Conversation Engagement (Journal Reflections & Responses)
| Dates | Benchmarks (Goals) |
| by wk 5 | 9.21… | you should have published 3 posts (1 reflections, 1 responses, and 1 remedies) |
| by wk 7 | 10.5… | you should have published 6 posts (2 reflections, 2 responses, and 2 remedies) |
| by wk 9 | 10.19… | you should have published 9 posts (3 reflections, 3 responses, and 3 remedies) |
| by wk 11 | 11.2… | you should have published 12 posts (4 reflections, 4 responses, and 4 remedies) |
| by wk 13 | 11.16… | you should have published 15 posts (5 reflections, 5 responses, and 5 remedies) |
| by wk 15 | 11.30… | you should have published 18 posts (6 reflections, 6 responses, and 6 remedies) |
Join the Conversation!
You are now classroom instructors of composition—you are practitioners within a discipline (composition & rhetoric) and members of a profession (university level composition teachers). Reflecting on your own classroom experiences will help you to grow as a professional. Reading (and responding to) conversations in the field will help you better understand current debates in the discipline (and beyond), university and higher education issues, and what’s affecting other students, teachers, classrooms, and universities across the country (and the globe).
Overview of Requirements, Categories, Expectations… and Math
There are three post categories: Reflections, Responses, and Remedies. By the end of the semester, you are expected to write six posts in each category for a total of 18 posts. 6 Reflections + 6 Responses + 6 Remedies = 18 Total Posts.
It’s the third week of the semester, which leaves 12 weeks until final exams. While 18 posts may seem like a lot, it works out to 1.5 posts per week.
While specific category explanations are below, in general, your posts should be informal, conversational, and engaging. While I don’t like word counts, I already know you’ll ask for rough guidelines… I expect sometimes you’ll write more, and sometimes less. I’d like to allow for that—at times you’ll be more interested or less interested, have more time or less time, feel great about your teaching or question your life choices. 🙂 I’m looking for engagement, interest, and a good faith effort.
(I’m also looking for two “formal” elements—conventions of blogs and blog posts—good post titles and use of proper category tags. Before you publish your posts, be sure to tick the right category box. If you forget, you can edit your post, select a category, and re-publish.)
Categories and Explanations
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Personal
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Reflections
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| Teaching reflections, rants, and raves. | |
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Reflections, rants, and revelations related to your teaching. Reflect on a class or the past week, rant about an issue that’s bugging you, or share your revelations (and revelry!) about something that happened in the classroom (or interactions with students, papers, etc.). |
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News Reports &
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Responses
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| Share an issue, topic or article “in the news.” | |
| Summarize and respond to an recent news item, article, discussion, or opinion piece. Draw connections between the text and your own university experience (as simultaneous grad students, teachers, employees, members of your disciplines and your institution, potential future faculty members, teachers, and writers… and as people with lives “outside” academia).
Your News Report and Response posts should include the title and URL (hyperlinked, if possible), indicate the source or type of source, and briefly summarize and respond to what you read. You may select articles in formal/professional publications, personal blogs, or in established discussion groups. Additional info and suggestions for sources are below. [jump to more on news reports and response posts] |
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Problems & Solutions
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Remedies
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| Problems and solutions; issues and advice. | |
| Describe a teaching “problem” you’ve recently experienced (pedagogical or practical), find advice or ideas (Google search or talk to experienced instructors), and summarize what you found.
“Problems” may be situations you weren’t/aren’t sure how to handle; they may be issues or questions related to composition pedagogy, classroom management, teaching techniques, classroom activities/assignments, responding to student writing, grading, time management, etc. (anything goes!). Your post should explain the “problem” or situation you experienced, and while it’s not required, you are encouraged to explain how you handled it (especially if your response or handling of the situation wasn’t ideal, effective, or …… Your post should also include a summary or highlights of the (good) ideas and/or advice you found on dealing with similar “problems” in the future. |
More on “Responses” Category
 Chronicle of Higher Education
Breaking news from all corners of academe.
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 Chronicle of Higher Education
The latest on tech and education.
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 Chronicle of Higher Education
Teaching, technology, and productivity.
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 Chronicle of Higher Education
Language and writing in academe.
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 Inside Higher Education
Collaborative blog for/by grad students
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 Inside Higher Education
Balancing parenthood and academics.
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 Inside Higher Education
Conversation and debate about learning and tech.
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 National Public Radio
Join us as we explore how learning happens.
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 Writing Prog. Admin. Council
For people in writing program administration.
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Inside Higher Education and The Chronicle of Higher Education are good places to start, but don’t limit yourself to the front pages (I often find little of interest to me on the main page). Both publications have a number of associated single and multi-author blogs (some of which are personal, insightful, and witty, blending disciplinary issues with personal experience—see IHE’s “American Cloaca: A Memoir,” * in twelve poorly numbered installments or The Chronicle’s recent coverage of graduate student activism and organizing and debates over trigger warnings in the classroom).
FAU recently made The Chronicle of Higher Education available to all students and faculty, either by accessing the site via the FAU Library’s EZ Proxy or by creating your own personal login using your @fau.edu email address. (If you decide to create your own login, which I recommend, be sure to check out the available newsletters—if you’re the sort of person who might forget to read, you can have content delivered to your inbox).
Besides IHE and The Chronicle, there are LOTS of other blogs, publications, newsletters… almost anything goes. Your reading doesn’t have to be “scholarly” or “professional” (I still lament the loss of “Rate Your Students”—a forum for sarcastic rants about and responses to students from anonymous instructors. Though it’s been silent for years, it’s still worth browsing… and fun fact, three of the posts there are mine 🙂 )
A selection of some blogs I follow by RSS feed reader are on the right, but I encourage you to find, read, respond to, and share texts from other sources.