Writing Program Summer Teaching and Assessment Workshop, 2009

9:00-4:00, Tuesday, July 21, Buchner Hall

Arnie Sanders, Writing Program Director x6515  (Rev. 07/20/2009 09:20:21 PM)

9:00-9:30 Coffee and tea in Buchner ("So how has your summer been so far?")  Slide Show.  MLA Style Sheet Changes in Brief.

9:30-10:30  Developing a Consensus about Defining and Reporting Plagiarism (Guest: Amanda Thom Woodson, Associate Academic Dean)  Note--this problem is, like the next one, a "moving target," so even if you remember answering these questions several years ago in a previous summer workshop, please take them seriously and think about how the last five years have changed the way students mishandle sources and misunderstand the production of intellectual property.  Click here for the anonymous reporting survey--if you fill it out and bring it in, you can turn it in early.  Everyone else will have the coffee session to fill it out, too.

[10-minute break]

10:40-12:00  How Digital Text Is Changing Incoming Students' Reading, Writing, and Research Skills
 

12:00-1:00  Lunch in Buchner catered by Bon Appetit  While you're eating, find some people to talk to and consider this really big question that almost needs a workshop of its own--where is academic writing headed in the next decade, where do we want it to go, and where do our colleagues in other disciplines want it to go?

1:00-2:00  Retention and Writing Instruction

2:00-3:00  Teaching with Blackboard: A Useful Tool and a Worst-Case-Scenario Lifesaver!  (Carol Pippen)

3:00-3:10  [10-minute break]

3:10-4:00  Syllabus and assignment workshop--bring your best/most-troublesome-but-promising assignment and your syllabus to share with small group workshops.  Our goals--share and improve the assignment; improve the overall assignment sequencing of the syllabus; sharpen the assignment's and syllabus's focus on the students' perception of the writing goals of the course and their progress toward them.  Are your assignments starting to feel a little "shopworn"?  Take a look at the Goucher College Writing Assignment Bank.  Please consider submitting one of your assignments if it's really working well!

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Perennial Issues: What practical and legal necessities should your syllabus contain?; When, how, and why to send students "Academic Progress Reports"; How can we limit the time we spend on students who "do not return our calls" in favor of students who really engage us and the learning process?