Hey folks, I emailed this earlier, but for redundancy’s sake: Madelyn is slow to adjust to being home (in fact she’s screaming her head off right now, resisting a nap) so Erin and I won’t be making the trip to the QC 8/5 and probably not at all this week.
I’ve finished working through all of your drafts (though I am waiting for Katie to do a little more before providing extensive commentary), and I’m very pleased with the work I’m seeing. Some thoughts, given the criteria I posted earlier:
The “filling in” work you are doing is very strong. I see echoes of my doctoral exams in your writing: showing that you understand a position, its antecedents, and its problematics. Good.
Writing quality is excellent across the board. I saw a few typos and other glitches, and for the most part I let these go, since I didn’t know if you folks were planning to revise in Google Docs or take things back to Word.
We are doing pretty well on time, too, I think: with a little less than a month before the start of Fall classes, and two weeks before my soft deadline of August 10, none of you have an insurmountable amount of work left to do. August 15 is probably the latest you should let things go: that would give me ten days to get comments on your work.
Katie asked if we might get together one more time: you tell me. I’m happy coming to the QC sometime next week; Erin’s mom is gonna be in town Aug 1-9, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get a QC trip together then.
Finally, from a nuts and bolts perspective, I hope the use of the weblog and Google Docs is going as well for you as it is for me. I expect to use more of both in ENG 500. Working on that syllabus is next for me…
For our Sunday meeting, I propose we have a conversation about these five chapters in the Guide:
That pretty much covers the interests you’ve mapped out in your three prospectuses, and would set each of us up to discuss the texts which supplement our big three.
Sound good?
Interest in Topic:
It seems I have never had to work collaboratively with people more than I did this past year, and the amount I learned from others still astounds me. I was myself a student who dreaded “group work,” and while I have assigned group projects with clearly defined roles, I certainly have never assigned a group paper. Thus, my experience with collaborative curriculum and assessment writing this year as a teacher contradicted previous, poor experiences. My interest, then, is in what made my experience work and how I can provide similar experiences for my students. Specifically, I would like to create a collaborative writing assignment for my College Writing class, complete with rationale for each step based on research and theory. The format will demonstrate my understanding of collaborative writing issues and practices as well as become a practical and useful assignment for future use in my own classroom.
Research Questions:
What are the benefits and drawbacks to writing collaboratively? How can a teacher capitalize on the benefits and reduce the obstacles? Specifically, I would like to address the following questions:
Working Bibliography:
Boling, Erica, et. al. “Collaborative Literacy: Blogs and Internet Projects.” The Reading Teacher. 2008: 504-506. Ebscohost. Western Illinois University Library, Moline, IL. 30 June 2008. <http://web.ebscohost.com>.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. A Short Course in Writing: Composition, Collaborative Learning, and Constructive Reading. 4th ed. New York: HarperCollinsCollegePublishers: 1993.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge. 2nd ed. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1999.
Eapen, Bell Raj. “Collaborative Writing: Tools and Tips.” Indian J Dematol Venereol Leprol. 2007: 439-41. Ebscohost. Western Illinois University Library, Moline, IL. 30 June 2008. <http://web.ebscohost.com>.
Hurd, Sandra and Ruth Federman Stein. Building and Sustaining Learning Communities: The Syracuse University Experience. Bolton, Massachusetts: Anker, 2004.
McKeachie, Wilbert J. McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. 11th ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2002.
Noel, Sylvie & Jean-Marc Robert. “Empirical Study on Collaborative Writing: What Do Co-authors Do, Use, and Like?” Computer Supported Cooperative Work. 2004: 63-89. Ebscohost. Western Illinois University Library, Moline, IL. 30 June 2008. <http://web.ebscohost.com>.
Speck, Bruce W. Facilitating Students’ Collaborative Writing. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.
Sutton, Mark. “Collaborative Writing at Work: Theory and Research.” Composition Studies. Fall 2007: 101-116. Ebscohost. Western Illinois University Library, Moline, IL. 30 June 2008. <http://web.ebscohost.com>.
Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper, and Kurt Schick. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.
Katie, Nan and I had a nice lunch yesterday at the Skyline Inn; I was too busy having a good conversation to say that the food was pretty darn good. (I had a grilled tenderloin sandwich: yum!) And looking out the window and seeing a Blue Angels F-18 zip by at 300mph was pretty cool.
Katie turned in a prospectus focusing on ethics; I’ve asked her to present it here (as a top-level posting) so we can comment on it. I’d like everyone to do the same so we can move to the next stage of work, which is finding texts to complement those we’ve already read, given your specific areas of interest. Given that I want to be done with everything by August 20, July 10-15 should be your time frame for a rough draft. That would enable me to look at a second more complete draft if you like.
Also, I’ll be in the QC Wed 07/23, Fri 08/01, and Sat 08/09; on those days I could meet to hand over and/or talk about drafts &c. I think we’ll want to meet again before that, perhaps the week of 07/07. What does everyone think?
Hey folks, I will be taking Erin and Madelyn to the airport on Wednesday, June 18. Would this be a good day to meet, have lunch, talk about Guide and Errors, etc? Their flight is at 12:30, so I’ll be dropping them off ~11:00, which would allow plenty of time to make a noon lunch.
Sound good? If so, where should we meet?