Irwin Weiser |
680W--Seminar in Writing Across the Curriculum Fall 2001
Overview
Here's what I've planned for us this fall. I've chosen two collections, Bazerman and Russell's Landmark Essays and McLeod, Miraglia, Soven, and Thaiss's hot-off-the-presses WAC for the New Millenium. These books offer a mix of history, theory, research, pedagogy, and administrative outlines for Writing Across the Curriculum. I've supplemented these readings with a collection of additional essays, which is available at Copymat. As you'll see from the syllabus, my intention is for us to spend the first part of the semester reading and discussing essays in Landmark Essays and the coursepack. During the sixth week, we'll take some time to look at where we've been and where we'd like to go. We'll do the looking ahead in two ways: you'll each report on the semester projects you'd like to do, and you'll each suggest one additional reading for us to consider during the second part of the semester. After we talk about those additional readings, I'll put together a second course pack, which we'll read and discuss along with selections from WAC for the New Millenium for three weeks. We'll end the semester with our own Conference on Writing across/in/through the Curriculum, which we'll hold during the last two class periods.
Some Details
I've set up a reading schedule that I hope will allow us to both read and think about the assignments--to have time to reread, as necessary, so that people are prepared to discuss, raise questions, synthesize, and so on. If we find that we don't have sufficient time for discussion, we'll make some adjustments. One result of this pace is that I've left out a couple of books you might have expected to read, most notably David Russell's Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990: A Curricular History. We'll read a shorter historical piece by Russell instead, and some other discussions of the history of the movement. Russell's book, along with several others, will be on reserve for this course.
The major written assignments for the course will be a project proposal, due October 10th; a conference proposal, due October 24th; the course project itself, due no later than noon on December 12th (the Wednesday of exam week).
Other work includes leading a couple of discussions of assigned readings, giving a very brief oral presentation about the project you're considering (September 26th), and a conference presentation during one of the conference sessions on either November 28th or December 5th.
Even More Specific Details: Selecting Articles, the Project, and the Conference
Selecting Readings for Class Discussion
Each of you will lead the discussion of two readings this semester: one which you have chosen for the second coursepack and one of the readings in the first coursepack. So you have some choice about which reading you're responsible for from the first coursepack, by next Tuesday, August 28th, please give me a ranked list of three articles you'd be most interested in working with. I'll go through these lists, assigning readings based as much as possible on your rankings. You may e-mail your list to me or put it in my mailbox. Since we won't have time to determine who's doing what before next week, do not choose any of the articles we'll be discussing then.
The Project
I assume that through your reading and our discussions, you'll find a particular issue you want to pursue in more detail. You'll need to be thinking about find this issue during the first five weeks, so you can float your idea by the rest of us on September 26th, then refine it and write a proposal for your project by October 10th. I'll read and respond to your proposals, and as long as I approve your plan (or approve it following revisions), you can begin work on it. Part of what your proposal will include is the format of your project: will it be a publication-length essay (15-25 pages), a review article, a potential conference paper, plans for WAC workshops of various lengths, something in hypermedia or Web-based? Will it be an individual project or will you collaborate with others in the class? As October draws nearer, we'll work out additional details for both the proposals and the projects.
The Conference
So you can share your work this semester with one another and other interested members of the department, we will hold a conference at the end of the semester. Because we want to be sure to have time for discussion after each conference presentation, we'll split the conference into three sessions, two to be held on November 28th and one to be held on December 5th. Each of you will present some version or part of your course project to an audience consisting of the rest of the class and anyone else who chooses to attend. Your presentation may take the form of a conference paper, an interactive presentation, a poster or web-site with commentary, etc. Each of you will have no more than 15 minutes for your presentation. If you are working collaboratively on a course project, your conference presentation may also be collaborative, and you may have a maximum of 15 minutes per person.
Conferences, of course, require conference proposals, and this conference is no exception. On October 24th, you'll submit a brief proposal for your individual presentation or session. We'll use the model of the CCCC proposal as a standard, but if any of you are in fact submitting a proposal to another conference this year or if there is a conference proposal format that will be more useful for you to use (e.g. NCTE, WPA, TESOL, AAAL, etc.), you may use that, as long as you give me a blank copy of the form.
Evaluation
Here's how I'll evaluate your work this semester:
1. Regular attendance and participation in discussions: 15% 2. Leading discussions of two assigned readings: 20% (10% each) 3. Project Proposal: 15% 4. Project: 25% 5. Conference Proposal: 10% 6. Conference Presentation: 15%
Some Other Resources
Below you'll find a list of books I've put on reserve.
There are also some on-line resources which you might want to be looking at. We'll be heading over to Stanley Coulter later this afternoon to look at one: The WAC Clearinghouse at Colorado State University < http://aw.colostate.edu/resource_list.htm>. The WAC-L discussion list is owned by Gail Hawisher at the University of Illinois. It's usually a pretty quiet list, but you can subscribe to it by sending the following message to <listserv@Postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu>: Subscribe WAC-L your name.
One final resource (though not the resource of last resort, I'd hope): I'll be holding office hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons between 1:15 and 3:30. I'll be available at other times by appointment. My office is 302A; the phone number is 496-2205. My e-mail address is <iweiser@purdue.edu>.
Books On Reserve
Bazerman, Charles, and James Paradis, eds. Textual Dynamics of the Professions. Madison: UWisconsinP, 1991. 808.0014 T314 1991
Belcher, Diane, and George Braine, eds. Academic Writing in a Second Language. Norwood, NJ:Ablex, 1995. 428.007 Ac12 1995
Geisler, Cheryl. Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994. 808.042 G277a 1994
Griffin, C. Williams, ed. Teaching Writing in All Disciplines. Jossey-Bass, 1982. 808.0402071173 T22
Herrington, Anne J. and Charles Moran. Writing, Teaching, and Learning in the Disciplines. NY: MLA, 1992. 428.007 W9397 1992
McLeod, Susan H. and Margot Soven, eds. Writing Across the Curriculum: A Guide to Developing Programs. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. 808.042071 W9387 1992 NOTE: This book is listed as being missing, so unless the library re-orders it, it won't be on reserve. It's available as a PDF file on the WAC Clearinghouse site at <http://aw.colostate.edu/books/>
Reiss, Donna, Dickie Selfe and Art Young, eds. Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1998. 808.0420285 EL25 1998
Russell, David R. Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990: A Curricular History. Southern Illinois UP, 1991. 808.040271173 R912w 1991
Sigsbee, David L., Bruce W. Speck, Bruce Maylath, eds. Approaches to Teaching Non-Native English Speakers Across the Curriculum. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. 378.125 Ap65 1997.
Walvoord, Barbara. Helping Students Write Well. NY: MLA, 1986. 808.040271173 W179h 1986
Walvoord, Barbara, and Lucille P. McCarthy. Thinking and Writing in College. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1990. 378.17 T348 1990
Walvoord, Barbara, et al. In the Long Run: A Study of Faculty in Three Writing-Across the Curriculm Programs. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997. 808.0420711 In15 1997
Yancey, Kathleen, and Brian Huot, eds. Assessing Writing Across the Curriculum. Greenwich, CT: Ablex, 1997. 808.04207 As74 1997
Young, Art, and Toby Fulwiler. Writing Across the Curriculum: Research into Practice. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, 1986. 808.042 W938 |