participate. If you have more than three unexcused absences you will receive an E for your attendance grade.

All written work (drafts of papers, journals, etc.) must be turned in on time at the beginning of class on due dates. As described above, no late papers will be accepted.