Writing Program Workshop: Close Reading

On Thursday, October 25th the Writing Program hosted a workshop in the Faculty Center on teaching our students close reading.

Harry Thorne and Rosanne Carlo facilitated a discussion on the struggles we face in the classroom related to student reading practices.

Stephen Fried, one of the participants, read an excerpt from an article by Will Self “The Printed Word in Peril” to support his perspective on student reading issues and forward our group conversation on the topic.

The workshop participants then read a sample essay that was assigned in an ENG 111 section. We thought about challenges students might face in reading that essay, and identified aspects we may need to clarify to increase their reading comprehension.

We talked about helpful ways to facilitate student engagement around reading, such as asking them pre-reading questions, glossing vocabulary words, giving reading quizzes, and showing supplemental video clips on the article topic.

Harry Thorne distributed a handout of potential reading activities  that could be used in composition classes. Participants finished the discussion talking about their past experiences in trying these activities in the classroom as well as highlighting one activity they may try in the future.

Thanks to all who were able to attend this engaging session! We look forward to seeing you at future workshops for the Writing Program!

Open Mic Session October 25th

On October 25th, the CSI English Department held its first Open Mic Session during Club Hours.

Several students attended to either participate or simply enjoy a literary afternoon. Not only did poets Rosemary Moran, Aaron Latta, Philip Sanzone and Eric Sogomonian and stand up comic Anthony Acevedo share their work, but Lee Papa, the chair of the English Department, read his own tribute to Elvis and encouraged the other students to read from a poetry anthology.

It was a great event, and we hope to hold another Open Mic in the spring.

Below are some poems that were read at the event:

 Cruel life

Darkness beneath my feet; heavily standing can’t resist

Freedom is a far reach trying, I keep trying but

ALWAYS MISS!!!

–Eric Sogomanian

Transparency

Drowning in the night abyss is the reality of life.

People are fuel that fill the emptiness of their souls, sometimes people feel like assholes that don’t have their crap together.

More people than none don’t care, and it’s difficult and frustrating cause they all walk past you staying completely silent.

This cycle continues with others but expect different results every time.

–Eric Sogomanian

Deaf Words

Seamlessly defined,

but to certain ill-informed minds

letters and words are blank,

strung abstractly,

like sides of the same interlocking puzzle pieces,

crying from within feeding on lies,

truths withheld,

trying effortlessly to traverse

the thick fog of words,

giving the once voiceless words,

purpose within their world,

now bursting with invigerance

pronouncing and sounding

out the path ahead.

–Philip Sanzone

—

Spring’s teardrops fall from the sky grazing my skin in the

slightest

I try and I try to outrun them but I know that she watches

the same tears roll down my cheeks as I try to escape your grip

why do you hold me hostage in this skin

let me go I beg and I beg but you hear nothing but a muffled

scream my voice is gone

where have you taken her

I hear her echo throughout these empty halls but I know that I

can’t trust her

she wails and wails and still I must stay pretty and silent in the

corner

she watches me now slow but steady my every movement

monitored under scrutiny

I feel her hard gaze cast over me it is a feeling of warmth almost

like the sun but she’s too hot and I start to melt

she holds me still pretty and quiet

a living image of who she used to be

almost

almost

almost is what she always repeats I can tell she’s losing her

inspiration this infatuation with me

she is too prideful to let go of this unfinished masterpiece

she’s still now steady and ready to pounce

I know she’s watching I can feel her again but somehow it is

different this time around

her pain is mine and I can feel her heartbeat

–Rosemary Moran

Poetry Slam

On Tuesday, March, 20th CSI St. George held its very first Poetry Slam.  The event was organized by Professor Rachel Sanchez with the help of the Director of CSI St. George, Mario Dalessandro.  This event invited students and faculty alike to share their poetic talent aloud. Students were encouraged to attend by receiving clue credit for the event. There were plenty of snacks, including fresh pastries from Rispoli Bakery. 

Several students volunteered to read their poetry–some of their original writings are featured below! Professors Cerpa, Freid, and Sanchez recited extremely moving and original writing.  Some students in the audience were so moved by the performances that they spontaneously read their own poetry.  The event was extremely successful and the organizers plan to host another Slam in the Fall. 

Change Is but Only for Caterpillars

Can the night anew to a sunlit day

Don’t the waves at sea return to the sand

As will the trees on earth remain on land

If the seasons change why am I still the same?

 

A day goes forward and my life delays

My world shrinks but the universe expands

The rope I held onto is now a strand

When I saw redemption they saw no way

 

Could unclean hands raise a child or a gun?

For once a killer always a killer

And once betrayed never a forgiver

Stigma is a stain and can’t be undone

Why change is only for caterpillars

You are not but an ant under the sun

–Nicole Ortiz

 

Nosebleed

As of half-past 7, I am not dead
Some alley cat saw it on the news on a tv in the basement of the apartment complex But it was just a nosebleed in the shower
Blood circling the drain
Passing street lights
Eating away at the burnt-out rooftops
And sure
Maybe in some dream we both shared
Where you come home from a witch hunt
And ask me why I haven’t left yet
It’s raining teeth now
Blood-sucking privacy
Underneath an overpass
But she’s beautiful
Dripping in saturated honey and war
She tells me that I might never see moonlight moon again
Just blinding, screaming, cancerous rays down at some golden beach
Everything tastes like fried nostalgia
My eight-year-old heart scribbles out your name on my bed sheets
Showers can’t fix this anymore

–Sheryl Berezovski

Super Natural

Things have been coming out too heavy
And I guess it’s only because the night is starting to smell like spring Somewhere across the universe he told me that aliens only exist
when we don’t look for them
And that really stuck with me
Because existing isn’t something anyone looks for
And yet, here we are
But I wouldn’t hold my breath
Leaving behind phone numbers that have been with me for years
Television eyes with only 3 channels
But they are your most beautiful feature
Kind of remind me of some Bob Ross painting
But I don’t give it much thought
I found this old silver mirror in my grandma’s house
Ever since then I’ve had no reflection
Like accidently summoning a demon from trying to pronounce Ikea products When the dusk clears
You should have met her

–Sheryl Berezovski

September Workshop Recap

On Tuesday, September 19th we hosted our first faculty development workshop of the semester. We were excited to have a good group of returning and new adjuncts as well as some of our new CSI MA instructors, aka MAWPs.

The theme of this workshop was writing effective assignment prompts. Harry Thorne guided instructors in how to write prompts through discussing a selection from John Bean’s book, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing. Gloria Gianoulis discussed the progression of the 111 curriculum from personal narrative to the weigh-in essay, emphasizing the shifting goals of each assignment. We discussed how sources become more important as the curriculum advances. Rosanne Carlo led participants through a writing activity; instructors worked through writing and revising their critical analysis assignments, keeping in mind the description of the assignment and the learning outcomes of ENG 111 as stated in the syllabus template.

Below are the questions participants worked through as they constructed their ENG 111 critical analysis assignment sheets:

Objective One, Setting Goals: Given the information about the critical analysis essay and the ENG 111 student outcomes as per the CSI syllabus template, can you think of some goals to preface your assignment sheet for students? What are the main objectives for this assignment in the curriculum? What are some things you want them to learn specific to your class and its theme / readings?

Objective Two, Writing the Description: How would you describe the assignment to students? What are you expecting in terms of an argument? What texts are being used? Can you quote from any of the texts to demonstrate the connection between them and student writing?

Objective Three, Inspiring Invention: What questions do you think the students need to ask to start the ball rolling on this assignment? How can you incorporate those into a description of the assignment?

The important thing that emerged from this drafting activity was that instructors expressed multiple ways of constructing the critical analysis assignment based on their course themes and objectives. The discussion was lively and thoughtful.

We hope you will join us for the workshops in October and November.

On Left-Handed Layups and Multimodal Composing

By Rosanne Carlo

It’s my 5th grade summer, and my parents just dropped me off at a week-long overnight basketball camp at Uconn. Some of you may have heard of the legendary 1995 35-0 Lady Huskies team, and by god, I was going to be the next Rebecca Lobo.

Problem: I didn’t know how to make a left-hand layup.

During layup drills, which are par for the course in basketball practice, I confidently dribbled up to the basket. I would then pause, curiously setting my sights on the rim. I flung the ball in the air countless times with careless abandon. Sometimes the ball would hit the rim hard and rocket over my head and others it would lazily lob over to the other side of the court.

I had no awareness of my body in space or of its capabilities.

The first time I was asked to teach a multimodal assignment in composition, I reverted to my younger self, pausing just below the rim and sizing up what I assumed to be an impossible task. You want me to teach students to write to a public audience? In a genre of their choice? Madness.

Multimodal writing is a lot like left-handed layups. If we only teach traditional academic discourse in composition, then we force students to approach writing in one way, what we presume to be the “right” way. That way works, for some audiences and for some purposes. As we know, the language of the world is much larger than academic discourse and our audiences are often a lot more unpredictable than “the professor and my classmates”–sometimes you’re forced to crossover and go left.

The body of literature that recommends multimodal writing in the composition classroom is large. It looms like a center defender. We can’t deny it. The voices of many in our profession tell us that multimodal writing is relevant to our students and their success, particularly their success post-graduation.

As computers and composition scholar Cindy Selfe writes: “If our profession continues to focus solely on teaching only alphabetic composition—either online or in print—we run the risk of making composition studies increasingly irrelevant to students engaging in contemporary practices of communicating” (72). Our students are already consuming and creating multimodal works like captioned videos, memes, maps, and collages through their use of social media platforms and apps. Our pedagogy can tap into the composing literacies they are already familiar with to further hone their rhetorical awareness and perhaps broaden the genres they compose in, introducing texts like photo essays, blogs, and graphic narratives in the curriculum.

The argument for an expanded definition of literacy in composition and English classrooms is also confirmed by national academic organizations, such as the Council of Writing Program Administrators in its most updated iteration of the WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition and in the National Council of Teachers of English’s Resolution on Composing with Nonprint Media. We can further see a shift toward valuing the analysis and production of multimodal texts by students in our textbooks and other formal scholarship; this is confirmed by recent publications such as Arola, Sheppard and Ball’s 2014 Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects, Palmeri’s 2012 Remixing Composition, Sheridan, Ridolfo, and Michel’s 2012 The Available Means of Persuasion, and Shipka’s 2011 Toward a Composition Made Whole, and many more wonderful resources.

Teachers and scholars of composition are responding to shifting notions of literacy and setting out to further define what “good writing” means in the age of ubiquitous digital and multimodal composing, both in informal and formal contexts.

I need to learn how to make a left-hand layup. That 5th grade summer was spent on the court–dribbling, looking, shooting, sweating. Watching other players and listening to instruction from coaches, I taught my body how to move. I taught myself how to guide the ball where I wanted it to go. Teaching multimodal composition is sometimes a practice of trial and error. We envision how to teach students important rhetorical principles: audience, genre, and purpose. We help them analyze texts as models to produce their own. We guide them in drafting toward final projects. We ask them to reflect on their process of composing these texts. This is no small feat. And, I would add, that this is a rigorous, academic task.

In my own classes at CSI, I approach the “rewind and re-envision” requirement through focusing students to consider their weigh-in essays as the text for “re-envisioning.” They imagine the audience they want to address their opinions to and consider the best mode of persuasion for this audience. As an instructor I ask students: What public are you writing about, to, and/or for? How should you craft this message and in what genre? What are some excellent examples of the genre you want to compose in and how can you learn from them? And, most importantly, how do you get others to listen to and care about your message?

The last two semesters teaching ENG 111, I themed my course around the issue of gentrification of New York City, particularly focusing on the development plans of the St. George neighborhood. For the rewind and re-envision assignment, students produced texts like children’s books on displacement as a consequence of gentrification, leaflets and informational brochures on the St. George development plans to educate current residents, open letters to the Staten Island Borough President, protest rap songs performed live, and poems on the effects of gentrification. This corpus of public writing demonstrates how the curriculum requirement can be used to acquaint students with ways to intervene in their local contexts once they have developed a well-thought-out opinion. Multimodal, and other forms of non-academic, writing can have consequence in the public sphere.

Spoiler alert: I did not become the next Rebecca Lobo. I retired my basketball jersey and took up the cause of teaching writing. The summer of left-hand layups taught me to anticipate whatever comes my way. To write in different styles is to be ever-ready for the rhetorical exigencies that manifest in our personal and professional lives.

Get your game face on this fall, colleagues. Team rhetoric is coming for you, students.

Our new digital tablets!

The CSI Writing Program is excited to have 30 new digital tablets that can be used in your ENG 111 and ENG 151 classes. This is a great way to incorporate digital writing and learning without requiring that students have access to their own devices in class.

One way of incorporating the tablets into your classes is by using them to access InQuizitive for Writers – the digital component of The Little Seagull Handbook. Earlier this month, our Norton reps Justin and Erica visited to introduce us to InQuizitive, and we spent the afternoon using our new tablets to explore the digital program.

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The workshop was very helpful, and if you were unable to attend, you can still access a copy of the handout Justin and Erica used in our workshop (InQuizitive_For Writers Guide) and also reach out to Justin directly if you have questions: jcahill@wwnorton.com.

Any ENG 111 or 151 instructor is welcome to use the digital tablets in your classroom. If you were unable to attend the workshop, it is recommended that you stop by and familiarize yourself with the tablets on your own before using them with your class.

Please keep the following guidelines in mind:

• The tablets are to remain in the English Department main office when not in use.
• The tablets must be signed in/out each time they are removed from the English Department main office. The sign in/out sheet is in the Department office.
• The tablets should NOT leave campus.
• If you notice that the batteries are running low, please let Christine know.

As always, thank you for all you do for our students. Please let us know if you have questions about the tablets, using InQuizitive, or anything else related to our program.

 

 

Alternative Facts in the Writing Classroom

By Christine Martorana

Most of us have probably heard the phrase “alternative facts” in the past few months, but in case you haven’t, here’s a brief explanation to catch you up to speed:

“‘Alternative facts’ is a phrase used by U.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017, in which she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer‘s false statement about the attendance at Donald Trump‘s inauguration as President of the United States. When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Spicer ‘utter[ed] a provable falsehood’, Conway stated that Spicer was giving ‘alternative facts.’ Todd responded, ‘Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.’

As a writing instructor, I find the idea of “alternative facts” especially interesting (and, admittedly, also a  little troubling). One of the Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) for ENG 111 and 151 is to teach students to “read and listen critically and analytically, including identifying an argument’s major assumptions and assertions and evaluating its supporting evidence.” To me, this SLO means I should help my students become critical citizens able to understand a text and evaluate its use of evidence. What, then, does this mean in light of “alternative facts” and “falsehoods” that can be presented as truths? What responsibility do we have, if any, to help our students navigate the information they encounter on the news, on social media, in the hallways, and on the streets?

All of us have our own pedagogical approaches and levels of comfort regarding the topics we cover in our classrooms. I don’t think any one approach is inherently right or wrong, but my own approach moves me to address “alternative facts” with my students.  Here are two ideas for doing so…

• Use Rob Lerman’s “Fake News” discussion questions as prompts for low-stakes writing.
• Show this video and ask students to consider the relationship between “alternative facts” and ethos/credibility.

Although I have not yet tried these in the classroom, I think they have potential. I’m also very interested in your thoughts on this. Do you think we should address “alternative facts” with our students? If not, why not? And if so, how do you think we should do so?

End-of-the-semester celebration

Last week, we gathered together to celebrate another wonderful semester within the CSI Writing Program. We enjoyed good friends and friendly company while Professor Margot DeSalvo Nasti guided us in a reflective goal-setting activity. Check out photos from our event below. We hope to see you at a future writing program event!

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What writing program event is complete without food? Special thanks to Rosanne Carlo for her delicious quiche! That was probably the tastiest dish of the night! 

Margot’s reflection and goal-setting activity invited us to set goals for our upcoming winter break and then make a plan to work towards one of the goals. As a group, we set a large range of goals, including working on syllabi, cleaning the house, baking, and taking time to draw!

Thank you to everyone who joined in the celebration! Pictured from left to right: Christine, Peter, Margot, John, Sharifa, Paulette, Rosanne, Bill, & Harry

 

Writing Instructors share best practices at Fall 2016 Round Tables

In the letter that follows, Writing Instructor Stephen Greeley recaps the two recent Best Practices Round Tables. One of the main take-aways from these Round Tables is that there are many exciting and engaging activities happening in our ENG 111 and 151 classrooms. To all of our instructors – thank you for all that you do to make the writing classroom an interesting and valuable space for our students.

Several of the activities discussed below are posted on our Writing Program Blackboard page under the “Workshops and Best Practices” folder. All instructors are invited to adapt these activities for their own classrooms. Also, if you would like to contribute an activity or assignment to this folder (and we hope you do!), email it to Christine at christine.martorana@csi.cuny.edu.

 

Hello Colleagues,

I thought I would share some of the highlights of the most recent Best Practices Round Table discussions of November 10 and 15. (Or is it “Roundtable”? I’ll leave that to that dedicated grammarians/rhetoricians to sort out!)

On both sessions, we had a fine turnout, even at the later session on the 15^th. As usual, the tone was light, the subjects and discussion wide-ranging, and the atmosphere collegial. Following are some of the best of the best.

In the November 10 session, Sue Rocco started us off with a dynamic exercise, using speed-dating rules applied to composition. Situating her students in two squares, one inside the other, the inner facing the outer, she instructed students to seek solutions to challenges facing their particular communities (a neighborhood, a social identity, a personality type, et cetera). After each student discussed the problem for a short period, the lights went off, the outer row of students moved, and the discussion began anew with the next student. In this manner, each student was able to generate a substantial list of possible writing ideas for the assignment. (To my knowledge, no marriage proposals ensued!)

Christine Martorana gave us a window into her teaching approach, using a Jeopardy-styled lesson to teach MLA style. Breaking the class into three teams and awarding points for accurately answering detailed questions regarding style, she found students better able to retain information that we all know tends to defy recollection among our students. Keeping the instruction light, playful, and a challenge seemed a pretty solid answer to the question of how to teach what is, to some, the tedious.

Harry Thorne gave a display of realism when he noticed one day that his students were just not getting a particular part of a reading. Rather do what he (and many of us) may have been inclined to do, to simply explain the onerous passage and move on with the lesson, he decided to shift gears and spend the next 45 minutes coaxing along his students in coming to an understanding of the piece. The “happy accident” revealed what many of us suspect: our students may have significant trouble comprehending material. It is sometimes worth it to slow down, toss the lesson, and talk it out.

Paulette Forbes-Igharo followed Harry’s lead in sharing her discovery of the difficulty students face when dealing with unfamiliar material. Demonstrating great candidness, she told of realizing that things we instructors may take for granted as fairly common knowledge may be anything but common for our students (a realization I came to also, regarding what I thought was a pretty well-known little speech called “The Gettysburg Address!”).

Jodi Pugliese emphasized a professional approach to the weighing-in essay, encouraging her students to write formal proposals, provide lists of research sources, and to submit an outline for their writing projects. In this way, students may get a real taste of and introduction to scholarly work.

WAC Fellow Talia Shalev shared with us her use of q & a sessions at the end of students’ presentations on songs, which required all students to come prepared with a question to be asked aloud. She also discussed her approach to teaching the elements of a summary, the model of which she had shared with Harry, and which he showed us on a PowerPoint slide. Far from a strict list of ingredients, the outline provides a helpful guide.

Steve Fried demonstrated his training in statistical analysis, and proved the wide-ranging nature of composition course exercises, as he guides his students in some of the finer aspects of survey development and implementation. Here, students face the challenging demand of creating precise, careful questioning.

Rachel Sanchez also encourages her students to recognize the power of the good question, instructing her students to imagine themselves asking questions of authors, a similar approach I have taken in having my students come up with a question to ask any one of their previous or current teachers about their subject. Jessica Amato also made use of creating questions, as an exercise leading toward the creation of a debate rubric. What one asks reveals much that is in the mind!

At the second session on November 15, Chrisanthi Anastopolou shared her approach to the long project, demonstrating the power of careful, step-by-step instruction in guiding students along the path of writing the thesis paper. With drafts, smaller assignments building upon larger and more complex assignments, she gave us a Teaching 101 demonstration.

Janice Fioravante brought her journalistic experience to bear in walking her class through the New York Times Magazine’s first single topic issue. Sharing her love of journalism, Janice spent several days with students teasing out the magazine’s style and language, among other things, making great fodder for the critical analysis.

Sharifa Hampton turned her attention to pop culture, how changing media influences communities, and how we socialize in a technological age. Using Ted Talks and other on-line documentaries, such as the recent documentary 13^th, she also gives students a chance to select their reading material, an excellent opportunity for students to see the semester from the perspective of a professor.

Last but certainly not least, Kristen Pitanza gave a brief but solid overview of her Staten Island-themed 151 course, impressing all with a thoughtful array of exercises and resources she employs in approaching this unique course.

In all, it was another success. Remember to reach out if you wish for more information on any of the lessons briefly (and hopefully decently) described.

Thank you to all who attended, and to Christine for her stewardship of the Writing Program. I look forward to more sessions in the future. Until then,

Good Teaching,

Stephen

Why I am considering going digital – my plagiarism problems

By Faith D’Alessandro

I love to read, and, call me old-fashioned, I like to hold the book in my hands, and turn the actual pages. I feel the same way about the assignments and papers my students submit. I like to have the actual paper before me, and I like to write on them. For the first time, this is proving to be a problem.

I teach English 151, and while half of my course focuses on a final research project, the other half works on critical reading and writing skills. For this I assign non-fiction academic articles, and then ask the students to produce reading responses for some of the assigned articles. These responses ask the students to identify the thesis, the argument, the type, relevance, and reliability of the sources/evidence, the audience, any weaknesses or bias, and to tell me whether they are convinced by the article’s thesis. This worked well last semester, and I did not encounter any problems.

However, this term I uncovered five instances of plagiarism on the first reading response, and an additional five on the second. Both times it started when I noticed a sentence that was in some way unusual, which was not in the student’s usual style, and which I was sure I had seen in a previous student’s paper.

Grading is always a time consuming activity, and when you find yourself re-reading every paper you have already graded, searching for the elusive sentence, it takes even more time. Also, now you are suspicious, reading and re-reading every sentence, and wondering. Then, of course, there is searching the internet attempting to locate the source of the plagiarism. In this case, I really did not have far to go. Sadly, these students did no more than type in “analysis of” and title of the article and, one and all, literally picked the first hit to appear. However, that really is not all because I kept searching anyway. Now I am reading blog after blog, trying to memorize each, so that when I return to grading the papers I will spot the plagiarism and know exactly from where it came. This is how grading went from a relatively straightforward part of teaching to a marathon, which in both instances took days and days to finish.

There must be a better way. I think there is a better way.

I am going to have to embrace the digital age, the computer, and all that is available to me on Blackboard. The time I spent reading and re-reading, and the worry I was missing things, can all be made easier, simpler, and much more straightforward.

Nothing can erase the distress, anger, and disappointment I experienced each time I found the cheating, but perhaps it does not have to consume so many days. Nor will any of this help me understand why students cheat, or why they are so surprised when they are caught. It is almost as if they do not actually believe me when I lecture them on plagiarism and tell them not to even attempt it!

So, like other lecturers I know, I will have my students upload their reading responses to Blackboard. I will run them through SafeAssign. I will grade them on my computer, and save on paper and pens. I will put the grade on Blackboard, and I will upload the graded paper for the students, along with all my comments. SafeAssign will check for plagiarism within the classes’ papers and further afield on the internet. Having all the responses in digital form will also make it much easier for me to conduct my own searches if it was necessary.

I do not believe I am a technophobe, and I do love my mobile and my tablet. However, I always thought there was something special about sitting down, pen in hand, in front of a stack of my students’ papers. Nevertheless, since I do not care to let plagiarism slip by me, I must start taking advantage of the new tools at my disposal before the checking, re-checking, and second-guessing drive me to distraction. I am still going to read ‘real’ books though!

This is purely my personal experience, but I would be very interested to hear from others, those who use technology, and those who do not, about your experiences with finding plagiarism. Not one of the most enjoyable aspects of teaching, but one we must all deal with at some point.