Author Archives: Carrie Hall

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We will meet for our final PD meeting of this era TODAY (link at the bottom of this page) Thursday May 14 at 3 pm.  Please make sure you’ve commented on your partner’s units 2 and 3 and you’ve posted your 1101 final reflection assignments.– You can use category “1101 Portfolio.”  We will discuss those things, as well as your final teaching materials (due May 28) and any other questions you may have about finishing up the PD.

Second of all, I’ve set up the drive for the PD portfolios.  We’ve decided to use google drive instead of dropbox because DB was just too glitchy.  Please try to log in now so we can see if there are any problems with you getting in (you may need a google account to access google drive). Please post portfolios by the day grades are due, May 28.

  • Please use the folder “’20 Current PD Portfolios.”
  • Please make a folder with your own name in this format: (HallCarrie_20)
  • Within THAT folder, make subfolders for each class you are teaching with course and section number. (HallCarrie_1101_351).
  • In that folder, you will have either a file or a folder, as you see fit, for each of your students.  Make sure these are also titled clearly by the students’ names (Blair_Ruben) so they can easily be accessed.
I have emailed you the link to the drive but can not post it publicly. Please let me know if you need me to email it to you again!
Here is the link to Thursday’s Zoom:
Carrie Hall is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Last PD meeting!
Time: May 14, 2020 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 853 1664 6134
One tap mobile
+16465588656,,85316646134# US (New York)
+13017158592,,85316646134# US (Germantown)
See you at 3 tomorrow!
C

By May 11– please comment on colleagues’ units

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Hi everyone!  By May 11th, please comment on your colleague’s 1101 units 2 and 3.  I’d like you to keep the same partner as before.  That way, you’ll be able to think about the whole trajectory of the course.  These pairs are:

Nadine/ Rebekah, Josh/ Alison, Jody/ Patrick, Amity/ Devon, Julia/ Jessica, Kieran/ Ruth, Jacci/Jim 

Please think about the following questions (you can find the unit descriptions under the menu item ” COURSE MATERIALS: 1101 UNIT DESCRIPTIONS”

  • Look over the guidelines for Unit 2. The unit asks that students focus on genre awareness, that is, the unit teaches students to be aware of a range of genres and their different features so students might be able to learn those features so they themselves may start to write in those genres. It also asks that students learn transferrable research skills, evaluate sources, and begin to put sources in conversation with each other and with the student’s own thinking.  Does this assignment accomplish these goals?
  • Is it clear to you (and to students) how they will find a topic for unit 2? Do you think they will find those topics engaging?
  • Look at the guidelines for Unit 3. This assignment asks students to write in an unfamiliar genre, to identify and label conventions, and to use those conventions.  Does this assignment accomplish these goals?
  • Is it clear to you, in both units 2 and 3, what the instructor is asking students to DO?
  • Is it clear to you, in both units 2 and 3, what students will be graded on?

By noon on Thursday, May 14th, please post a draft of a final reflection assignment for your 1101 class– what will you ask your students to write for their final reflections next semester?  This can be similar to what you’ve done this semester, but it will likely be somewhat different, since we hope we won’t have another crisis quite so enormous (fingers crossed). Think about one or two of the learning objectives you may want the students to reflect on.  You can do this either directly (“Look at the second learning objective” or indirectly “what have you learned about genre?”) And also think about what kind of genre you want them to write in– an artist statement? a manifesto? a how-to article? Please use category “1101 Portfolio”

Also on Thursday, May 14th, we will have a Zoom meeting at 3 pm. I’d like you to be there if you’re able.  This will be our last group meeting of the semester (though I will still hold optional meetings).

Final deadlines (WOW)

  • Thursday, May 28: The final syllabi, and all unit assignments for 1101 and 1121 are due. Please note: final syllabi do not need to include the whole schedule for courses–they will include all your course goals and policies.
  • Thursday, May 28: Student grades due. All portfolios uploaded to the PD Dropbox folder (I will provide link shortly)

I will also email you with some times I will be available for Zoom office hours. Totally optional. 

1101 Units 2 and 3-Draft Due May 4

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Look HERE for some tips and quite a few examples of Units 2 and 3 for 1101.

  • Make sure you review the unit descriptions of Units 2 and 3 in prior blog posts.
  • Drafts of these assignments are due on the Open Lab on May 4. You can post them together, and just click both categories: 1101 Unit 2 and 1101 Unit 3.
  • There will be an optional Zoom meeting on Thursday, April 30 at 3 pm (link at the bottom of this page) to talk about Units 2 and 3.

Important Upcoming Dates

  • Thursday April 30: Optional Zoom meeting to discuss 1101 Units 2 and 3
  • Monday May 4: Deadline for posting 1101 Units 2 and 3.
  • Monday May 11: Deadline for Commenting on partners’ Units (same partners as before.)
  • Thursday May 14: By noon, post a draft of a final portfolio assignment (with reflection) for 1101. This is the assignment as you would give it to students. 3 PM ZOOM MEETING!
  • Thursday, May 28: The final syllabi, and all unit assignments for 1101 and 1121 are due. Please note: final syllabi do not need to include the whole schedule for courses–they will include all your course goals and policies.
  • Thursday, May 28: Student grades due. All portfolios uploaded to the PD Dropbox folder (I will provide link shortly)

 

 

Thoughts on Final Reflection/ Link to Monday Zoom

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Hello everyone– attached is a sample final portfolio reflection assignment tailored to Spring 2020.  Feel free to use it as much or as little of it as you like.

You are also welcome to use an assignment of your own. If you do, please make sure to have the students quote from and respond to their own writing and to think deeply about the trajectory of their learning this semester. Make sure you structure it in some way that you’re not just getting a meandering list of reflections, but a piece of writing with some thought behind it.

Regarding the portfolio: I have a sculpture background, so I think about a writing portfolio the same way I think of a sculpture portfolio. That is,  what do I want to show off? What is my trajectory as an artist?  What I’m trying to get at here is you can ask students to submit reflections or 1 or 2 carefully chosen homework assignments in their portfolios, if those homework assignments are something they are particularly proud of or tell the reader something about their writerly trajectory.

Tomorrow (Mon April 27) Christine and I will be on Zoom at 3 pm for an optional meeting to talk about the final reflection and portfolios some more–if you want. Link below!

Carrie Hall is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Portfolio and Reflection
Time: Apr 27, 2020 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 882 0320 3881
One tap mobile
+16465588656,,88203203881# US (New York)
+13126266799,,88203203881# US (Chicago)

Download (DOCX, 16KB)

1121 Unit 3– Optional, but useful

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Hey everyone! Thanks for the meeting today– it was quite useful.  I’m really impressed with everything you guys are doing with your classes, especially in light of the circumstances.  Thanks for being so available for your students and for each other.

If you would be so kind as to share your assignment for 1121 Unit 3 as a new post (the category is…”1121 Unit 3″) it would be really useful for everyone else to see. Thanks!

Thinking about genre.

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Hi everyone!  Just to recap, here is our upcoming schedule:

April 23:  3 pm Zoom call. By this date, please review 1101 Units 2 and 3 (below) as well as Kerry Dirk’s “Navigating Genre” ( you may recall we read this one million years ago, in January) and read “Murder, Rhetorically Speaking”. Please write a post (New Post) on Open Lab before our April 23 meeting answering the following question: (You can use the category 1101 Unit 2)

What are some strategies or low-stakes assignments you might use to teach your students what genre is, and how and why we move between genres in order to reach our audiences and achieve our desired outcomes? Try to think of strategies that you might be able to use online.

Download (PDF, 4.34MB)

 

Adding Lit Narratives!

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Hi everyone!  Sorry it took me so long to post this– I’ve been sidetracked by some life events.

I will be on Zoom (if you have questions or feel like chatting) at 3 pm today– Thursday, April 2.  Totally optional.  The link will be at the bottom of this post!

So, to post your literacy (or education or language) narrative assignments, just go to the dashboard, add “new post” and put your assignment in the body of the post. You will need to add a category.  Choose “1101: Unit One” and click “Publish” and your post.

 

Upcoming Dates

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Hey everyone– remember to sign up for this site– invites forthcoming.  You’ll all need to do this so you can post here, which we’ll need to do going forward.  What follows is a list of dates for most of the rest of the semester.  This isn’t detailed, just designed to give you some ideas of what’s to come and when things will be due.

Thursday, March 26, a Zoom meeting with Thursday Group. 3 pm. Details to follow.

After this point, we will all be one group. For right now, I was thinking all Zoom meetings would be about 45 minutes, at 3 pm (Mondays and Thursdays, come to whichever works for you) — they’re drop-in meetings, and optional, so you don’t have to stay the whole time or even come at all. Let me know if 3 pm isn’t a good time for you anymore.  Also I’ll be holding these meetings even when we don’t have PD just if you need extra support.

Monday, March 30: Optional Zoom meeting. Everybody welcome.

By Thursday, April 2, EVERYONE post drafts of Lit narrative assignments. I will be posting assignments and more examples ASAP but I have to get to work and get on that computer first). Optional Zoom meeting.

Mon Monday April 20:

  • Make sure you have sent your colleagues feedback on their lit narrative assignment on the OL website. (This will complete what would’ve been meeting 5) by April 20
  •  will post the info describing 1101 units 2 and 3. I will post homework, which will be a short reading, and reflection. Please note: your drafts of units 2 and 3 will be due Monday May 5

By Thurs April 23:

  • Optional Zoom meeting
  • Short Reading and reflection due  by April 23 on OpenLab.
  • For next time, comment on two of your peers’ reflections.

Mon April 27:

  • Optional Zoom meeting
  • By this date, make sure you have commented on two of your peers’ reflections. (This will complete meeting 6)
  • I will post the activities for the week– something to watch and listen to.
  • Drafts of Units 2 and 3 will be April 4 (the following week)

Thurs April 30: Optional Zoom meeting.

By Monday May 4:

  • Optional Zoom meeting
  • Make sure you’ve posted your comments on your peers’ lit narratives on the OpenLab (This will complete meeting 7)

More details to follow about our last meeting, but likely something will be “deliverable” by May 18.

For next week (March 9 and 12)

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NOTE: THIS IS FOR NEXT WEEK- FOR THIS THURSDAY, PLEASE SEE THE BLOG POST BELOW THIS ONE!

Please read the excerpt from Voices of the Self  (below.) Please note that Gilyard is now a highly esteemed professor at Penn State. This excerpt comes from a book in which every other chapter is a narrative account of his educational experiences (as this is.) The alternating chapters are scholarly writing about literacy education for African American students, using his own experience as example.

If you have not read it yet, please take a look at “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan HERE

Before next week’s meeting, please also post your end comment on the student essay we reviewed in class as a comment on this post (just click “comment.”) Remember that in Minimal Marking, we usually keep it to 1-2 paragraphs. We write first what the student is doing well, and then we write what we (as a reader) feel like the essay is lacking– where could they improve– in this case, focus on a larger, global concern like organization or providing evidence. Finally, you can choose ONE (at most two) sentence-level concerns you’d like the student to focus on.  Make sure you provide them resources to research this concern on their own! 

Download (PDF, 3.26MB)