Week 1: Course Overview & Annotating Texts

Class Info

  • Dates: Wednesday, 8/28, Wednesday, 9/4
  • Meeting Info:

This course meets in person for 100 minutes twice per week, Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:00-1:40pm, in Namm 704.

Each week, I will post an agenda that will outline the week’s work. It will include instructions for you and links to readings, discussion questions, and other work.  We will work on developing community both in our classroom and in our online written community. 

Topic

Introductions and Course Overview

Objectives

  • To get acquainted with the course, the First Year Learning Community, our OpenLab site, our course format, and each other, and to begin contributing to the course site.

To-Do This Week

Action

Reading

  • Read the course’s Syllabus, which includes the description of the course, policies, what I expect from you, and what you can expect from me.
  • Read the course’s schedule for an overview of the semester
  • Read the “Welcome, Students” post
  • Read through the other materials on our site to get familiar with what’s available and to be ready to ask any questions you might have.
  • Read “Tips for Success” from The OpenLab for Students, plus any other sections that you find important.
  • Read “How to Read like a Writer” by Mike Bunn.
  • Review “RLW” (Reading like a Writer) Power Point by Laura Westengard.
  • Read your classmates’ contributions to the discussions you’re all participating in on our site.

Writing

  • Join in our Introductions discussion by following the instructions included in the post. Please add your introduction early enough in the week (ideally by Wednesday morning) to give everyone time to read the introductions.
  • Join the discussion about Mike Bunn’s essay, “How To Read Like a Writer.”
  • Everyone has questions when starting college–about the course, the syllabus, the agendas, what a FYLC is, what you’re supposed to be doing, if you’re where you’re supposed to be, how to find something at City Tech, anything and everything! Add a question to our Q&A forum. If you have the answer to someone’s question, answer it! (lots of crowdsourcing potential here!)

In Class, W 8/28

  • Welcome
  • Focused freewriting: Let’s do some noticing. Spend the first few minutes of class writing about what you’re noticing. This could be something in the room, something you noticed on your way to class today, something you’ve been noticing for a while, something you notice about yourself. Challenge yourself to be descriptive, observant, and not rushing through this exercise. I will collect these to start to get a sense of you and your writing, but not to grade or evaluate. We’ll do this kind of writing frequently this semester.
    • city life, not too crazy, but nice
    • freezing wearing shorts, most wearing pants
    • people like neutrals like black, white, maybe brown
    • wall of windows on 6th floor (library building, formerly atrium building)
    • back to school gloomy faces
    • people saying hi to people they know, happy to see them
  • Introductions
    • Share with the class:
      • The name we should call you
      • Your major
      • What do you want to know about your classmates?
      • What’s your answer to that question
      • Where are you from?
      • are you excited about meeting new people?
      • where were you born and raised?
      • favorite show?
      • did you travel this summer?
      • dream place to visit?
      • did summer feel short or go by smoothly?
      • how was your summer?
      • where did you go to high school?
      • what’s your favorite color?
      • what’s your sign?
      • what’s your favorite food?
      • did you have other ideas instead of college?
      • what’s your best personality trait?
      • what’s your favorite movie?
      • what’s the last film you watched?
      • any pets?
      • what’s something you enjoy doing?
      • what’s your favorite television show?
      • if not this major, what other major?
      • if you could change something about this classroom, what would it be?
    • Interviews: now let’s ask everyone these questions!
    • Focused freewrite: Reflect on what stands out to you from the interviews? What was the experience like for you?
  • Course Site overview
    • sign up for the OpenLab and join our course
    • you can still do all of this week’s work even if you can’t yet sign up for the OpenLab to join our course.
  • Syllabus overview
    • How do you annotate a text?
    • Overview of our Syllabus and Course Schedule:
    • what questions, concerns, observations do you have? what do you want to highlight for yourself and your classmates? what words do you need to understand better to understand the syllabus?
    • In groups, discuss your annotations. What became clear, and what became confusing?
    • Groups share their work with the class
  • What do we need to know?
    • Connect Day–read the Connect Day post on our course site
    • IDs
    • Student Support Hours (also known as Office Hours)
    • Where is everything? need help finding the library, your department, the restrooms, etc?
    • Getting Started With Technology–hope this helps you get into your email, your CUNYfirst, and wifi!
    • Join our Q&A discussion to ask–and maybe answer–questions you have.
  • Before we meet again, read “How to Read like a Writer” by Mike Bunn. Join the discussion about Mike Bunn’s essay, “How To Read Like a Writer.”

In Class, W 9/4: Metacognition and Annotation

  • Welcome back
  • Freewriting
  • Annotating
    • take notes in a notebook/document etc
    • take notes about each paragraph
    • summarize
    • pinpoint parts that say what the overall importance is
    • look for answers, anticipate questions
    • goal is to better understand the reading
    • break it down piece by piece
    • ask questions in the margins
    • highlight/underline a quote or text–pair it with a note
    • circle words you don’t know/need to know differently, use context clues and/or dictionary to define these words and include it in the margins
    • box, star, arrows
  • Syllabus: what stands out to you, what do you have questions about, what do you need to remember, what seems unfair or something you want to change, what are you excited about? Share in your group what you looked at and what you annotated.
  • Reading like a Writer
    • “How to Read like a Writer” by Mike Bunn
    • what questions, concerns, observations do you have? what do you want to highlight for yourself and your classmates? what words do you need to understand better to understand the reading?
    • In groups, discuss your annotations. What became clear, and what became confusing?
    • Discuss the discussion about Mike Bunn’s essay
    • Add additional comments to the discussion thread
  • Next reading and discussion: Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” (Book VII) from The Republic and related videos
    • CONTENT WARNING: the Plato text and related videos are about people who are imprisoned, maltreated, and tortured.
    • Full details in the Week 2 Agenda