Last day, writing as a process/student essays

What comments did you hear being made about your colleagues’ student essays? What are the differences and similarities between the types of comments you heard? How does the help you re-think your strategy for commenting on essays? Explain. What did you learn about applying writing as a process in your classrooms. What techniques/strategies did you pick up for integrating writing as a process? What problems do you foresee in your attempt to treat writing more like a process and not a product?

We all identified similar areas of problems in student papers, especially with respect to clarity. Students often forget to write thesis statements, which is detrimental to their own writing and makes their essays very difficult to follow. Zach mentioned a number of ways that he tries to help students improve their writing, in particular he brought attention to the balance between evidence and claim in student papers. We also discussed the problems that occur when students draw on the work of other authors. They either cite too little or too much, or they throw out unintroduced and undigested quotes in the middle of any given paragraph. Problems also occur when students quote at length, leaving no space for their own voice and contributions.

I learned quite a bit from the writing materials that we read over this morning. I plan on using peer review sessions in my classes, in which students will bring drafts into class and get comments and critique from their fellow students. I don't imagine that I will use the point system associated with the rubrics, but I do see myself handing out to the students the list of things/areas that I will pay special attention to as I grade their papers. I do plan to post a good example of a formal analysis on Blackboard for my students to model their papers on at the end of the semester. Zach noted that using the papers of former students can usher in problems in that the students can copy the form and wording of another undergraduate much better than they can emulate the work of their professor. Keeping this in mind, I plan on posting a good student paper and a formal analysis written by the professional in the field, both of which should provide them with models to emulate.

In terms of my own critique of student papers and drafts, I found it helpful to read over the materials from this morning, which made me realize that one must be both specific in terms of what should be changed while providing some positive reinforcement. When I first started teaching I used to mark every mistake, from the missplaced comma to fundamental problems in terms of the argument. At this point, I don't nitpick nearly as much, but there are always ways of making one's comments/critique more effective.

I plan on spending more time discussing the writing assignments with the students and having them go over drafts in small groups. The problems that I foresee are simply those related to content. When I spend more time on teaching the students to write, it means that I spend less time addressing the history of western art. This will be less of an issue in my upper-level classes, where we are concentrating more on a specific period/artistic movement/theme. Nonetheless, incorporating writing in a more effective way will require me to reorganize and to some extend rethink both my syllabi and how I teach. I welcome this.

Thoughts on writing assignments

It is always useful to read over someone else's writing assignments, especially in terms of how they imagine and lay it out for the students. There is always a certain degree of tension between providing too much information on how to do it, versus providing too little. You don't want to snow them under with guidelines, but then again you want to be very clear about your expectations. In terms of my own writing assignments, I would like to build in drafts, but I don't necessarily want to be the one who looks them over. Perhaps use peer review? I wouldn't mind hearing more about this technique. As we discussed, there is the ideal of good teaching and fostering good undergraduate writing, but there is little support for it, especially for assistant professors, who to be perfectly honest, should be attending to their research, not developing new and interesting ways of teaching. It was useful to learn a bit more about exactly what happens when a student comes to the writing center. I certainly plan to utilize it to a greater degree in the future.

comments on new media, blogs, and wikis

How might the course you are re-imagining incorportate the use of wiki? blog? multimedia project? Provide details as they pertain to the content of the course. What problems/issues do you forsee as you incorporate NewMedia into your classrooms?


I can see the usefulness of the blog, which I plan to use in my summmer I ARH 132 course. I will have the students read the arts page of the NTY and any arts news via the NYT during the week (they will be alerted via an RSS); they will be required to post by midnight each Friday in response to the art news they have read during the week. I will also use it for the homework assignments, instead of having the students turn in paper copies. I also plan on having them rewrite one of the homework assignments, using my comments to improve their writing.

Regarding the wiki, I'm not so sure about it. I don't tend to use group projects, because of the reality that only one or two students end of doing all of the work. But, if the wiki had an on-line archive, which records the changes made and by whom, then I might be more open to this type of assignment. But I will have to think about it a bit more.

With respect to new media assignments in non art classes, I'm not sure of the value at this point. Certainly students taking art courses in new media are expected to master video, web design, etc , but I'm not at all clear of the place for this in art history, especially at an introductory level. How does learning an additional set of skills in video for example (likely on a superficial level for most students) deepen the learning experience and makes students better writers? I'm open to non-traditional teaching methods and assignments, but as a member of the art and art history department, I respect the skills and creativity that my video and new media colleagues bring to their students, and I question whether a mandate to include new media across the college of arts and sciences does anything but belittle the skills required to master these creative art forms. Certainly no one should feel required to introduce them. Some web-based assignments may nonetheless be useful--having students critique websites, for example. I thought that it might be interesting for students to use google images to trace the use of a particular image. I chose the Mona Lisa and I was astounded by the complete rubbish that came up. From a pedagogical point of view, it was not a useful assignment.

However, I should note that I will teach an upper-level museum studies class in spring 09, in which my students will design an exhibition to be displayed in the Lowe Art Museum, complete with wall text, captions and a short catalog. I am also planning an on-line exhibition of complementary materials to accompany it. It may be that the catalog exists only in an on-line form and that students' essays for the class are also uploaded onto this web-based exhibition.

Day 2: Library response/alternate assignments

What did you hear in the library this morning? How can you apply what you heard to the work of the course you are re-imagining? What ideas did you get for alternative research essay assignments? Draft a rough prompt incorporating the content of the course you are re-visioning.


The library staff introduced us to a wide variety of resources (including themselves) that we can take advantage of to improve student research and writing. We could have stayed much longer, and it would have been helpful to have a more hands-on approach. I especially liked the idea of RSS for my own research. In the past my students have had varied, often less than enthusiastic, responses to the research seminars led by the librarians at the Richter, with the result being that I integrate a discussion of how to do research into my class on an ad hoc basis. I plan on taking advantage in my summer classes of a number of the resources that the librarians pointed out this morning.



In terms of re-imagining course assignments, I found the San Diego site ("alternative research assignments") more helpful than the UC Berkeley site. I think that I will incorporate an assignment where students look for a recent article on a subject related to 18th century art that we specifically cover in class, and then have them compare the way it's discussed in the essay with the textbook, and perhaps even my lecture. This can certainly be done in a blog form. I think that I will also have the students evaluate a website related to the 18th century; in order to control the assignment, however, I think that I will have to either give them specific websites to look up or give them specific keyword combinations. I'm also considering a research assignment in which they are asked to find a variety of different types of sources--primary and secondary--that could be consulted on this particular topic. In the summer, it seems unrealistic to expect students to do "real" research, but I want them to understand how it's done. I also plan on making my ARH 132 (also summer I) students use an RSS link to the NYT so they can get continual updates on art, which they will then have to discuss in their blogs (set up via Blackboard) in an on-line journal format. It makes sense to have them do this out of class (per Gina's suggestion).

Afternoon reflection blog

It was interesting to hear about other participants' teaching approaches and techniques in light of the article we read about writing as learning, not simply to demonstrate learning. I am interested in using some of the low stakes writing techniques, especially in my upper-level and seminar classes. In my prints class in the fall, I expect to use informal writing as a way to encourage student discussion, which is especially important in this class because I will be teaching it as a seminar (I had originally designed it to be a 300 level course). As a professor, I always feel very constrained by time and content, especially in the 100 level courses; I always want to make sure that I cover everything in order to give the student's adequate background when they proceed to upper-level classes. I think that in order to make the experience more interesting and meaningful to them, I need to lighten up a little on my drive to cover content and realize that listening to me lecture is not the only way of learning in the lower-level classes. My upper-level courses are already much more conversational; adding more writing will, I hope, facilitate this aspect. I would like to add, however, that there is still an important role for research papers in my classes. They are not wasted time, in my opinion. I recognize that having students turn them in at the end of the semester does little to foster good writing, but if they turn in drafts for the professors' feedback earlier in the semester, it will help them learn how to write and think better (although it does make more work for the professor!). Obviously this is not possible for large classes.

Close reading of syllabus

First, perform a close reading of your syllabus. Does the syllabus for the course you have selected to revise clearly outline the learning outcomes for the course? How and where? Is it clear how these outcomes will be measured? What learning outcomes and means of accessing those outcomes does the syllabus omit? Be specific.

In the "Course description" of my Early History of Prints and Printmaking syllabus, it includes the following statement: "Students in this course will learn how to identify how a print was made, when it was made, and with what materials and techniques." The course description makes it clear that we will pay considerable attention to the social history of prints. In general, I expect them to gain a basic understanding of the key artists and their contributions to the early history of printmaking.

Under "Course Requirements," it states that students will be assessed via class participation, in-class quizes (low stakes, only 5 pts, on print techniques), in class writing assignments (also low stakes writing, 5 pts each, on a specific question drawn from their reserve reading), a midterm, a final and a short research paper. Although I did not specify it on this version of my syllabus, I plan on having them write the research paper in the form of a catalog entry or exhibition wall text, the results of which they will have to present to the class as a whole. In this writing assignment and presentation they will analyze an original work of art (from the Lowe Art Museum collection of Old Master Prints) and write a catalog entry/wall caption for it, discussing the technique and subject matter and placing the work within its historical context. In this way students will be able to demonstrate both in writing and speaking what they have learned in the course.

As I revise the syllabus, I will make both what I expect students to learn and how these outcomes will be measured clearer for the students.

low stakes writing response

Develop two ways to incorporate low stakes writing in your classroom. Be specific with how you would integrate writing with the concepts you want your students to master. Use the examples from your reading as a basis:

#1
I plan to start having the students in my ARH 132 class (intro to Western art, part II) read the Arts page of the New York Times on a weekly basis. I will then, once a week, have them write a bit about the art that was discussed. This assignment would be at the beginning of class. In this case, I'm not so interested in specific concepts to be mastered, but in getting them to read about art and to think about it beyond the classroom.

#2
I like the idea of breaking up the class--re energizing it midway--by having a short writing exercise and then breaking the students into small groups to discuss their answers. I can certainly see the benefit in this for both writing and learning. I'm not sure exactly what I would ask them, because I would like to maintain a certain spontaneity in using this type of exercise. Certainly I would use it to reinforce specific points that I thought were important with respect to that lecture.

For these types of assignments I will use a check, check plus, check minus grading system, which I already use for homework assignments.