Oberlin College’s First-Year Seminar Program

Resources for Teachers

2006-07

Course Goals for the First-Year Seminar Program                                 1

Epistemological Development in First-Year Students                            2

A Thumbnail Sketch of Best Practices for First-Year Seminars            4

Managing Discussion:  A Grab-Bag of Tips and Observations            5

Making Reading More Visible in the First-Year Seminar                      9

The Basics of Writing Assignments in the FYSP                                   10

Writing for Learning--Not Just for Demonstrating Learning                18

Handling the Paper Load                                                                          18

Ways to Respond More Effectively to Student Writing                         20

Making the Most of a Course Writing Tutor                                            24

Some (More) Suggestions for Faculty Members Working with a

         Writing Associate                                                                               26

Incorporating Information Literacy into Oberlin’s First Year Seminars 27

Thinking Through the Oral Presentation                                                 35

Please send ideas for other resources and suggestions for improving this document to the FYSP director.

These documents are also available through the Blackboard site for the First Year Seminar Program Faculty.

Course Goals for the First-year Seminar Program (FYSP)

These goals are drawn from the memo (including a motion to implement the FYSP) dated 1/28/2000 to the College Faculty from EPPC and from deliberations of the FYSP Committee.  In that memo, EPPC stresses that first-year seminars should "employ pedagogy appropriate to freshmen" and are intended as opportunities "for the faculty to explore new areas and pedagogical techniques."

Course Goals:

I.               Introduce liberal arts learning

a.    Educational goals of liberal arts learning

b.    Ethos/values that sustain a liberal arts community of learning

II.              Nurture essential academic skills

a.    thinking skills

b.    discussion skills

c.     writing skills or quantitative skills

d.    other skills (as appropriate to the specific course)

                                               i.     empirical and field-based research skills

                                             ii.     information literacy skills

The College Faculty passed the motion to implement the FYSP on February 8, 2000.    

Epistemological Development in First-Year Students

Summarized from Patty DeWinstanley's presentation to FYSP faculty

Students move through three main stages of epistemological development.  These stages are recursive and yet the liberal arts model intends to take students to the third stage in their understanding of knowledge.

The first stage is the Dualist/Absolutist stage.

Icon: Dragnet; Just the Facts, Ma'am

Beliefs: The truth is out there.  Students believe debates arise out of a lack of knowledge. 

Professor's job: give the correct answer and information and reward students who get things right. 

Tendencies: not to value discussion.  What's the point if there is simply right and wrong answers?  Not yet doing critical thinking.  

2. Multiplist/Subjectivist

Icon: the inkblot

Beliefs: all opinions are equal.  Students at this stage value quantity of opinion.

Professor's job: help students form and express their opinions; professor should then appreciate those opinions.

Tendencies:  reluctant to evaluate opinions.  Sometimes complain that the professor is only interested in having student echo his/her own opinions.  Not yet doing critical thinking.

3.  Relativist/Evaluativist

Icon: Einstein; "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

Beliefs: The views presented by other people and in various sources have a value, but they are not necessarily all equal; the student's job is to evaluate the various views and determine which are superior -- to understand the arguments for and against these views and evaluate them. Thus we are not talking about beliefs per se but about arguments for beliefs. 

Professor's job: help the students have the skills to evaluate, reason, and discriminate. 

Tendencies: tries to understand other people's points of view.  This is critical thinking.

Research suggests that students move toward the relativist/evaluativist stage as they proceed through their college careers.  When they enter a discipline new to them, they -- like most of us -- will tend to start in the first stage and move on from there. 

These "stages" are recursive -- they start in adolescence; their expression is influenced by gender, culture, discipline.  Science students tend to be more absolutist, and women students sometimes appear to be multiplist when instead they are evalutivist -- they're just attempting to understand and sympathize with others. 

Pre- and post-course surveys of students in the FYS suggest that they do move towards a relativist/evaluativist point of view.

A Thumbnail Sketch of Suggested Best Practices for First-Year Seminars*

Student work and ideas are a central part of the course; student input is a focal point for discussions and assignments.

Students write every week.

Students get written feedback on their writing within the first couple weeks.

Students have a clear sense of how they will be graded and have a sense of how they are doing by the end of the third/fourth week.

Students are encouraged to meet the prof one-on-one during office hours or in schedule conferences.

Students are informed and warmly invited to make use of the Writing Center.

The class does something out of the classroom at least once – a trip to the museum, the library, a lecture, a performance, a computer lab, the arb – whatever makes sense for your course.

The format of the class varies – from all-group discussion, to small group, to mini-lecture.

Students revise written work at least twice during the semester, taking account of the professor's and/or the writing tutor’s and/or their peers' responses.

Students get multiple opportunities to try skills that are new to them – e.g. an oral presentation, writing a critique, leading class discussion.

Students give an oral presentation during the semester.

Expectations for assignments are clear to students.

Students engage in different kinds of writing, from informal to formal.

Information literacy is integrated into the course.

Professors take the time to talk through issues in writing, reading, and discussion at the college level.

The professor approaches the FYS not so much as an introduction to a discipline as an intro to liberal arts learning — as an intro to the idea of disciplinarity.

Professors act as informal advisors to all students, and take the time to talk about Winter Term, spring registration, and other advising issues that are new to first-years.

Students have time in class to share information that will help orient them to college and to Oberlin.

The class discusses and understands the Honor Code.

Managing Discussion:  A Grab-Bag of Tips and Observations

from the kitchen of:  Jennifer Bryan

From my own FYSP syllabus:

You should work on your discussion skills as seriously as you work on your writing.  Such skills would include listening and responding appropriately, helping others to develop ideas, raising relevant questions, disagreeing forcefully but respectfully, backing up value judgments with evidence, getting your point across succinctly, and allowing yourself to take risks and change direction.  

I.  The first week is crucial

—Each student should speak several times before the end of the second class period.  It is especially important for quiet students to get used to speaking in a particular space, to particular people. 

—Never plan to do anything the first week that you absolutely must get through.  Though it seems counter-intuitive, introductory lectures should be delayed (in an FYSP, anyway).

—Name-learning exercises:  the more the better.  Have students learn about and introduce one another.  Sometimes big name cards help.

—Let them know what you expect from discussion; don’t forget to ask them what they expect.  Talk about why you think discussion is important, and what you want them to learn.  Emphasize that there are different kinds of productive contributions.  Emphasize too that productive discussion takes work; it doesn’t just happen. 

I give them little tips, like:  Try to keep contributions to one point at a time, so that people have a chance to respond.  If you lose your train of thought, it’s okay to say so—ask if we can come back to you later.  If you can’t figure out how to wind up your comment/question, that’s okay too.  Just wave your hands helplessly and say, “someone else, now, please!”

II.  Building in automatic forms of student contribution

—Have students come to class with short prep papers, paragraphs, or discussion questions. 

Some people require that these be turned in a few hours before class, so they can read them in advance.  Even if this is not practical, you can still use them to solicit student input that day (“did anyone write about this topic?”)  or later (“Marvin, last week in your prep paper you complained that Heloise was a doormat, so I’m particularly interested to hear what you have to say about Christina of Markyate...”).  I often write student names in red pen next to the relevant sections in my class notes so that I won’t forget to call on them. 

These can also be used as the basis for small-group discussions. 

—You can also have students do short in-class writings in response to a particular question.  Or, have students take five minutes to write down their own questions; then ask for them in order (discussing as you go along, or just making a list). 

—Establish other rituals of around-the-room contribution:  for example, reading through a poem line by line, with one student reading and the next student doing commentary.

—Plan short assigned student presentations, followed by student-led discussion.  These can be anything from 20-minute presentations of research to 5-minute preparations of a particular passage of a text.  What’s important is to let the assigned student (or students) assume full control of the classroom; sit on your hands if you have to. 

III.  In the Throes of Discussion

—A habit of calling on people can actually take the pressure off of quiet students by allowing them to play defense rather than offense.  It also shows them that you want and expect to hear from them.  Occasionally this means you will catch a student with nothing to say; laugh it off and move on.  (“Deer in the headlights!  Deer in the headlights!  Somebody else?  Help us out here...”)  I don’t want students to feel like they’re being examined; I’m just trying to involve them in the conversation. 

—If you ask a question and no hands go up, WAIT.  Sometimes students need time to think.

—If you’re not sitting:  walk with the chalk.  Scribble ideas as you go; it helps students keep track of what’s in play and where the conversation has been.  It also gives you something to go back to if discussion flags or goes off-track.

—Instructor interventions:  everybody has a different style, but I like to alternate between just listening and directing traffic without a lot of comment, and trying to push and challenge students a little more actively.  Examples:

—Pushing for clarification, asking for restatement (“I’m not sure I follow you completely.  Could you explain/ask that a different  way?  Could you explain what you mean by....?”) 

—Requesting examples or evidence

—Soliciting response to student comments (“does anybody want to respond to that?  Anybody have a different take?  Can anybody take that point further?  What would be some evidence for that?”) 

—Playing devil’s advocate, especially when all or most of the students are in agreement. 

—Helping to interpret and synthesize student comments (or asking them to do it:  “could you address that to Maria’s point about....?”  “So then are you disagreeing with Kim’s comment about....?” )  

—Getting things back on track (“well, okay, so how can you relate that back to the subject we were discussing before?”  Or just:  “I want to pull the discussion back toward....”)

—Heading off long-winded students (“hang on a minute—that’s a great point, and I want to make sure we get some responses...”)

—Encouraging, especially in the beginning (“that’s a GREAT point.  It really gets at the underlying  ...”).  Sometimes I like to do a bit of creative re-framing; it encourages them to see that their comments ARE smart and important, but it also get them to think about how to articulate them a little better.  Model, model, model. 

—Model, model, model.  Critical response to texts, critical response to comments, listening, changing your mind occasionally if possible.  I like to model subjective response, too.  (“Did anyone besides me have this visceral reaction to...?”)  Admitting confusion, anger, delight, or even boredom can help students to see that these kinds of responses aren’t antithetical to intellectual engagement, and can actually be productive—if you don’t stop there.    

IV.  Special Strategies

—Midterm discussion evaluations (even just a few sentences can be very helpful, as it sends a message that you’re paying attention).  You can use the evaluations to encourage quiet students, but also to nudge talkers (positively) toward more co-operative behavior.   More frequent evaluations are even better. 

—Meeting in two or three smaller groups at a different location (office, coffee shop, lounge).  This requires some scheduling, but in my experience is well worth it.  Whether or not I think the meetings go well, students inevitably mention them as among their favorite parts of the class. 

Making Reading More Visible in the First-Year Seminar

by Laurie McMillin

Reading is one of those things we often simply expect our students to know how to do.  But our experience suggests that first-year students often read differently from their professors -- they focus on different things, they come to different conclusions.  Furthermore, they often have less experience reading sophisticated prose or specialized prose from within a particular discipline.  In the First-Year Seminar, it may well be worth spending some time talking about how students read, what their strategies are for dealing with challenging texts, and offering some new approaches. 

It is difficult to make general claims about reading; you will be the best one to discern what kinds of approaches to take to various texts assigned in your class.  It will be useful for students if you can begin to articulate these approaches.  You can start by thinking about your own reading practices.  It's not that your students should necessarily model your practices, but it can be helpful -- for them and us -- if we all step back, try to articulate, and evaluate our various reading methods.  This helps to make reading more visible, and we can begin to tinker with our approaches, if necessary.

Here are a few questions to help you get started.

Where do you read?  What effect do music, TV, and other people have on your reading comprehension?  What time of day do you read best?  When do you have time available to read? 

What's the difference between the way you read a newspaper article and a reading for class?  What's the difference between the way you read a technical paper and one written for a more general audience? 

How do you make use of indices and contents pages?  What do you do with footnotes? 

Do you read straight through a text or do you circle around it?  Do you ever flip back or look ahead? 

What do you do when you encounter an unfamiliar word? 

How do you deal with things you don't understand?  If you feel you've missed something or are confused, should you keep going?

Do you ever mark up or highlight a text?  What technique do you use?  What do you highlight?  How do you know what's important?  Share what you do with a text, and compare notes and highlights with others.  Why did other people mark what they did?  Why did you mark what you did?  If you don't highlight or otherwise mark up a text, why not?

Is it okay to argue with a text? And if so, how, and when should that be done?  What do you do if you find yourself disagreeing with a text?  What do you do if you dislike what you are reading?

What are some of the conventions for writing in the field from which the text comes?  How does knowing something about these conventions help you understand a text better?  What counts for knowledge in your field, and how does the text reflect that?

The Basics of Writing Assignments in the First-Year Seminar Program

By Jan Cooper with Laurie McMillin

Rhetoric and Composition Department

What to Keep in Mind:

•               Our choices of methods of writing, reading, and research depend on what we want to know.  If, for example, we want students to try to get inside a new idea, summary might be the best approach.  If we want students to reflect or ruminate on an issue, a journal entry or another informal assignment might be best.  If we want students to pull a variety of ideas and skills together, it might be best to have them write a culminating research paper that goes through several revisions.

•               Integrating writing, reading, and research skills works best when broken down into manageable tasks that build on each other.  It is often worthwhile to break down the various skills of summary, reflection, applying a new theory, etc., so that students can gain experience with these; these various skills can then be integrated and built on later.

•               Sequencing and recursiveness help students retain more of the skills they develop in individual assignments.  If you have students try something new (e.g., an oral presentation, a critique), let them try it again, so they can incorporate your comments and gain from the experience.

•               Turning in rough drafts as well as final drafts of at least some assignments in the course encourages students to see writing as a process through which they can learn, as well as a product for reporting learning already completed.  This is a key step in First-Year seminars; students learn tremendously from having the chance to re-think and revise their work (as opposed to simply editing it).  Through revision, they also learn the significance of working with others and thinking about how readers read their writing.  

•               One of the best things you can do to improve student writing is also the easiest for you: have them read each other’s writing.  You can have students post all (or almost all) of their writing assignments on a discussion board before class and assign them to read each other’s work; you can do guided small and large group workshops in class; you can have them get together outside of class.  Making student work public also helps students to see their work as communication with a real audience (and not just a secret between the student and the professor); it also helps them see their work as revisable.

General Characteristics of a
Good Writing Assignment

•               challenges students

•               contextualizes the writing task

•               covers expectations for focus and format

•               makes Honor Code boundaries clear

•               tells students the criteria for response and the form it will take

Types of Assignments that Work Well for First Year Students, from the least to the most formal

A. Journal Writing

Sample Assignment 1: from Pam Brooks AAST 215
On Being a Girl (or a Boy)

This assignment comes in two parts, actually.  The main point here is to understand yourself in relation to gender first, race and class second.  This may be a reconceptualization for some of us: is White a race?  (think ethnicity then, if that's easier); or, has my gender been subsumed by my racial designation?  The important thing is the awareness.  So write about this in free form – that is, don't think about the what, the how, or if your sentences even make sense.  In fact, you don't need any sentences, or punctuation, for that matter.  Just write 'til you get there.

Sample Assignment 2: Politics/JNES 122??

Your journal should contain reflections upon the readings and class discussions.  These should be recorded at least weekly; reactions to class discussions should be noted as soon after the class as possible.  The journals will be collected at the end of the semester and once or twice during the semester.

Sample Assignment 3: Jeff Pence’s English 157

This exercise is intended to support the other projects you will be doing in class between now and Fall Break.  We will be looking at visual and literary responses to the environment.  Our assessments of these works will be better informed by trying ourselves to record and reflect upon our normal encounters with the world around us.  To this end, I am giving you some selections from Thoreau's Journal in which he comments upon the making of a journal in the very process of doing so.  Without necessarily using Thoreau as a model, but more as a platform from which to begin, I'd like you to experiment with a kind of place-based journal writing over the next several weeks.  The results, I think, will be useful for understanding the work others have done in response to place, at least, and might potentially be worth more.

In sum, Journal Writing is

•                unstructured

•                associational

•                an early form of exploration to connect or defamiliarize previous experience

•                tends to be too personal to letter grade (yes, yes, we’ll get to how to respond to them)

•                assignments need to be clear about who will be reading and under what conditions

B.  Writing to Explore

Sample Assignment 4: Jeff Pence’s English 157

•From Journal to Essay

•Begin by annotating journal, i.e., finding out what you have. . . .

•. . . .  Find and underline 2 or 3 sections where you think your descriptions are particularly interesting. 

•Look for style of writing and indicate this in the opposite margin. . . .

•On another sheet, list the topics you have treated. . . .

•Let's get self-consciousness out of the way: what do you think is wrong with your journal?  . . .

•Back to appreciation: what do you think another reader might find interesting . . .

•What raw material -- topic, details, style -- seem to offer the starting point for an essay?

Sample 5: Mary Garvin and Roger Laushman’s Biology 120

The purpose of this “writing to learn” assignment is to help you to better understand meiosis, a key concept in biology with which many students struggle. In this assignment, you will use some framework such as a personal life experience, a short story, or sporting event to describe the process.  Your account must be scientifically accurate, but feel free to be creative with your example.  In lab, you will exchange your work with a lab mate and assess each other’s understanding of meiosis.

Sample 6 : From Gary Kornblith’s HIST 148

What Gary wrote:  “[As] a regular part of my courses I require students to post a message on Blackboard before each in-class discussion session.  In the Civil War course [HIST 263], I raised a question (or questions) and students offered brief responses. In the first-year seminar, I have students pose the questions, which then become the agenda for the face-to-face discussion -- a strategy I learned from Sandy Zagarell many years ago.  I find that either way students come to class better prepared to talk than if they just walk in cold, and I come to class with a better of sense of ‘where their heads are at’ after they have done the assigned readings.”

In sum, Writing to Explore is

•               More focused than journal writing

•               May use structures other than argumentation, such as narrative, description

•               Good for helping students get a better sense of the details or dynamics of a subject

•               letter grade responses may focus a student on superficial style rather than deeply exploring

•               Peer response is especially effective for this writing

C. Writing to explore academic forms as well as subjects

Sample 7: Sonia Kruk’s POLT 132

Write a paper two/four pages in length (typed, double spaced, with standard margins and type face) on one of the following questions.

1. "All Freud does is to give us a more sophisticated version of Hobbesian theory.  He further elaborates Hobbes's account of what motivates man to act, and he also sees that man's fundamental motivations give rise to the crucial problem of how to establish social order.  But as a social theorist, he does not add to Hobbes's fundamental insights or vision.”

Do you agree with this assessment of Freud?  Explain.

2. "It is significant that racism is part of colonialism throughout the world; and it is no coincidence.  Racism sums up and symbolizes the fundamental relation which unites colonialist and colonized" (Memmi, pp. 69-70).

Explain Memmi's statements.  What relevance, if any, do they still have today?

3.  What do their analyses share, and in what ways are they significantly different? Do you find one analysis to be more insightful than the other?  Explain.

Sample 8: T. S. McMillin’s English 366

Correspondence was an important way of communicating and of working through intellectual matters for the Transcendentalists.  Students will write 1-page letters periodically, in which they will articulate issues that interest them in their own transcendental engagements of the world, and will write responses to fellow students’ letters.

Sample 9: Erik Inglis’s ARTS 103

VISUAL ANALYSES

Students will do three visual analyses in the class.  A visual analysis is a brief, orderly description of a work of art. Topics to consider include both the most obvious broad categories (how big is it? what's it made of? what's the surface like? [smooth or rough or both?]) and more specific ones (is it symmetrical? is it static? or filled with motion? is the texture uniform or varied? what is the relationship between foreground and background? which elements are important to the artist? and why do you believe this?).

 [. . .]

Portfolio: 

Your first three analyses, plus a revised version of the 3rd, taking into account comments and suggestions made by your classmate and the tutor.  Please include the comments made on your 3rd paper.

Sample 10: Elizabeth Hamilton’s German 335

All of this semester's assignments may be understood as parts of a larger project: to grapple with films produced in the German Democratic Republic from 1946-1989 and consider the significance of their contributions to cinema and German culture. These overarching questions should guide your analysis: How and to what end should we examine East German cinema? Do DEFA films have enduring aesthetic value, or is their value only to be found in their testimony to the failed experiment of the GDR?

Keeping these questions in mind, you are required:

•               to view all of the scheduled films and discuss them in class. (20%)

•                to read and reflect upon historical-critical analyses and respond in writing to at least four articles. Submit your one- to two-page reflection papers to the [Blackboard] site. These will not be graded for content or style, merely for completion. Others in the class are encouraged to respond to new postings with helpful comments and constructive criticism. (20%)

•                to complete four five-page analyses in which you examine one film within a given context. One may be presented orally in lieu of a written paper. If you choose this option, please sign up for oral presentations by February 11th. Specific topics for your papers /presentation must come from four of the following categories. I have provided some starting points below each category heading as suggestions for your studies. (Do not choose a category more than once.) (60%)

In sum, with Writing to Explore Forms,

•               increasing  focus and structure usually necessitates more drafts from writers, which should be required to be sure students do them

•               discussion of models helps demonstrate what’s expected when the assignment is made

•               peer or tutor response to required rough drafts can help students understand the forms, as well as the subjects, more clearly

•               whole class discussions of sample student drafts also illustrates this type of writing well

D.  Writing to develop information literacy

If you want to teach student information literacy skills  -- if you want to encourage students not only to use information and information technology effectively but also to think critically about them – it’s clear that info lit must be integrated into the course.  Thus, for example, if you want students to be able to locate articles in academic journals, it’s not enough to have them search JStor : you’ll want to have them locate articles for a reason, as part of an intellectual investigation, and show them how databases can help them.  Similarly, the teaching of information literacy skills usually works best if it is introduced sequentially and recursively.  Thus, the skills students need to complete a research paper at the end of the semester, for example, should be introduced gradually, sequentially. 

Sample 11: L. McMillin's FYSP 168

The purpose of this assignment is to familiarize you with images from Tibetan religious culture, and to help you develop a critical approach to searching the Web.

1.     Do a search on Google Images (or another general search engine of your choosing) in order to locate images of Tibetan religious culture on the Web; keywords might include: thangka, Tibet, Buddhism, Dalai Lama, or some of the new glossary terms.

2.     Using some of the same key words, search image databases such as Corbis, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco:

http://pro.corbis.com

http://www.famsf.org/

3.     Do the following subject search in OBIS:  Art Buddhist China Tibet.   Go to the Art Library to look at the images in at least three books.

For class, consider these questions and jot down your thoughts for class discussion.  How do the images you found online compare to the images found in print sources? Are there differences in what you learn from these three sources and how you learn it?  What, if anything, does the exploration of images add to our study?  How does it affect your understanding?  [McMillin's note: students subsequently gave an oral presentation on some of the images they found.]

Sample 12: Debbie Schildkraut’s POLT 204

Part 1: The Literature Review (50 points; 10 points per question)

For this part of the problem set, you will need the following article, available on [Blackboard] (under “Assignments”) and at www.jstor.org: Sullivan, John, James Piereson, and George Marcus. 1978. “Ideological Constraint in the Mass Public: A Methodological Critique and Some New Findings,” American Political Science Review. 22: 233-249.

 1.Read just the first two pages of the article (stop at the section titled “Changing Levels of Constraint”). Then provide a brief summary . . . .

Part II: Finding Relevant Literature (50 points; 10 points per question)

For this portion of the problem set, you will need to refer to the dataset you compiled for Problem set #1.

 1. Briefly comment on the information in your dataset. . . . .

In sum, if you’re focusing on Developing Information Literacy,

•                breaking down research tasks into smaller recursive assignments is especially effective

•                discussion of the Honor Code and how it applies to course assignments is crucial

•                inviting students to reflect on the research process and raise questions as part of their assignment may surprise you

•                library staff and peer tutors in Mudd can provide a lot of support

Build Recursiveness into your Syllabus

Recursiveness establishes continuity in a course to reinforce important skills.  It works especially well when new parts of a repeated task are highlighted and their purposes are made explicit.  When used in information literacy learning, recursiveness encourages students to cycle through reflective thought processes, as well as research processes.

Sample 1.  L. McMillin’s RHET 113
Writing for College and Beyond: The Idea of Place

•               Assignment 4:Pick a place in the world you would like to know more about. . . Look up your place in 2 of the handbooks and 1 of the encyclopedias listed. . .

•               Assignment 5:Find your place in one atlas. . . and find one more regional or thematic atlas that is especially relevant to your own interests or place. . . .

•               Assignment 6: Locate at least three travel narratives about your place that were written before the year 1900. . . .

•               Assignment 9: Find an image in the museum, on the internet, in a book, etc. that seems “American” to you. . . . Write a paper in which you explore the Americanness of the image. . . .

•               Assignments 10 & 11: This project invites you to explore an aspect of place or a place that interests you and to explore it in a way that attends to it as a “disciplinary object” . . . .

Recursive assignments that work tend to

•               loop through skills of increasing difficulty, not merely repeat them

•               make connections between assignments explicit

•               make goals for tasks explicit and specific

•               build in some variety as well as strategic recursiveness

One last thing:

For more help with writing

• make use of the writing tutors in the Mudd Writing Center

• assign a style manual

• and inform students about the links on http://www.oberlin.edu/rhetoric/resources/students/index.html

Be sure to check out the articles on www.oberlin.edu/rhetoric/resources/faculty/index.html

HANDLING THE PAPER LOAD

From Manoa Writing Program, http://www.mwp.hawaii.edu/resources/qt-paperload.htm

The kind of patient work that goes into devising appropriate assignments and responding to them intelligently does take more time than other kinds of teaching. But it need not pose impossible burdens. And some work that faculty undertake with the best intentions is actually counter-productive to the goals of improving student writing and thinking.

Some faculty may think . . .

That conscientious teaching requires marking all grammar and language errors.

    But research shows . . .

    Students can catch more than 60% of their own errors if they are taught to proofread and held to appropriate standards of correctness. By marking every error, we are actually training our students to rely on us as copy-editors. Teachers may instead

        * mark errors on the first page only

        * mark representative errors

        * place checks in the margins where errors occur

        * look over a set of papers quickly and return error-laden essays for proofreading and correction

        * use style editors or other software packages to scan student writing for error. (This last strategy requires some awareness of the limitations of these programs)

        * create peer editing groups in their classes

Some faculty may think . . .

That teachers need to read everything that students write.

    But research shows . . .

    Students can be asked to write for brief periods at the beginning or end of a class to help them focus or achieve closure. When discussion lags or reaches an impasse, students can be asked to write out a response to share. Students can bring to class written definitions of key terms to debate or questions to stimulate discussion. This kind of informal writing need not even be collected. Its purpose is to stimulate discussion and encourage active engagement with the material. (See the Manoa Writing Program’s Freewriting and/or Teaching with Journals.)

Some faculty may think . . .

That teachers need to evaluate every piece of writing they collect.

    But research shows . . .

    Students tend not to read lengthy instructor comments, especially if they will not be allowed to use those comments in composing an additional draft. Non-evaluated assignments can work well and even be the most frequent type of writing used in a writing-intensive class. For example, journals and informal writings, if collected, can be evaluated using a "minimal marking" scheme (i.e., points for completing the assignment plus extra points or a "+" for an insightful response). Or students can be awarded credit for the number of entries submitted, and they can single out a limited number of these for closer scrutiny, grading, and response. For more ideas, see the Writing Activities to Get Students Thinking and Learning.

Some faculty may think . . .

That more is better in terms of how much teachers respond and how thoroughly they address the conceptual problems of the essay.

    But research shows . . .

    That students are often overwhelmed and paralyzed when they receive essays on which the instructor's comments trail into every margin and leave a depressing map of error and negative response. Even when response is positive, saying too much is often confusing. It is better to choose two or three elements of the essay to focus on, giving highly specific constructive advice or commentary, than to attempt to cover all possible areas of concern. 

Some faculty may think . . .

That requiring two drafts of an essay doubles the work.

    But research shows . . .

    That students usually attend to comments only when they are given a chance to revise. Otherwise, they are likely to give a one-minute glance to the remarks you spent twenty minutes writing--or worse still, look at the grade and toss the essay. It makes more sense, then to invest time and energy responding to the first draft and to make these comments truly facilitative. Respond to the final draft only briefly, and let these comments be more evaluative. 

Some faculty may think . . .

That "writing-intensive" means that students should do 3-5 separate, unrelated assignments, each one entailing extensive time commitments in devising assignments and responding to them.

    But research shows . . .

    That students often benefit most when the work of the semester can be conceived as one project, phased in stages or logical sequences. Moving through a logical sequence of assignments is one way to increase the level of conceptual difficulty gradually, and to ensure that students build on material they have studied in earlier portions of the syllabus. It is more cost-effective for instructors as well, since in some cases they will have seen and responded to smaller components of a project before the cumulative work comes in.

Ways to Respond More Effectively to Student Writing

Laurie McMillin

First year students will come to college with particular ideas about writing and what counts as good response to it.

 

They may be used to

            • getting a lot of feedback on editing rather than feedback that deals with revising (re-seeing) the piece

            • doing only one or two drafts

            • getting all their response from teachers

            • thinking of response as grading

            • writing to fill out someone else’s prefabricated model

They may value surface clarity over the complexity of thought

They may believe that there are hard and fast rules about grammar and writing, such as:

                                    Don’t use contractions. 

                                    And don’t start a sentence with “and” or “but.” 

                                    Never use the first person. (I never do.)

 

The truth for students is that

            • not all response has to include grading

            • not all response has to come from the teacher

            • good writing is the result of a number of processes, including rethinking, rewriting, response and editing

            • some "rules" are actually matters of style, preference, expediency. 

 

The truth for faculty is that

            • response is more than grading and can be done by the teacher, by other students, and by the writer herself in a variety of ways

            • effective response should take into account the context of writing and its stage in the writing process

            • some perceived writing problems may actually be part of a student’s struggle to learn new concepts and discourses rather than evidence of a lack of skills

I've asserted that not all response has to include grading and not all response has to come from the teacher.  What's that mean?

TEACHERS can respond to student writing through conferences, small group workshops, large group workshop, email, as well as through written comments on papers

PEERS can respond to student writing through response pairs, small groups, letters, response sheets, and large group workshop

WRITERS can look at their own work by creating cover sheets, or by using response sheets and freewriting

How teachers can respond to writing

Some teachers fear assigning writing because they think they have to grade and respond to everything.  That is just not true!  If the writing is informal, a journal entry, or a bit of freewriting, it would be a waste of time to focus on grammar.  Sometimes students learn simply from writing itself – whether or not the teacher responds copiously to their work.  (For more on this see “Handling the Paper Load” and Peter Elbow's “Writing to Learn not to Demonstrate Learning.”)   

            Elbow argues that it's important to distinguish two very different goals for writing: there is writing to demonstrate learning and there is the less commonly used writing for learning.

The goal isn't so much good writing as coming to learn, understand, remember and figure out what you don't yet know. Even though low stakes writing-to-learn is not always good as writing, it is particularly effective at promoting learning and involvement in course material, and it is much easier on teachers--especially those who aren't writing teachers.

These different kinds of writing require different kinds of responses.  For more informal kinds of writing, the teacher might need only to see that it is completed, ask a question, make an X.  Please see Elbow for more ideas.

Conferences.  Consider meeting individually with students to talk about their writing.  These short meetings  -- from 5 to 15 minutes – can help you understand the writer’s intentions and can help the writer understand how you as a reader respond to his/her work.  Sometimes in these meetings your heads will be bent over the paper together, to talk about a knotty intellectual question; sometimes they can involve a conversation about your expectations for the assignment, their understanding of the material, or their particular writing issues.

Group workshops.  In group workshops the professor’s voice becomes one of many.  Of course, few will forget the professor’s position of power, but it is often useful to find that classmates and the professor agree about a paper, or that the group is split, etc.  This encourages the writer to understand her work as communication with readers – it can also help encourage her to discover and determine her own intentions and purposes. 

How peers can respond to writing

Students frequently learn a lot about writing from each other – by reading each other’s work and by having their work read and discussed by others.   Don’t underestimate the power of peer review (or over-estimate your own powers to affect student writing!) 

Students can share their writing with each other

            by reading it aloud in class

            by passing their work around the class until everyone has read everyone else’s paper

            by posting their work on Blackboard before class and reading (and sometimes responding to) each other’s work

            by responding to each other’s ideas in a letter or an email or on Blackboard

            by working in small groups

            by having each student turn in a paper to be read in a guided workshop that helps to identify the paper’s main idea, strengths, weaknesses, and which also responds to the writer’s questions about his/her work.

A note on small group and large group workshops: many people find it useful to provide students with a list of questions about the paper (main idea, strengths, weaknesses, the writer’s questions about the piece) to which readers first respond in writing, either inside or outside of class.   This gives the discussion a form, and it also puts the emphasis on the paper and not on the writing.  Over the course of the semester, the questions generally become understood: they are the questions writers begin to ask of their own work.   Another way to emphasize the work and its revisability (rather than the writer) is to focus responses on the paper by only allowing to speak about the work at the beginning and end of the discussion.)  See a sample cover and response sheets at http://www.oberlin.edu/rhetoric/resources/students/guides.html

How students can respond to their own work

There are many ways to encourage writers to return to their work; doing so helps them get over the notion that one draft is enough, and it encourages them to become more critical readers of their own work.  Some techniques:

• Have students read their paper (or a portion of it aloud) -- to the class, to you, to a small group.  They will tend to pick up what’s clunky or confusing as well as understand how others respond to it.

• Ask them to take their “finished” draft and re-read each paragraph.  They should look for the main idea of the paragraph, consider how the paragraph advances the discussion, and write their responses in the margin.   These comments can then become a basis for revision.

• Have writers "freewrite" (jot down whatever comes to their head, without worrying about sentences, grammar, etc.) or list their own questions about their writing.  Sometimes just articulating the questions is enough to help them rethink their work, but you could also have a reader respond to these questions.

 

CATEGORIES OF AND CONTEXTS FOR RESPONSE

I hope it's clear that as the teacher, you are not in this alone.  And when you do decide to respond to student writing, it is useful to recall that there are different categories of response

• Big picture stuff – development, ideas, discipline-specific orientations

• Structural stuff – organization, form

• The sentence-level stuff – grammar, typos, spelling, punctuation, usage, ESL/EFL

In responding to student work you should consider the context of writing -- what it is supposed to accomplish, where it's going.  If it's a draft you need not spend a lot of time on sentence-level things that will be revised out of the piece.  Your time will be better spent discussing the student's ideas and suggesting ways to revise -- really look again -- at the paper. 

For an excellent essay on response, see Nancy Sommer’s classic “Responding to Student Writing” at: http://www.jstor.org/view/0010096x/ap020142/02a00030/0

Making the Most of a Course Writing Tutor

By Kyle Strimbu '05, Marian Schlotterbeck '05, Laurie Hovell McMillin

 

There are two kinds of writing tutors/writing associates at Oberlin College: the writing center tutor and the course tutor.  Both kinds are trained in the practice of tutoring writing; both kinds can help at any stage in the writing process.  While much of what we say below about tutors is true for writing center tutors, we focus below on the role of the course tutor.

 

The View and Ethos of Writing in the Peer Tutoring Program of Rhet/Comp 

• we see writing as a mode of learning, a way to discover and learn and not just to report learning

• we understand writing as a process -- tutors can help students at any point in the process

• writing tutors, teachers and writing classes are not designed to "fix" writers

• writers at all levels can improve their work by talking and working with others; peer work is not just for the "inadequate"

• tutors are peers, people "in-between" students and profs, but they are still students themselves

Range of course tutor identities and practices

Tutors can take on a variety of roles, depending both on their own interests and experiences and on the desires and expectations of the professor.

Less involvedß-----------------àmore involved

editor/consultantß-----------------àmediator

does not read course materials ß-----------------à reads all course materials

does not attend classß-----------------àattends all classes

does not speak in class ß-----------------àspeaks in class

does not lead class sessions ß-----------------àleads class sessions

ß---------------Meets students outside of class--------------->

(The outliers here would be tutors as spellcheckers on one end and tutors as TAs on the other: neither are roles we'd advise assigning to a writing tutor)

Tutors can do effective work from any place on this spectrum, but teacher, tutor and students need to know and agree on what his/her role is.

 

What course tutors can do

Best practices for faculty working with a course tutor

1.    Build revision into the syllabus and tutors have a role to play in it

2. 2.    Communicate with your tutor frequently; schedule regular check-in times with each other
3. 3.    Integrate writing into the classroom and syllabus, whether or not the tutor attends class
4. 4.    Put tutor's name and info on syllabus; make him/her an "instructor" on Bb
5. 5.    Require students in the course to meet with the tutor at least once -- one-on-one or group -- so the tutor can demonstrate his/her usefulness.  (Tutors have found that an early requirement can help establish the significance of the tutor.)
6. 6.    Make explicit your policies and protocols for working with the tutor.  For example, is there a penalty for missing a session with the tutor?  What are your expectations?  Do you want a report on the meetings?
7. 7.    Understand that the tutor is someone who is between students and prof; the tutor can both mediate and get caught between them. 
8. 8.    Communicate with your tutor frequently -- did we mention that?
9. 9.    When scheduling due dates for drafts, take into consideration "crunch times" and the tutor's own schedule.

10. Honor the tutor's work contract -- 6-7 hours for course tutors.

11. Demonstrate that you, as a writer, can learn from others' feedback on your work

12. Pick a promising student from your class and encourage him/her to take RHET 481 in the future so he/she can come back and work with you.

13. Accept that you are also, in effect, mentoring the tutor.

14. There is a range of options vis-à-vis the tutor’s attendance of the course.  Some professors want tutors to attend every class; others do not want tutors to attend because their presence can affect community-building in the FYS classroom.  Many arrangements can work; you simply need to plan to make them work.  If the tutor does not attend the class, it would be wise to set up some other required meetings between the students and him/her.    

Some (More) Suggestions for Faculty Members Working with a Writing Associate from Len Podis, founder of the Writing Associates/Peer Tutoring Program

Try to speak with your writing associate before classes begin so that each of you will be clear on approaches, expectations, etc. (For instance, what are your thoughts about the value of writing in your discipline, the nature of the writing process, the qualities of a good paper in your course, the role of grading, etc.)

Experience shows that it's best for writing associates to attend class regularly, so that they will be highly visible, aware of what's happening in class, and accessible to the students. This has proven to be very important over the years.

Generally, a major focus of the WA’s work should be one-on-one meetings with tutees to discuss papers-in-progress. Usually WAs pass around sign-up sheets in class once paper topics are assigned. Also, they sometimes help to organize brainstorming sessions when papers are assigned. As the due date for papers approaches, they can facilitate small group workshopping of drafts. Both brainstorming and workshopping sessions can be held either in or out of class.

Also, during the semester it's a good idea for you and your writing associate to meet at least every other week to touch bases about how the assignments are working, how class is going, how the WA's conferences are going, whether the WA/tutor has insight into the special needs of certain students, etc. 

It is usually best if you, as the faculty member, can steadily work to put your authority behind the writing associate. Even if students aren't required to see the WA in your class, they will feel more encouraged to sign up for tutorial conferences voluntarily if they believe that you put value on their working with a writing associate. One easy way to give the WA an authoritative boost is to list his or her name prominently near the top of the syllabus.

If possible, try to stress repeatedly in class the usefulness of regular conferences with the writing assocate for all members of the course (i.e., not just weak writers or those who are in trouble.) In attempting to "talk up" the value of going to see the WA/tutor, it might help to observe that professional writers and scholars (and even Oberlin faculty members) are in the habit of showing their work to knowledgeable peers who can give them useful advice on their drafts. This helps to correct any misimpressions that students might have, e.g., that meeting with a WA is a sign of weakness or an admission that they are somehow deficient or in need of remediation.




Incorporating Information Literacy into Oberlin’s First Year Seminars

written and compiled by the following members of Oberlin College Library’s Reference Work Group: Kathy Abromeit, Cynthia Comer, Jessica Grim, Haipeng Li, Megan Mitchell, Barbara Prior, Alison Ricker, and Heather Smith.

Introduction & Information Literacy Defined

One of the primary goals of the First-Year Seminar Program is to engage students in the critical thinking and research that are so important to liberal arts learning.  Information literacy is essential to the successful realization of these core academic skills because, by definition, it refers to the set of abilities enabling one “to locate, evaluate and use effectively” relevant information.  Taking a broader view, information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning.  It is essential to all fields of knowledge, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education.  It enables learners to increase their mastery of content by extending the sophistication of their investigations and allowing for more self-directed learning.*

The purpose of this guide is to provide faculty with practical suggestions and strategies for incorporating information literacy into First-Year Seminars. The library reference staff has identified ten information literacy proficiencies that we believe to be crucial for Oberlin College students to master in their first year.  Half of these proficiencies come under the “Scholarly Communication” rubric, and half under “Research Process.”

* definitions of IL adapted from Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, Association of College and Research Libraries —see Appendix for full citation & link

 

Information Literacy Proficiencies

and Strategies for Addressing Them

Scholarly Communication

An information literate first year student is able to:

1. Understand that scholars and practicing professionals in their discipline generate, control, and use information (published/unpublished sources, electronic & personal communications, etc.) in very particular ways.

Strategy:  make the invisible visible; foreground your own process;  talk about how/why you selected readings for the course:  why were these particular articles selected?  Highlight your own critical thinking process vis-à-vis assigned readings, suggested topics, your own research, etc. – things not usually apparent to students

Potential discussion topics:

§       What’s the current state of research in this field?

§       What kinds of things are being written, discussed and presented?

§       Where are they being published/presented [online? in print?], and why?

§       How is information structured in this discipline?

§       How are questions formulated and new ideas disseminated in the discipline?

§       What kinds of information sources are used in the discipline (primary/secondary, scholarly/popular, etc)?

§       What’s the publishing culture in the discipline?

§       Who are the publishers and what role do they play in the construction (not just production) of knowledge in the discipline?

§       How do people access information in the discipline?

§       How might research methods and contexts vary in different disciplines?

Potential exercise:

§       Write a brief outline of the ways in which the ordering, production and dissemination of research might shape the development of new knowledge.

 An information literate first year student is able to:

2. Understand that popular and scholarly material exists on most any topic; distinguish between these types of material, and determine when it's appropriate to use each type and why.

Strategy:  Consider the source and audience.  Work with students to help them understand why being able to distinguish between these types of material is important.

Potential discussion topics:

§       How can you tell if a source is “scholarly” [i.e. peer review, institutional affiliation, etc.]?  What visual cues are associated with scholarly sources?

§       How can you tell if a source is popular [i.e. unsigned articles, flashy graphics, etc.]?  What visual cues typify popular sources?

§       If a source cannot clearly be identified as scholarly or popular (perhaps containing elements of each), how should it be considered in the research process?

§       When might it be useful/necessary to use articles in popular or alternative sources?

Potential exercises:

§       Have students identify and compare a scholarly article and a popular article that treat the same topic

§       Give students several scholarly articles and ask them to identify the common features among the articles

§       Provide students with a variety of resources (articles, Websites, etc.) and have them make arguments about whether, and why, they would classify each as being scholarly

§       “Determining the Information You Need” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/a3determine/

Keep in mind:  Students should be reminded that not everything is available on the Web; the current generation of college students may not be accustomed to or comfortable with using print sources.

An information literate first year student is able to:

3. Distinguish between primary and secondary resources in a given context and/or a given discipline; determine when it's appropriate to use these types of resources and why.

Strategy: Consider the context.  Engage students in active thinking about what primary/secondary means in a given discipline, and why, in making these distinctions, “context is everything.”

Potential discussion topics:

§       What might be some general “rules” about what constitutes primary and secondary sources in different fields of study (biology, English literature, and politics, for example)?

§       Why are the potential ambiguities and blurring of distinctions inherent in determining whether a source is primary or secondary dependent upon the question being asked, and when it’s being posed (the time/date concept)?

§       Ask students to consider a particular source (e.g. book, journal article, conference proceeding, Web site) and think about whether there are circumstances under which it might be considered a primary source, and other circumstances under which it might be considered a secondary source

§       Have students consider various kinds of writing they have done [autobiographical/experiential, essays, research papers], and discuss whether these materials would be considered primary or secondary sources, and under what circumstances

Potential exercise:

§       Give students several research questions/theses, and have them make a list of the kinds of primary resource materials scholars might seek in each case

§       Have students evaluate a primary source; what was the purpose/intent of the source, who was its author/originator

§       “Determining the Information You Need” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/a3determine/

An information literate first year student is able to:

4. Understand the nature of different types of publications, and why and when they are useful.

Strategy:  Explain format.  Examine the relationship/relative roles of different types of information sources.

Potential discussion topics:

§       The general features of books and articles – what do they “do” differently, and what are the typical roles of each in the research process?  [quicker publication cycle for articles, so timeliness/currency a factor; narrow focus of many journal articles, whereas books tend to take a broader “view”, etc.]

§       How the roles of books, journal articles, and other types of publications differ in different disciplines/fields

§       Trace the progression of an event/discovery/idea/theory from forms of publication in informal/popular sources to forms of publication in formal/scholarly sources (or vice versa)

Potential exercises:

§       Have students compare and contrast treatment of a specific topic/question/issue in a book and in an article

§       Have students identify a topic for which the majority of published information would be in article form [a recent trend or field of exploration for example]

§       Tracking the flow of information; have students look at a given event/trend/theory, and track its evolution [relating to discussion topic 3, above]

§       “The Flow of Information” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/a1flow/

An information literate first year student is able to:

5. Understand plagiarism and intellectual property issues (quoting, paraphrasing, attributing ideas).

Strategy:  An ounce of prevention.  Through discussion at various levels and at various points, help students understand the nature of intellectual property and related issues, such as plagiarism.

Potential discussion topics:

§       The notion of common knowledge--how do you determine if an idea is common knowledge in the field (and therefore doesn’t require attribution) or unique to an author?

§       Mindfulness of these issues is more about ethical responsibility than pursuit of “original thought”

§       Oberlin’s honor code; what it’s for, what it’s intended to do, and how it addresses plagiarism

§       How does research in an electronic environment, where so much “content” is available full-text online, impact issues of intellectual property?

§       Recent high-profile cases in the media [Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose, Kenneth Frampton]

Potential Exercises:

§       Give students excerpts from books/articles, etc. and have them practice paraphrasing and quoting, and properly citing the material

§       “Citing Your Research” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/c4citing/

Keep in mind: Two excellent ways to prevent unintentional plagiarism: require staged assignments with multiple drafts; and have students keep research logs

 

Research Process

An information literate first year student is able to:

6. Understand different types of bibliographic citations and be able to use a style manual to correctly document information sources in many different formats.

Strategy:  Map it out.  Outline the basic format of book and periodical citations and discuss the differences.  Show how anthologies (or collected essays) are cited.

Strategy:  Make expectations clear.  Talk with students about preferred style manual for this discipline (APA, MLA, Turabian, etc.); require them to submit all citations in correct format - and tell them why it matters.

Potential discussion topics:

§       Review citations on the syllabus, going over detailed components of given citations

§       Distribute sample citations and “dissect” them so students will know which ones are for articles, books, essays, etc.

Potential Exercises:

§       Provide citations from various bibliographies and databases.  Have students label the parts of the citations and identify them (as periodical articles, books, collections of essays, government documents, etc.)

§       Have students turn in citations in the proper format with early drafts of papers.  Alternately, require a bibliography be turned in early in the semester with citations in the proper format.

§       “Understanding Citations” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/c1citations/

Keep in mind:  Modeling good citing behavior on your syllabus makes a difference; provide complete citations for all course materials, whether required textbooks, reserve readings, materials in coursepacks.

An information literate first year student is able to:

7. Formulate a research strategy, and understand the process through which questions are refined and redefined in the course of research.

Strategy:  Focus on process.  Help students understand that research is not generally a linear process, but one that can involve many trajectories – some meandering, some parallel, some “competing”, and some even unfruitful.

Potential discussion topics:

§       Walk through the process of  topic formulation, from general interest to statement of the research question/problem

§       Share experiences where research was stymied, or blossomed, based on what was found while researching; dispel the myth that the perfect answer exists for every question, even the “obvious” ones

Potential Exercise:

§       Have students keep logs on the ways their topic changes and evolves as they do research and encounter more information [allowing the option for a visual mapping of this process may be helpful for some students]

§       Have students state the question/research problem and then consider what kinds of information sources will be needed to answer the question (i.e. primary/secondary sources,  books, articles, videos, statistical sources, reference works, etc.)

§       “Selecting and Refining Your Topic” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/a2select/

Keep in mind:   Having students submit bibliographies at various stages of research process has multiple benefits: they can't procrastinate *too* much, they’ll find out sooner rather than later how much material is available on a given topic, and they’ll get used to keeping track of bibliographic data as they go along rather than scrambling to produce bibliographies at the end of the process.

An information literate first year student is able to:

8. Determine what resources/databases are appropriate to answer the question.

Strategy:  Teach tool savvy.  Make students aware of the existence of appropriate reference sources, databases, indexes, etc.

Potential discussion topics:

§       Roles/uses of  different types of sources throughout the research process [dictionaries/handbooks, OBIS, journal indexes, Web, etc.].

§       Match a research question to the methods of scholarly communication in this field.  Who would be interested in this question?  Where and how would they communicate/publish? And which tools would you use to locate those publications/communications?

Potential Exercises:

§       Have students state which resources they will use to find the kinds of information they said they needed;  e.g.   I will use OBIS, OhioLINK and Worldcat to find books and videos;  I will use X and Y databases to find articles in scholarly journals

§       Have students consult two reference sources to answer a particular question, and compare treatment of the topic in the 2 sources; have them note what else the tool could be used for

§       Have students conduct a search for the same topic in 2 different databases and compare/contrast the results

§       “Reference Sources”, “Library Catalog”, and “Research Databases” lessons from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/b3refsources/

http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/b1catalog/

http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/b2databases/

An information literate first year student is able to:

9. Distill a complicated research question into searchable concepts/ keywords/synonyms

Strategy:  Teach searching savvy.  Help students understand that they can’t enter their thesis/topic sentence into a search engine and get a coherent result.

Potential discussion topics:

§       Importance of being flexible when approaching different information sources

§       Importance of identifying synonyms for a given topic/concept

§       Research is a creative process!

§       Importance of keeping a list of key terms/synonyms while investigating a topic; as new terms are learned research tools may need to be re-checked.

Potential Exercises:

§       Have students "diagram" their research statement-pick out the most important key word(s), brainstorm synonyms and related concepts; will truncation be helpful? Boolean operators?

§       Have students describe their topics in a few sentences then have them indicate what terms or search statements they will use in searching various sources (e.g. I will search OBIS with the key words blah and blah, and PsycINFO for the phrase blah de blah)

§       Ask students to chart the changes in their thinking about the topic based on the results of their searching

§       “Search Techniques” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/b4techniques/

An information literate first year student is able to:

10. Critically evaluate information for usefulness, bias, currency and authority (including Internet resources).

Strategy:   Resource evaluation as critical thinking.  Help students understand that any and all resources they encounter, regardless of format, should be judged and evaluated using particular criteria.

Potential discussion topics:

§       Are there set criteria upon which sources in this field/discipline are evaluated/judged?

§       Which are the most important criteria?

§       Do the criteria vary depending on the type of source?

Potential exercises:

§       Have small groups examine texts/Websites etc. and evaluate them according to agreed upon criteria

§       “Evaluating Information” lesson from The Five Colleges of Ohio Information Literacy Tutorial: http://www.denison.edu/ohio5/infolit/c3evaluate/

Sample list of Evaluation Criteria:

external factors:

·       author’s credentials

·       publisher’s credentials/reputation

·       date/currency

·       use of bibliographies, foot/end-notes

internal factors:

·       evidence to back up assertions?

·       clear & logical arguments?

·       are all contributing factors considered?

·       are all/most ramifications considered?

For more on

Information Literacy Standards

Association of College and Research Libraries.  Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.  2000.

http://www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html

Outlines five standards, twenty-two performance indicators, and a range of outcomes for assessing student progress toward information literacy.  The standards focus on the needs of students in higher education at all levels and serve as guidelines for faculty, librarians, and others in developing methods for measuring student learning.

Association of College and Research Libraries.  Objectives for Information Literacy Instruction:  A Model Statement for Academic Librarians.  2001.

http://www.ala.org/acrl/guides/objinfolit.html

Lists discrete and measurable goals for student learning; provides suggestions for generating ideas about teaching information literacy concepts and skills.




Thinking through the Oral Presentation

 (These are my fleshed out notes from the FYSP faculty Workshop, June 1, 2006, LHM)

First I'll consider the differences and similarities between oral and written texts and then suggest some special instructions for oral presenters/oral text makers.

Differences Between Oral and Written Presentation

Oral texts are meant for the ear, written for the eye.

Oral texts don't have to be written out but they should have some kind of structure, nonetheless.

Oral presentations take place in real time:  you can't revise (cross out, edit) when you speak: you can only say more

Similarly, if listeners get lost, they can't go back in the text --re-read -- to find the structure or the line of the argument.  Furthermore, if listeners space out even for a moment, they can really get lost.

From the point of view of the speaker, there are different variables involved in oral and written presentations.  Not only do speakers have to juggle words in real time, but also they have to deal with their voice, their body, juggle notecards or papers, deals with visual aids and technology, and be aware of their facial expressions and gestures.  In a sense there are more variables in an oral presentation, and unlike in a written text, a speaker can get immediate feedback from audience, which itself can loop into and affect the presentation.

(Of course, writers don't have control over how their work will be received either, but neither are they able to change their text as a reader reads it.  Revision generally takes place away in a space some distant from readers.)

Similarities Between Oral and Written Presentation

• Both work best, I would argue, when speakers have a real desire to communicate:

"Speak because you have something to say."

The desire to communicate lends conviction, motivation, and energy to the presentation and they can help to cover up a multitude of sins.

• Oral presenters, like writers, need to think about purpose and audience.  So much can be gained from attending to these questions in both kinds of texts.

Like writers, oral presenters need to ask:

What is my purpose?  Is it to inform, describe, entertain, persuade, take a position?

Who is in the audience?  What can I expect from them? What do they already know?  Are they friendly or hostile?  What questions might I anticipate from them?  How can I address a diverse audience, one with different backgrounds and experiences?

Special instructions for oral presenters

• Know your teacher's expectations.  How does she want me to deliver the presentation?  Is reading okay or should memorize?  What kind of technology will I be using: notecards, Power Point, photos in books, handouts?  And how will I be evaluated?

• The oral nature of the presentation puts a special burden on you to make your thesis and purpose clear.  Listeners need to know:  why are you talking?  Where will you take them?  Often both students and faculty are too subtle in this regard.  (There are templates in Graff's & Birkenstein's They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing that can be useful for oral presentations as well.

For example:

"I contend that ...."

"Today I want to discuss xyz..."

"In discussions of X, one controversial issues has been Y.  On the one hand A argues Z, while on the other B maintains W.  My own view is c."

•Issues about whether or not to use the first person probably go away: This is embodied speech: it's clear that there is a real person making a point."

• What seems to be a logical organization for a written paper can be too amorphous for an oral presentation.  Because readers can't go back in the text, you need to provide them with an overview at the outset and then remind them where you are as you go along.

• Similarly, you'll need to make the structure of your discussion more apparent throughout.  Let your audience know how you have organized your ideas and then call attention to this structure at key points.  It can be useful to remind your audience where you are in the process:  "First I'll do this, then I'll do that."  This kind of metanarrative is something that many students also need to learn how to do in their writing for college papers.

As with Tibetan Buddhist monks who memorize long texts for exposition, presenters can use numbering systems to orient readers:  "There are three main points, etc.  First, ..."  Similarly, it can be helpful to summarize what you've said as you move along, to make connections among the various parts and to keep your listeners on track.

• You'll need to practice.  Time yourself.  Mark up your text like a script.   Give yourself stage directions.  Practice presenting in front of people.  Deliver in front of a mirror; videotape yourself.

• Use your body to support what you think and claim about your topic.  Gestures and facial expressions can be practiced.  Practice standing and moving.  Be aware of any tics of habits.

• Use language that you are comfortable with; don't use the presentation to say a new word aloud for the first time.

• Concentrate on communicating. If you care about what you do, you will have a reason to carry on.  And if at first you don't care, fake it ; pretend you are someone else, perform.

• Finally, good speakers know how to work what they have.  Some of the best speakers are not exactly polished, but they are engaging, and they know how to use and adapt their personae in particular circumstances.  Sometimes quirks can be very effective : think of some of your more eccentric professors.  What all good speakers have, nonetheless (and in this they are like good writers), is something to say.

See also PowerPoint as Crutch, PowerPoint as Crux, by Keith Tarvin on the Blackboard site for FYSP faculty