SEMINAR IN TEACHING ENGLISH  I      (Engl 482/682) Fall 2002

 

Dr. Fleda Brown

Section 10—M  3:35-6:35  113 Mem

Section 11—TU 3:35-6:35   113 Mem

Office:  314 Mem      Phone: 831-6749

Office Hours: TU 2:30-3:30;  F 10-11:30.

E-mail: Fleda@udel.edu

 

TEXTS:            Atwell, Nancie. In the Middle, 2nd ed.            

             Somers, Albert B., Teaching Poetry in High School                        

             Lane, Barry. After the End: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision          

                        Maxwell and Meiser, Teaching English in Middle and Secondary Schools, 3rd ed.

ed. (Primary text for ENGL 483)          

Class Readings on reserve in Morris Library

My website. www.english.udel.edu/brown/

                        Delaware State Content Standards

www. doe.state.de.us/Standards/English/ELA_toc.html

                       

ATTENDANCE: This class marks the beginning of your transition from student to teacher. You are as responsible for attending this class as if you were its teacher (as indeed sometimes you will be). Your final grade will be dropped by half a letter grade (e.g., from B to B-) for each unexcused absence. Only your own doctor-certifiable illness or a death in the family merit excused absences. Except in special circumstances, absences will be excused only if you call ahead of time, and always only if you furnish written documentation. You must also be on time. Arriving more than 10 minutes late or leaving more than 10 minutes early constitutes ½ an absence.

 

TECHNOLOGY: You must check your e-mail account regularly, as announcements and some student work will be posted there. You will also be asked to do research on the Internet. There are over 20 computing sites on campus. This syllabus and handouts are available on my home page (www.english.udel.edu/fleda/), which also includes links to English Education program information and to the State of Delaware Language Arts Content Standards.

 

GRADES: (Note that having a student teaching placement is a requirement for this course.)

At the end of the semester, you will submit a unit plan that demonstrates that you can arrange everything you have learned into a coherent, useable form, consistent with the Delaware English Language Arts Standards and the Delaware Professional Teaching Standards. The writing portion of your unit plan will count as 30% of your grade. The only possible grades for the unit plan are A, B, and “Do it again.” Late work will result in a reduction of ½ grade (from A- to B+, for ex.) for each day late.

 

Other written work for this course will include (70% of your grade, broken down approximately below):

1. 1-2 page written responses to readings (specified in the daily assignments below), to be typed and sometimes revised. (15%)

2. unannounced quizzes (10%)

3. lesson plans, revised and resubmitted until they are at least B work, and mini-lesson

plans and presentation. (10%)

4. A major paper-grading assignment (20%)

5. The written reports of your classroom observations (15%)

 

COURSE BINDER: You will include all above work in your course binder for this course, separate from the one you keep for Dr. DelFattore’s class. At the end of the semester, the unit plan, the material from both course binders will be added with some other items to make up your English Education Performance Portfolio. Other items will be added next semester in ENGL 481.

 

OVERVIEW OF COURSE : This is the companion course to E483. The courses are intended to overlap in every way. In this segment, you will focus more particularly on teaching writing, but you will also study teaching poetry as literature (as well as poetry writing). The reason for the  emphasis on this subject is that over the years, many English teachers have reported to us that their training is weakest in this area. In order to be a good teacher of poetry, one must “know” poetry better than the average English major—hence, in this course, we will briefly study the subject of poetry as well as the skills of teaching it. Further, the skills you gain in understanding and teaching poetry (both as writing and as literature) are most basic, having to do with core issues of how the language works, and will transfer readily to all other areas of teaching literature and writing. And most interestingly, poetry—with its musical nature—has been shown to be one of the best tools for reaching a culturally diverse student population.

 

You will learn in this course how to help students want to write (“creative” and non-“creative” writing), how to get them ready to write, how to help them to discover they have something to say, how to help them learn to revise, and how to evaluate their writing. You will read the latest experiential and “laboratory” research on teaching writing—including research on how best to teach mechanical “conventions” (grammar, usage). You will study the Delaware Content Standards to see how you may be expected to help your students advance their skill levels. You will write and revise lesson plans, keying your work to State Content Standards. You will grade an entire set of actual secondary school student essays. You will visit secondary school classrooms to observe and reflect on how experienced teachers are teaching writing.  And you will prepare and present a short lesson to the class, to practice both planning and oral presentation skills. 

 

As you skim through the syllabus, you may feel that we will be wildly leaping from oral presentations to poetry to essay writing to evaluation, and so on during the semester. Actually,

the almost simultaneous attention to several different aspects of teaching language skills accurately reflects what you will want to do in your own classroom—show by example the overlapping nature of all language skills.

 

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: The goals of this course are to help you develop habits of strong intellectual attention to your subject, of reflecting on your pedagogical practices, of keeping up with current research to help you decide what will work best for you—indeed, to use all resources available—including a strong professional link with the community and with your peers—to help you solve problems.

 

ACHIEVEMENT TARGETS FOR ENGL 482/682:

 

·        Students will read recent research about teaching writing and show understanding by responding in short papers and in performance on quizzes and on essay tests.

·        Students will demonstrate orally and on tests the ability to teach basic skills in reading poetry.

·        Students will learn the names of anthologies of poems for adolescents and—considering ethnic and gender differences—strategies for teaching them to that age group.

·        Students will be able to orally present a poem or other material, using voice inflection, attention to changes in mood, tone, and meaning. Students will be able to teach this skill to others.

·        Students will demonstrate the ability to orally present a cogent, organized, and meaningful lesson within an allotted period of time. Students will use research-based approaches that address diverse learners in a pluralistic culture.

·        Students will write a useable lesson plan that takes into account Delaware State Content Standards.

·        Students will be able to write an essay test that adequately measures stated objectives.

·        Students will be able to “grade” papers, catching most serious errors and demonstrating tact and clarity in their responses to students.

·        Students will be able to deduce from their observations of classroom teachers at work which domains (Delaware Pathwise evaluation materials) teachers’ lessons focus on, assessing and analyzing their work in those areas.

·        As one of the culminating activities for the course, students will develop a coherent plan for teaching an entire unit, integrating writing activities that make sense in terms of the entire unit’s goals and objectives.

·        Students will include in this unit analysis of the composition of the classroom, a variety of teaching modalities, clearly stated achievement targets, use of technology and community resources, multiple assessments, rubrics, and reflections.

·        Students will be able to accurately indicate which Delaware State Content Standards and NCTE Standards are met by the lessons they design.

·        Students will be able to maturely reflect on their progress in all pedagogical and academic areas.

 

 

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SCHEDULE­­­­­­­­­­___________________________________________ 

Please bring relevant texts to class each time. If material from class readings in the library (or from my website) is included, please photo-copy that work and bring it to class.

 

Note: Every class period will include one oral mini-lesson by a class member on the material to be covered that day. These are not listed on the syllabus. There will be a sign-up sheet passed around for you to select a date for your mini-lesson. 

 

Note: it is a good idea to do your classroom observations and the reports on those observations (see end of this syllabus) as early in the semester as you are able. Coursework escalates in 482 toward the end of the semester, and you want to avoid an end-of-the-semester panic.

 

 

I. The writing workshop & mini-lesson

 

Sept     9, 10            Introduction, planning, setting goals. Study the syllabus.

Look at the University of Delaware Conceptual Framework in terms of what we will be doing in this class.

Talk about student teaching procedures.

Go over procedures for classroom observations.

Barbara VanDornick visits combined classes on the 9th to talk about testing and certification procedures.

Explanation and practice in writing teaching objectives and goals.

 

For next time: Read Atwell, Ch. 1, 3, 4, 5. Read Maxwell and Meiser (MM), Ch. 6, pp. 137-57. Paper #1:  Summarize the problems Atwell encountered as a teacher and her approach to solving them. What is your own reaction to this reading (besides exhaustion)? What additional information does the MM reading contribute?

 

Sept     16, 17            Practice and discussion of all that reading!

Make lists in class of your own interests, possible writing topics.

Explore how to extend the range of student writing, taking into account ethnic, cultural, and other differences.

Examine and discuss state writing standards in light of Atwell’s approach to teaching writing.

Go over Pathwise evaluation materials.

Sign up for mini-lessons. 

For next time:  Read Atwell, Ch. 6, 7, & 9. Read MM, rest of Ch. 6, pp. 157-193. Paper  #2: Write an outline for a 10-min. mini-lesson on any portion of these readings as if you were going to teach them to our class. How will you organize the material to be coherent, interesting, and connected to things we already know? What will you leave in; what will you leave out?  

                       

 

 

II. Evaluating writing: the writing conference

 

           

Sept 23, 24            Continue looking at Pathwise materials.

The writing conference, role-playing. Discussion of daily lesson plans as they relate to the teaching of writing.

Discussion and peer review of mini-lesson plans.

Work in class with evaluation and conferencing on three student essays.  

Bring the Lane book to class. We’ll look at Ch. 7 together. 

 

For next time: Read MM Ch.5 and Somers, Ch. 1-3.  Paper # 3: Chose one poem presented in the Somers chapters. What might be your goal(s) in teaching it to tenth graders? List your objectives for a lesson on that poem. Write a brief paragraph explaining how you might meet these objectives.

 

           

III. Poetry by and for students, oracy, and the daily lesson plan

 

Sept 30,

Oct 1             Peer review of lesson ideas.

Discussion of prosody, how a poem works. Practice in class.

A look at some anthologies of poems chosen for adolescents.

 

For next time: Read Somers, Ch. 7 and 9. Read all of “Conversations on Poetry” on my website. (Some of this section loads very slowly. Be patient.) Watch both the videoclips. Paper #4: Choose one “open form” poem and one traditional form poem. Explain how each one works, how sound and sense work together in the poem.

                       

Oct 7, 8            Practice reading poems aloud in class. Study Read Keats’ “When I Have Fears…”

and Shakespeare’s “When, in Disgrace…” together and practice reading them.

In groups, choose a poem and make a list of questions from the lowest to the

highest level of Bloom’s taxonomy that would help students study and enjoy

the poem.

 

For next time: Read Somers Ch. 5, 8, 10. Paper #5: Based on NCTE

standards for the grade you will be teaching in the Spring, choose any  2-3 poems

(whatever you think you can teach in one period) and write a one-day lesson plan

to teach them. Be sure to annotate which Delaware State Teaching Standards are

met by the lesson.(This first draft counts as a paper. The final draft is a separate

grade).

           

Oct 14, 15            Peer evaluation of lesson plans. You will take these home with you to revise, based

on peer comments.

Work in class (overheads) on learning how to assess student poems. This practice

will help you a great deal in your grading of student essays as well.

Group work with AWP Pedagogical papers (lesson plans in poetry and fiction). Each group will present two plans they like and tell why.

 

For next time: Revise lesson plan to turn in. Read MM, p. 328, Lane, p. 201-04, paying special attention to Vermont Writing Standards. Have ready for class:  Make up questions for a one-hour essay test for the midterm exam in this course. Assume that the test will be taken in class.

 

IV. The essay test

 

Oct 21, 22            Lesson plans turned in.

Discussion and choice of midterm essay questions.

Assignment of Presentation Portfolios to combined classes.

Discussion and assignment of Unit Plans in combined classes.

 

For Next Time: Prepare for midterm essay exam.

 

Oct 28, 29  Midterm exam (counts as Paper # 6).

Lesson plans returned for final revisions.

Discussion of observation experiences to date.

 

For next time: Read CR, Shaughnessy, from Errors and Expectations, p. 90-118.

Read MM, Ch. 10. Paper #7:  List terms that you don’t know (Structural grammar, Transformational grammar, etc.) Identify the point of view of these authors about the teaching of grammar.

Revise lesson plan again.

 

V. The research paper

 

Nov 4    (5th, no class. University’s closed for Election Day)

Turn in paper #7.

Turn in final revisions of lesson plans.

Discussion of language acquisition and skills.

Introduction to the research paper and alternate possibilities.

Practice grading an essay together.

Practice essay handed out to be graded.

 

For next time: Read Lane, Ch. 1. Read in CR: Romano, Ch. 1-5 on the

multigenre paper and (handout) Putz on Reader’s Theater, MM pp. 205-218. Paper  #8: Grade practice essay.

           

 

NOTE: You will be expected to attend one professional poetry reading or play this semester. Imagine you’re taking your class to this performance. Paper #9: List (1) your goals; and (2) the advance preparation you would give your class if they were attending this reading. Do not summarize the performance or reading, but give clear evidence that you were there, as you present your plan.

 

 

V.  Revision & Evaluation (written) of prose

 

Nov 11, 12           Discussion of multi-genre and traditional research projects.

Practice grading essays in class.

Graded  practice essay due. Discussion of this process.

 

For next time: Paper #10: Find two articles in professional (paper or online) journals that contain USEFUL recent research about student writing. Come to class prepared to summarize them for the class and to provide bibliographical references.

Nov 18, 19            Practice essay returned for revision. Practice grading more essays in class.

Discussion and evaluation of research findings.

Whole set of student papers handed out to be graded.

Continue work on your unit plan.

 

For next time: Grade whole set of student papers.

 

Nov 25, 26            Whole set of graded papers due, with reflection paper.

(In class we will evaluate range and frequency of grades given, as well as most frequent comments on papers.)

All observation forms should be completed by this time.

Review of requirements for the writing portion of your unit plan.

 

For next time: Read in Lane, Chs. 8-10. Read Atwell, Ch. 10-12 on other creative genres besides poetry (memoir, fiction, etc.). Paper #11: Write the first page of your personal memoir. Review pp. 389-92 before you begin. Annotate which Standards this assignment meets. BRING COMPLETED UNIT PLAN TO CLASS.

 

Dec 2, 3                        Memoirs turned in. A few of these read in class.

Discussion of any issues related to unit plans.

Peer review of writing portion of unit plans.

 

For next time: Revise unit plans.

 

Dec 9, 10            Course Binders handed in.

Revised Unit plans turned in. Small group peer commentary on unit plans.

Course evaluations.

 

 

 

DEFINITIONS:

 

COURSE BINDER

A collection of all work done exclusively in this class. You will keep all work, plus revisions, in a 3-ring binder. Samples of work from this binder will be added to your presentation portfolio, which will be completed next semester in ENGL 481.

 

PRESENTATION PORTFOLIO 

A complete record of your academic and pedagogical work as evidence that you are adequately prepared in your content area (English), that you are able to teach this material to others, that you can demonstrate concrete results of your teaching, and reflect in a constructive way about the results. Your Portfolio will be completed in ENGL 481 in the Spring.

 

PAPERS

You have one week to make revisions. You should number and date every revision: original, Revision #1, Revision #2, and so on. They will all go in your course binder. All revisions should be fastened in front of the first draft, with the final one in front.

 

MINI-LESSONS

You will be responsible for planning and giving, Atwellian style, a 7-10 minute mini-lesson. You will be evaluated on your focusing event, your organization, the clarity of your explanations, the accuracy and depth of your own knowledge of the subject (i. e., you are the expert), use of the allotted time (you shouldn’t go much under, and NOT over 10 minutes—in a classroom, it’s important to be able to gauge your time), and your oral presentation qualities. I will write an evaluation and the class will briefly evaluate you on check-sheets after your presentation. This presentation will be videotaped, and you will write a one-page reflection after watching the tape of your presentation.

 

WHOLE-SET GRADING ASSIGNMENT

You must use the Delaware holistic rubric. You may write on the student papers as much or as little as you see fit. You will include with your graded papers a two-page research-based justification of your methods and personal reflection on how well you think your methods worked. You will also include a sheet with all papers listed by number, with their grades, and a tally of your total grading (how many A’s, how many B’s, etc.—we will all use this standard scale to be able to compare our evaluations). I will give you my rubric by which I will grade your grading.

 

UNIT PLAN

You will receive a rubric by which I will grade the writing portion of your unit plan.

(a) In the front of the copy you give me, you must have a one-page theoretical justification (evidencing your knowledge of current writing research) for your writing assignments and a list of your actual assignments. All writing assignments within the plan should be highlighted in yellow (not the whole thing, just the day or the title, so I can find them easily).

(b) In the left margins by ALL assignments, you must list the NCTE STANDARDS that this assignment meets.

 

CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS

 

As soon as your observation/student teaching placement has been confirmed by the Office of Clinical Studies, your university supervisor will schedule an orientation session at the secondary school to which you have been assigned. At that session, you and any other students assigned to the same school will meet with the secondary school English Department chairperson and your cooperating teachers. The university supervisor will distribute and review the guidelines for observations and student teaching, so that everyone concerned will know exactly what the university supervisors, cooperating teachers, and student teachers are expected to do, and when.

 

By observing in the fall term the classes you will teach in the spring, you will have the opportunity to learn the school rules and procedures, the names of your future students, your cooperating teacher’s approach to instruction, and so forth. In addition, classroom observations are invaluable  help to the methods courses because they greatly increase your familiarity with, and understanding of, the environment in which you will apply what you are learning. This combination of research-based instruction in the methods courses and real-world observations is vital to your preparation to teach, and it depends upon your being in the schools throughout the fall semester. You are therefore encouraged to visit the schools as often as you can and to observe as many classes as possible. The minimum requirement is ten hours of observation spread over at least five weeks, although most students do more. If you have the opportunity to stay in your school for a full day, that is an excellent experience, but no more than two hours of observation in any given week count toward the minimum ten hours. You cannot, for example, fulfill the ten-hour requirement by visiting the school twice and observing five classes each time.

 

You may have assignments in ENGL 483 based on these observations. In this course (ENGL 482), you will describe and analyze five of your classroom observations by filling out forms that are keyed to the Pathwise Evaluation Forms. For the other five observations, you will write a journal entry on e-mail so that students in the class can share and comment on each other’s experiences in the schools. Send your observation directly to me (fleda@udel.edu) on e-mail, and I’ll send it out to the class.

 

DIRECTIONS FOR CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS

 

Besides your cooperating teacher’s classroom, visit at least three other English teachers’ classrooms during the semester. Base some of your observation reports on other classrooms besides the one where you’ll be student teaching.

 

Read through all the observation forms and become familiar with the topics they cover. They are lettered A through E, and you should fill out form A after your first observation. After that, the forms do not have to be filled out in any particular order. As you observe each secondary school lesson, make careful notes. If the teacher will permit it, you might want to audiotape at least some of the classes you observe. After each class, decide which observation form, if any, works well with the lesson you have just seen. If the lesson does not seem to provide adequate material for any of the forms, you should write an e-mail journal entry (see below). If you have a problem filling out form E, ask your cooperating teacher to help you find a teacher who is doing some small-group work during the semester.

 

The items on the forms should be carefully thought out and typed. Do not try to fill out a form while watching a class. Instead, before each class, read the forms you have not yet filled out so you know what kind of material you are looking for, make notes during the class, and then use the notes as the basis of your response. The normal length of an observation form response is two to three double-spaced pages. Please include the date of the observation, grade level, academic level (e.g. college prep, remedial) and the school at the top of each form.

 

Five of the minimum of ten classes you observe will be represented on the observation forms you fill out. After each of the other five observations, you should write an e-mail journal entry of approximately two screens in length. The entry should answer two questions:

 

1. How does the class I observed relate to the material we are learning in the methods courses?

 

2. What did I experience or learn in this observation that would be most useful, interesting, or constructive to share with other students in the class?

 

CLASSROOM OBSERVATION A

 

1. Summarize, in as much detail as you can, what went on in the room for the first two minutes after the bell rang.

 

2. Why do you think I asked you to pay particular attention to the first two minutes of class?

 

3. Briefly describe the main activities (e.g., teacher lecture, question-and-answer recitation, student discussion, small group work, individual desk work). In describing each activity, give a few examples—statements the teacher made, comments the students made and questions they asked, and so forth. There is no need to reproduce the class in great detail, but try to convey the sense of it.

 

4. What did the teacher seem to want the students to learn?

 

5. How would the teacher know, by the end of class, whether the students had leaned what they were supposed to?

 

6. Were there any classroom management problems in the class? If so, give one example. What was the class doing just before the disruption occurred?

 

7. Why do you think I asked you what was going on just before the disruption occurred, rather than asking you what the teacher did about it?

 

8. What were the two most useful things you learned about teaching from observing this class?

 

 

CLASSROOM OBSERVATION B

 

1. Find a class that has a somewhat diverse population—racial, ethnic, and/or learning abilities.

 Before the class begins, write out a list of Gardner’s Intelligences and remind yourself of the issues involved in addressing each one. As you listen to the class, note examples of class activities that might address these intelligences.

 

2. If any “Intelligences” have been left out, how could they have been incorporated into the lesson?

 

3. What special strategies related to Gardner’s Intelligences are used for students with learning problems? For those with behavior problems?

 

3. What are the two most useful things you learned by observing this class?

 

 

 

CLASSROOM OBSERVATION C

 

1. If the teacher explicitly told the students what they were expected to accomplish that day (objectives), what did the teacher say? If the teacher did not announce objectives even in an informal way, what do you infer, from the class you witnessed, that the objectives must have been?

 

2. What did the class do to carry out the objectives?

 

3. How well do you think the class achieved the objectives? On what do you base your conclusion?

 

4. Were there any classroom management problems in the class? If so, give one example. Why do you think it occurred?

 

CLASSROOM OBSERVATION D

 

1. Observe a class engaged in a writing project. At what stage is the writing process during the class you observed—research, pre-writing, writing, conferencing, revision? What can you infer about the lesson objectives for the day, concerning this writing project?

 

2. Describe the writing assignment, as best you can. What level of Bloom’s taxonomy does it seem to most closely address?

 

3. Describe the activity of several students during the class period, including one who seems to accomplish a great deal and one who doesn’t. What does the teacher do during the class that influences the students’ productivity?

 

4. How well do you think the class achieved the objectives for the day (as you could infer them)?

 

CLASSROOM OBSERVATION E

 

1. What small-group activities were done in this class?

 

2. Describe in detail any preliminary whole-class discussion, modeling, or other activities.

 

3. How did the teacher give instructions for the small-group work?

 

4. How effective did the groups seem to be? Did they seem to achieve the objectives of the lesson?

 

5. What did you learn about the use of small-group work by observing this class? What would you have done the same and what different?