Space: 335 State Hall / Time: Wednesdays, 3-5 PM / Instructor: Dr. Jeff Pruchnic / Office: 9308, 5057 Woodward (Maccabees Bldg.) / Office Hours: Tuesdays 1-2:30 PM; Thursdays 9:00-10:30 AM / Phone: 313-577-3060 (office); 814-574-0252 (mobile)

The pedagogical practicum is designed to build skills in teaching at a university level generally and teaching Wayne State’s English 1020 course specifically. By reading pedagogical scholarship, familiarizing themselves with the challenges and controversies of the profession, and composing lesson plans and teaching strategies throughout the semester, students will engage both the theoretical and practical vectors of teaching first year composition. Most classes will be devoted to discussion of class readings and of lesson plans for Eng 1020. There is no research paper required for the course; graded deliverables include weekly responses to readings and other prompts as well as lesson plan designs, teaching demonstrations, and the development of other pedagogical resources.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Standard Syllabus Instruction: The most immediate purpose of this course is to train participants to teach the standard syllabus—the “set” syllabus designed by the composition department that all new instructors are required to teach their first semester. Each week we will cover the readings, lesson plans, and other assorted vectors for approximately 3-4 class sessions of the syllabus. In covering these items, participants will be given advice on how to teach the standard syllabus but will also be expected to contribute their own ideas and suggestions for classroom activities that might complement the syllabus. Seminar participants are additionally welcome to identify any problems or areas for improvement they might find with the standard syllabus.

Composition Studies Expertise: Although it is likely that only a minority of seminar participants will choose to make rhetoric and/or composition studies the primary focus of their graduate school research, almost all of you will be teaching composition courses for the majority, if not entirety, of your teaching career. Similarly, insofar as composition curricula forms the lion share of most English department’s course offerings and provide their largest “revenue stream,” you will also have an investment in how composition is taught at whatever institution you eventually join, and may also be called upon to make decisions about the administration of composition programs as part of your service to your department. As such, in this course we will cover the major debates in the field — with particular reference to pedagogy and disciplinary controversies — that are important to all of those who will be teaching composition courses and joining the English Studies academy.

Professionalization: Similarly, as most of you will be eventually applying for positions that require the teaching of composition — and all of you will be gaining the vast majority of your experience teaching as a graduate student from the teaching of composition – it is largely your success or failure at this activity, and the presentation of your your work at this activity, that will be on display when you enter the job market. To help you begin preparing for your eventual entry into the job market, we will focus in this course on such items as the creation of teaching portfolios, how to handle questions about teaching during interviews, and how to situate teaching in relation to the other responsibilities (research, service, etc.) of being a graduate student.

Mentoring: Almost any good teacher will tell you that they’ve gained some of their strongest inspiration and finest ideas from their colleagues. We will attempt to jumpstart this process in two ways, one that takes place inside our course and one that will largely take place outside of seminar meetings. Outside of class, we will be running a mentorship program by partnering with Wayne’s Student Association of Graduates in English (SAGE). Each course participant will be assigned a SAGE “mentor” — an experienced instructor who has demonstrated excellence in teaching — with which they will meet four times throughout the year. The first meeting will be casual one, likely done as a group, in which you will have the chance to briefly familiarize yourself with your assigned mentor and arrange an appropriate date for you second meeting this semester; during the second meeting you will observe your mentor’s teaching of a single session of 1020. After this observation you will discuss the session with the instructor and file a brief “observation report.” The final two meetings will take place during the Winter semester. In the first, your SAGE mentor will observe one of your 1020 sessions and complete a brief report. The final meeting will take place towards the end of the Winter semester, in which you will discuss with your mentor your experience teaching for the first time at Wayne State. Additionally, a panel of recently minted GTAs will join us at least once early in the semester to answer any questions or concerns you may have about teaching at WSU. These mentoring activities should be particularly useful for those of you teaching composition for the first time; they should also be valuable to those of you who have already taught composition elsewhere, insofar as it will help you get acquainted with both the “Wayne way” of teaching composition and the makeup of Wayne student demographics

TEXTS

All of our required texts are available at campus B & N bookstore; additional readings will be provided online or via e-mail or Blackboard. Complimentary copies of assigned texts for your sections of ENG 1020 have already been acquired and will be distributed during the first couple weeks of the practicum.

ASSIGNMENTS

Weekly Responses: Each course participant will complete weekly response after completing that week’s assigned readings and activities. Responses should be a single-spaced single page in length. We will begin each session by reading and discussing these responses. Beginning with the second response, participants will also post their responses to our blog within 48 hours after our meetings, so that they may serve as references for the rest of the class.

Lesson Plans & Pedagogical Materials: Detailed lesson plans (including learning objectives, reading assignments, and deliverables) will be provided for the majority of semester readings for your first section of ENG 1020 this Winter. You also, of course, have the opportunity to appropriate lesson plans and session outlines from the wikis of last year’s cohort of new GTAs. However, you will also be asked to individually design your own lesson plans for particular sessions of our model wiki.

Observation Report: After observing your SAGE mentor, you will complete and submit a brief (one single-spaced, single page) report on the experience of observing their class session and discussing that session with them afterward.

Instructional Videos: In small teams, and guided by the Writing Center administrative personnel, you will use capturing and editing software to create an instructional video for either 1020 students or future 1020 instructors (video topics/objectives will be assigned during the first month of the semester).

Credit breakdown for assignments is as follows:

  • Weekly Responses and Participation (40%)
  • Lesson Plans and Pedagogical Materials (30%)
  • Instructional Video (20%)
  • Observation Report (10%)

ATTENDANCE

All participants are expected to attend every session of this course. You are also encouraged to make use of office hours either by appearing in my office in person or chatting online via the “virtual classroom” option on Blackboard.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

According to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences policy on plagiarism, instructors are required to report all instances of academic dishonesty and the responsibility to notify the student of alleged violations and the action being taken. Both the student and the instructor are entitled to due process in all such cases. Acts of dishonest may lead to failure in a given course, suspension, or exclusion

The above is plagiarized from the Wayne State Policy on Academic Dishonesty; for more about the definition of plagiarism, consult your local library.