Rhonda Does Research: first year composition courses

Showing posts with label first year composition courses. Show all posts

Friday, October 27, 2017

What Happened to Me?

I remember this.
(Photo credit Wikipedia)

I have a good memory; I remember birthdays, phone numbers, addresses, passwords, even the Bill of Rights. But now it seems like I can't remember to blog. I have no excuse. I just forgot and kept forgetting.
I've had a bad cold the last couple of days (no excuse--the last time I posted was in September!), and I finished all of my homework except for the final revision of my film analysis, which is almost done. I checked the course schedule to make sure I had the right due date, and I did, but there it was in the "Writing Due" column: blog. In fact, every week's entry ends with "blog." It's as if my eyes just refused to read it. What this means is that now, when I should have at least 20 posts, I have only 7.
I don't know why I'm feeling so compelled to post this, probably nobody cares. I just don't want people thinking I decided not to post.
I'll be back in a few minutes.
I mean it.

Saturday, August 26, 2017

Time to Get Going!

books I got from library for this semester :) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is Saturday of the first week of the fall semester, and I am finally getting my blog ready. I'm kind of worried about it, because the prof told us that she would be making "random progress checks." So, I guess I better be pretty careful to keep it up to date, which means I need to do another post today about one of the readings in our textbook.
Which brings me to my main problem: organization. This time, I'm going to make a schedule and stick to it (just so you know, I said this every semester throughout high school--and I usually fell apart after a few weeks). It seems to me that publishing that statement for the entire world to read if they want to will make me feel more committed. This and my profile are probably all anyone needs to know about me.

Monday, January 30, 2017

A Cooling Mess

Mixing an RPG with Match-3.

Please consider this an addition to my introduction, since I didn't cover much about myself last time. The basic facts are in my profile, but I just realized that I haven't updated it for a while. I live with my father and my older sister. My mom died a couple of years ago, and from then until recently, I've been a hot mess: I couldn't focus or concentrate on anything, and my grades dropped almost as low as they could go. Lately I've been doing better. Anyway, if you see me zone out for a bit in class, it's no big deal now.

On a less depressing note, one of my brothers got me hooked on a game last Thanksgiving, and I spent most of my free time over winter break playing it (Marvel Puzzle Quest--be warned, it's really addictive). Maybe that's why I'm coming out of my funk. Could video games be therapeutic? My sister won't try it, which is too bad, not because she's depressed, but because I really want somebody who plays it to talk to and compare notes with.

The rest of my life is pretty average/typical.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

The Sinus Infection from Hell

English: An infection of the maxillary sinus a...

Is this gross, or what?!!
An infection of the maxillary sinus as seen on CT
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yeah, I'm sick. I've had fully-loaded sinuses since Christmas, and earlier this week an infection set in, swelling up my eyes and blocking my ears. Luckily (?), my school week was over on Wednesday, so I didn't miss any classes. I've even kept up with my research schedule, since I didn't feel up to anything but reading. I'll have my bibliography done on time, and my definitions essay is coming along pretty well.
The rest of the time I've been hanging out with my grandmother. She came to live with us a few months ago when she sold her house (it was too big for her to keep up). Dad asked her if she'd like to make our house her home base (she wants to travel with a couple of her friends), and it was all set. She watched Age of Ultron with me, but gave up when I started watching my three possible scenes over and over. She had some good ideas, so I was sorry she left.
I'm on my second day of antibiotics, and I still don't feel any different. I'm worried about school on Monday.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Am I Ready for College?

Robert College Students in the Forum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My first class starts in less than 2 hours, and after talking with Rebbie, my older sister, over the last couple of weeks, I'm not sure that I really know what to expect. She told me to check and see if my classes had Blackboard pages yet (two of them did), and that's how I learned that this blog is a major assignment for my English comp class. So, having set it up, I'm ahead at this point-- but that's not the way I usually am, and I guess that was what Rebbie was trying to get across to me. It looks like I'll have to make some big changes.

I'm supposed to be introducing myself in this first post, but I think I just gave away a big chunk of info that I normally don't tell anybody. When it comes to school, I can always find a reason to put homework off until the last minute. Rebbie asked me how that was working for me (she's kinda sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell), and I have to admit that it doesn't work too well. I always feel like I'm behind. Now you know something about me aside from my profile.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Gotta Love those E-readers!

I am totally crazy about my Nook, even though it doesn't perform up to specs. I could fix it, but that would involve re-registering it, which would clear out all of the books I side-loaded to the 32 gig card I added on--and it might not be possible to reload them, for reasons I don't want to get into here. Anyway, I've had it for a few years, and I have almost a thousand books, most of which were picked up for less than five dollars (probably a hundred or so were free). Yeah, I read a lot.

One of the things I love about it is that, thanks to the daily specials, I've been introduced to a lot of writers that I wouldn't have picked up on in print. A while back I bought Faye Kellerman's The Ritual Bath. It was the daily special to promote her latest book in the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series.

I don't know about you, but I like to learn stuff when I read a mystery, and this one has a lot to offer, in this case about Judaism and the daily issues that arise for the seriously religious. With that and the relationship that develops between the two main characters, I was able to take a mental vacation from everything that normally has my brain on the worrier's exercise wheel.
If this sounds good to you, try it for yourself.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

When a student loses steam

"Dr. Toffee" sums up Rhonda's fall 2014 semester:

Those of us who teach first year composition are (sadly) very familiar with students who find themselves in over their heads. The nature of a writing class is grounded in near constant writing, and it takes a while for some students to get up to speed. This last term that happened to Rhonda. Between her family situation, her job, and her courseload, she had a lot to handle. The biggest problem she faced as a student was time management. She tried to complete the major projects, but often forgot about Project 1: her blog. By the end of the term, she found that there was no way that she could catch up and complete the last two projects plus the required number of blog entries. She came to my office hours two weeks before the final, looking for some kind of a solution, but (as you can imagine) it was too late for that. If she had come to see me even a couple of weeks earlier, I'm fairly certain that we could have worked it out, but she just waited too long. She had to drop the course.

Rhonda's problems have had an impact on me-- from now on, I'll be checking in on my students' blogs more often over the semester, and I'm thinking about requiring them to come to my office hours at least once during the first 8 weeks of the term. We'll see how this works out.

As a final note for those who follow this blog, you should know that Rhonda will be taking 101 this spring (doing the whole 2014-2015 school year in reverse).

Related articles:

"10 Common Problems Students Face During College" - the comments here are also useful.

"What are the Biggest Issues Facing Community Colleges Today? New Study has Answers." This article from the Community College Review discusses the issue of college readiness.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

To my First Year Comp Colleagues: The Ongoing Pedagogy Project

(note: Rhonda will be back later today)

Those of you who have been following this blog are already aware that my goal here is both to provide a sample for my 101 and 102 students and to present a method for creating a realistic research paper assignment, i.e. one that is representative of actual assignments in college courses. If you haven't read the initial material, there are links above.
Since my department is shifting to new textbooks this term (Ruszkiewicz, John J. and Jay T. Dolmage. How to Write Anything: A Guide and a Reference with Readings. 2^nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012, and Ruszkiewicz, John J. A Reader’s Guide to College Writing. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014), this seems like a good time for a brief progress report. Over the past few years, the most obvious result has been a decrease in students dropping the course, which has been my greatest encouragement. In addition, the problems I've seen students having are the same ones we all see every semester: writing issues, difficulty with time management, critical thinking skills that aren't yet up to the material, etc (here in Illinois, high schools apparently focus primarily on 5-paragraph essays, with the result that many students can't immediately grasp the reality that those won't work at the college level: for some, it's a kind of security blanket, and they resist the change). All of these are college-readiness issues that should have been addressed before they enter our classrooms, but that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon. So, as far as the things I can control go, this project is producing a quantifiable benefit.
New versions of the assignments and critical model packet will be available shortly (links will be on the left).

Finally, my thanks to those who sent condolences after my mother's death. I am very hopeful that the gaps in posts that have marked this year to date will not be necessary again.

And now, Rhonda is up next. She is taking 102 this term, so if you need a 101 example, use the Fall 2011 or 2012 entries.

Monday, November 25, 2013

I Don't Wanna . . .

screeches and whines (Photo credit: Lettuce.)

I have the whole week off from school this week (but I still have to work -- especially on Friday. I hate working retail), and, after a weekend where I accomplished exactly nothing, I'm facing facts.

Fact number 1 (just in the order it occurs to me, not ranked as to importance): I have 5, yes, 5 projects to finish before the end of next week, and the thought of working on them makes my head hurt.

Fact number 2: If I don't keep up with my coursework, I'll probably be stuck working retail forever. (Hey, Dr. Toffee, you'll be pleased to know that I know that this is a slippery slope logical fallacy)

Fact number 3: Somehow, I have managed to wind up having no money again, just when Christmas is coming and there's a lot of stuff I want to do (movies, parties, etc.) besides buying gifts.

Fact number 4: Thanksgiving is coming at me like an out-of-control steamroller. If I could have moved into my own place by now, I could just show up at Mom's on Thursday, eat my turkey, help with the dishes, and go home. But because I live at Mom's, I'm responsible for a bunch of time-consuming chores that nobody will notice unless I don't do them. Really, I guess that even though I want to help out, what I want more is not to have to help out.

Conclusion: I am selfish, self-indulgent, and lazy.

However, as you can see, I am writing this post, so I am working on one of my projects, finally, which means that I have crawled out of my lair and started to face reality.

But I still don't wanna.

Friday, March 22, 2013

New Ideas for the Research Project

Bilbo writing There and Back Again in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring; note subtitle "A Hobbit's Tale" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I know I've fallen behind, so you can expect to see several entries in the near future. I've been working on my literature review, mainly focussing on hero archetypes, and I think I've reached the point where it's not going to get any better. Therefore, I'm moving on to the research paper itself, and I just got some more ideas by watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey yesterday. There's an interesting contrast between its overall story and that of The Fellowship of the Ring when it comes to the makeup of the band of questers in each. The guys in The Hobbit are NOT all heroes, unlike the fellowship members.

Once I noticed that, I started having some self-discussion (am I inventing that term?) about what the difference means, which led me to some other thoughts about what exactly makes the FOTR guys heroes that The Hobbit's characters lack. And I'll talk about that next time.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Would You Care for Some Cheese with Your Whine?

:- Fred (Photo credit: Rob Warde)

There's a guy in my comp class who sits across the aisle from me, and spends half his time whining about everything, from how hard the assignments are to how the shades are pulled down on the windows. He has not taken any notes all semester. I did a peer review for him a while back, and I was really, really, really shocked by what he thought was a good paper. It stank on ice, as my uncle Gus would put it, and the guy -- I'll call him Fred -- was pretty pleased with his work. I'm not sure Fred ever reads anything he doesn't absolutely have to. For one thing, he's the Fragment King. Most of his "sentences" are missing either a subject or a verb, or they're just phrases.

So why am I writing about him today? Yesterday he was whining about his grade (finals are in 2 weeks) and how Toffee expects too much work (totally ignoring the fact that the school requires us to write a certain number of words for the course), and how she thinks we're actually going to revise stuff, and nobody does that for real, right? and HE WOULDN'T SHUT UP.

Toffee's up at the front of the room explaining how to write answers to essay questions on exams, and Fred is muttering to himself non-stop. I finally turned to him and shushed him like an old lady in church. You would've thought I slapped him. And, it turned out that I just made it worse. Now he was muttering AT ME. He got this kind of wounded look on his face, and said, "like any of this matters." Well, it matters to me, and I'm not just whining, I'm venting (the difference is obvious, isn't it?).

I should have changed my seat at the first whine, back in August.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

It's Finally Finished

English: A map of the fictional nation of Panem from Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The final revision of my critical analysis paper on The Hunger Games is done, or at least as done as it will ever be, and I turned it in. I feel like I've been let out of prison! I don't have to think about the movie anymore, and I can get on with the rest of my work. I'm glad that the paper was due now; all the major projects for my other classes are due in the last two weeks of the semester, and having this one out of the way means a lot in terms of time. All I have to do for English 101 is the application letter/résumé and a portfolio, which ought to be a breeze. Oh, and there's still a test on the textbook readings and a final exam, but I'm not going to worry about them now.

One thing I have noticed is that what Dr. Toffee calls my "writing process" has changed. I always thought of revising as being mostly correcting errors, but now I get it. In fact, right now, I realize that I'm not following the prompt for this week. I'm supposed to be writing about "The experience of developing and writing" the critical analysis essay, and I really should revise this post to fit that. But I'm not gonna!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Rita Dove's The First Book

Cover of Bride of the Rat God

This is now one of my favorite poems. It's so simple, yet it says everything it needs to say about that moment when you first hit upon the book that turns you into a reader. I'm pretty much a "narrative junkie," with a two-book-a-day habit, and since the semester started, I'm about 30 books behind. Yeah, I'm reading a lot for school, but it's not like I'm reading stories. And I've gotten really cranky over not having the time to read for myself. This is the reason I stopped posting for a while: I needed to read.

So, what did I read? I re-read a couple of favorites, Barbara Hambly's Bride of the Rat God (since it just came out on Nook-- I love that thing!) and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (another Nook download; I read this in fourth grade and it's still as good as I remember), as well as four free-Friday Nook ebooks. I've been reading Norwegian mysteries by Jo Nesbo; they are fascinating and disturbing. My sister loaned me her Hamish MacBeth mysteries (by M. C. Beaton), and they should take me through to the holidays.

I feel so much better now.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Write, Rewrite, Repeat as Necessary

Peer Review (Photo credit: AJC1)

My memoir is finally finished, unless I come up with something to add to it before class today. After the peer review last week, I decided to do a fresh draft; the story just wasn't cooperating with the point I was trying to make. It seems to me that the problem was that I really wanted to say something about sisters. I have two, Rebecca and she who shall remain nameless. The nameless one is the focus of the story, but I came to the conclusion that I should put Reb in as a contrast to her. The new draft was better, but it was over the maximum length, so that had to be fixed, and so on.

I never spent so much time on so short a paper in my life.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Rethinking Teaching the Research Paper

Term Paper Galore (Photo credit:
Bright Green Pants)

Rhonda is taking a brief vacation before the summer term begins, so this seems like a good time to explain a few things. This blog began as nothing more than an example of a first-year composition student's research journal, but along the way I've received comments and emails from other instructors all across the country, and the question most of them have has to do with my assignment for the research project. I'll have to give a brief background as to how I arrived at this point.

Like most of us who teach the first-year comp courses, I began by allowing students to select their own topics (with the usual few taboos), most of which had no academic significance, and then I watched most of them flounder around as they produced papers that didn't do what research papers are supposed to do and were quite boring on top of it.  Additionally, I could not guide them as well as I wanted to, since I generally had little expertise in their topic areas (i.e., I didn't know the important scholars in the field, and so on). This situation was not preparing them at all for the reality they would be facing in other courses as they went on. Imagine a sociology class, for example, where you were told that you could pick any topic!

After a few years of frustration, I began looking for ideas on how to give them a more realistic assignment, one that could be accomplished within the time available both inside and outside the course. This was not an easy task, for many reasons. First of all, how could I give them a realistic paper assignment without having to teach what would essentially be another course within the course? I thought back to my own experience as a first-year student, and I realized that what I had been taught about teaching this course in grad school was nothing like the way I had learned to write a research paper back in 1974.

When I started college at what is now UIC but was then the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle Campus (I still think of it as Circle), I was a sulky 17 year old with a load of adolescent resentment. So, when I looked over the section list for the research paper course, I selected one that had the intriguing title, "Visions of Hell." It fit my mood. It was taught by a doctoral student, whose name I cannot now recall, and over the ten-week term (Circle was on a quarter system rather than semesters) we read several works of literature that had to do with, well, visions of hell. The research paper assignment was to pick a particular work and analyze its specific vision of hell based on criteria that we developed in class as well as criteria we found through research.

In the intervening years, the idea of the research paper course being a literature course gradually began to die out, for a bunch of reasons that I won't go into here, and I think this was part of the problem. I was taught to write a paper that analyzed a specific object (in my case, a work of literature, but it could have been a population, a natural phenomenon, a political event, whatever) using a method developed from authoritative sources in relevant areas in order to arrive at -- tah dah!-- new knowledge. The fact that I learned this using a work of literature did not matter: the overall concept is the same for anything under analysis, in any discipline.

At my current school, where I cannot require students to buy additional texts beyond the mandated ones (which are not literature-based), I had to come up with an assignment that would rely on material available to them without purchase.  A few quick in-class surveys revealed that my students ALL had access to films, which they also enjoyed (a plus when you are already making them read a lot of unfamiliar and often difficult material in their research). I'm a film buff myself, so I went with that. I set aside three or four class periods to do a brief lecture/demo of several critical approaches (gender, cultural, and disability studies, myth crit, and shame theory) and prepared a list of films (ones I either owned or could borrow from family or friends) divided into those approach categories.

The results, so far, are almost all positive, and the best one has to be that my drop rate has gone down dramatically. Most of my students are finishing the course with a passing grade, and all of them are producing actual scholarly work, creating new knowledge. It's rarely breathtaking new knowledge, but they are saying things about these films that nobody has said before them. Their critical thinking and revision skills are vastly improved, based on what I've read of their work.

Of course, there are some negatives, mostly coming out of them being pushed out of their comfort zones.  They come in expecting to do the same kind of research they did in high school, and some of them like to blame me for making them work harder than that. That hasn't changed from the method I used before. Overall, I'm pleased with the way things are going, but I've been making constant adjustments in the course since making the switch.

So, if you were wondering what Rhonda was talking about in some of her posts, the mystery is solved. I am collecting data as I go along with an eye to an eventual article. We'll see how it goes.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

It's Semester Break: "Dr. Toffee" takes over for a while

Image via WikipediaSummer term has ended, and Rhonda actually managed to get almost everything done. As you can tell from her postings, she stalled out on her journal. If you're a teacher, this won't surprise you; if you aren't, it probably seems strange. The research journal, at least in my classes, is an ungraded assignment. This means that all that matters is quantity. The students are free to discuss their projects and problems without worrying about the quality of their writing hurting their grade. It's worth 10-15% of their course grade, and it is possible to get full credit even if you are a lousy writer: all you have to do is submit the maximum number of entries. You'd think that all of them would be sure to max out on this, since it often means the difference between passing and not passing, but the truth is that around a third of each section (class) turns in the minimum or less. Even more strange is that some of these students are actually very good writers, suggesting that it would be easier for them to keep the journal up to date, but they don't care, I guess, and this often brings them down an entire letter grade for the course.
What a waste!
The flipside of this situation is that those who do max out their journals usually make comments in them near the end about how much having to do the journal helped them keep on track and think through what they were trying to do with their projects. And this is true for students across the board.