Author Archives: Carrie Hall

PD Next Week– Readings added

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Hi!  next week, we will be meeting in the President’s Conference Room (N318– FANCY!)

Here are next week’s readings: First is a VERY short reading from Bad Ideas About Writing (and a reading you might be able to use with your students if you like,) called “Teaching Grammar Improves Writing” by Patricia A. Dunn. The second is: “Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar” by Laura R. Micciche.

One thing I’d like us to think about for discussion is: Micciche’s students already have a pretty strong grasp of Standard Written Edited English (SWEE) when they perform these rhetorical analyses on texts. How might you use this idea of “rhetorical grammar” to teach writing here at City Tech? 

Please also (as a comment on this post) write up EITHER:

  • an exercise/ assignment that you do to teach reading/annotation/vocabulary strategies OR
  • a concern or problem you have with teaching reading.

Also, the forums on grammar/ engagement/ modes are still up. We’ll be talking about grammars next week– if you have issues or concerns you’d like to cover, post something in that forum.

Carillo, Difficulty and Emailing a Professor

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Hey guys, thanks for a good session! I’ll try to get us a less sauna-like room for our next meeting.

For next time, please do the following:

  1. Read “Creating Mindful Readers in First-Year Composition Courses: A Strategy to Facilitate Transfer” by Carillo and “Introducing Difficulty” from The Elements (and Pleasures) of Difficulty by Salvatori and Donahue. (links are live). They’re both pretty short, and both could be used with your students if you so desired.
  2. Comment on at least 2 of the 3 discussion forums (they are just below this post.) These are the topics that we were talking about in class. All you have to do is add a comment to the post. Super easy!
  3. Upload the low-stakes assignments we discussed in class to “low-stakes assignments.”

That’s plenty, so I’m not going to ask you to write more, but if you DO happen to have any good handouts of reading assignments or strategies you have, please send them my way! I’m going to compile a packet of reading assignments and I would love to have more to add.

Also, in case you are interested, here is the handout I have about teaching students how to email a professor. Jackie has one that’s less corny, I think, but corny is kinda how I roll (you’re welcome to use this if it’s helpful to you.)

Download (PDF, 292KB)

Welcome to the semester!

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UPDATE: We’re slowly adding some theoretical texts to the website that may be more accessible to students, but I also wanted to draw your attention to the free ebook BAD IDEAS ABOUT WRITING which has a number of short readings about misconceptions about writing that you may find useful to use in your 1101 course. I’ve pointed out a few that I find pretty helpful for talking about genre and discourse in the readings section of our blog. There are also a few that I think will be very helpful for discussing research, once we get there. I do intend to add a section to the website for readings on research. 

Hey everyone! I just wanted to say hi and update the site for the semester. You’ll notice that it’s no longer called “Summer Institute,” but instead “2019 Professional Development” as, sadly, it’s no longer summer.

To recap: we will be meeting on Sept 11 (location TBD) from 4-5:15. In preparation for this meeting, please just write up briefly a low stakes (either in-class or homework) assignment) that has worked well for you this semester, especially if you feel it increased student engagement. Please post this on “low stakes assignments” on this site. We’ll spend most of this session just checking in with you about how the semester is going thus far, what you are struggling with and how you’re feeling about your units, both current and forthcoming.

Also, if you haven’t done so yet, please post your units and syllabi on the site. If you’re struggling, please email or come see me. Also, I’m adding some more short, accessible theoretical readings to the site.

Hope you’re doing well, and please feel free to stop by!

(my students made that.)