Meeting+Minutes

Jeanette brought in "Learning Through Writing: A Compendium of Assignments and Techniques" a publication from Dalhousie University. This inspired discussion about potentially creating a similar collaboration from members of the Writing Circle.
 * Notes from Writing Circle, Mar. 18, 2010**

Frederique talked about her upcoming BI296 poster project and debate. She would welcome anyone interested on assessing the work of the students and the pedagogy behind the poster exercise.

The first in-class debate will take place on **March 30 (10-11:20am)**: 1. //GMOs can be an answer to world hunger//To be debated by students representing **A.** the European Union and **B.** members of the US Chamber of Commerce 2. //GMOs can decrease biodiversity//To be debated by students representing **A.** biotechnology researchers and **B.** environmental researchers3. //Organic agriculture is sustainable//To be debated by students representing **A.** Organic wine makers and **B.** Loblaws CEOs

The poster conference will take place **March 25 (6-9pm)**. Please see the flyer below for more information.



The second in-class debate will take place on **April 1 (10-11:20am)**: 4. //__Multinationals are the key to the future__// To be debated by students representing **A.** Monsanto administration and **B.** members of the International Rice Research Institute5. //Micro-economy will lead to a better growth of the developing countries//To be debated by students representing **A.** Fair traders and **B.** Walmart executives6. //__Aquaculture will lead to the collapse of the salmon__//To be debated by students representing **A.** Aquaculture farmers and **B.** Native people from the West

Debate format (for both days): Opening statement from the "government": 3 minOpening statement from opposition: 3 minRebuttal for "government": 4 minRebuttal for opposition: 4 minClosing statement for "government": 2 minClosing statement for opposition: 2 minOpen to the floor: 7 min

Frederique discussed how the students seem to have difficulty with peer-review article searches. Terry said he had an assignment that he gives after Debbie Chaves (from library) visits the class to make sure the students apply what they learned. He will forward that assignment for posting shortly.

Terry shared his checklist assessment scheme for his course. He will forward the assignment + checklist to be posted shortly.

From Terry - //Here's the library assignment as it was this year.// //The "analysis" section is for the students to do on their own, after the presentation, and the "recap" explains the objectives. As I mentioned, one of the articles is ONLY in print, so they actually have to look IN the stacks!! -ts//

Jim will share a description and wiki link to his collaborative writing assignment shortly.

We filled the agenda for the following dates:
 * Notes from Writing Circle Feb. 4, 2010**

//Tuesday, February 23// Julie will talk about rubrics; Jim will bring one; Michael will bring one he has reservations about; Emmy will bring one

//Wednesday, March 17// So far we have general discussion about writing on the agenda

//Tuesday, April 6// Deena et al. will look at personal process in developing rubrics. Let's take the challenge and pick an existing assignment of ours to create/revamp a rubric for assessment!

//Wednesday, April 28// Frederique and Emmy will talk about writing groups

These are my recollections of the discussion. Feel free to make corrections.


 * We read Bartholomae’s article “Inventing the University” for the session and it generated a lot of discussion.
 * Deena and Jim stated that the paper gave them get a better understanding of what is going on in the first papers students write in a course (undergraduate or graduate) and of how to interpret what is going on. The concept that helped clarify this was the discourse patterns or commonplaces and Bartholomae’s observation that students fall back on discourse patterns they are familiar with (such as, “the great man of history” discourse pattern). In other words, when students are judged not to be able to write academic writing, they may very well be writing according to a discourse pattern that they consider suitable but which is not considered academic.
 * Julie talked about the tacit assumptions we have about academic writing and whether or not we are being sufficiently explicit about our expectations.
 * Terry mentioned that students need examples of what we expect, of what is desired. He has written a sample lab report for his students for this purpose. Deena has done the same for the reflection paper in social work. The reflection paper is a difficult genre for the students, and she and a colleague have written a strong and a week sample paper.
 * The discussion then turned to how we teach the research context that the assignments are supposed to reflect. If a good paper shows how a student is “located in the discourse,” we need to ask how we teach that discourse and that research context. Michael warns his student at the outset of the course that there will be an exam question that starts approximately like this: “What was this course about…..” or “In this course we ….
 * Terry talked about the structure of knowledge and of putting information into context.
 * Julie uses creates a research context for the course by having students build a concept map. As the course moves on, the student s add concepts, and finally they do a paper reflecting on how their thinking changes in over the term.
 * Frederique mentioned that students do not learn enough in a half credit course and everybody lamented the demise of the full-year course.
 * Julie suggested that we need to give students an authentic audience to write for, that students should be able to post their papers and share their writing.
 * Debbie suggested more undergraduate journals, and we began a discussion about putting professor annotated papers (strong and weak papers) up on course websites to help students understand what our expectations are for academic writing. Deena mentioned that when her students write annotated bibliographies, they eventually share their work with each other so that everybody gets an extensive bibliography.
 * Everybody was invited to attend the poster sessions for BI296 on March 25 between 6 and 9 p.m.
 * We did not quite get to the discussion of Bartholomae’s argument that academic writing is a set of coded conventions available only to insiders; that students have to appropriate (or be appropriated) by academic discourse; that in Foucault’s words the distribution of discourse “follows the well-trodden battle-lines of social conflict.”


 * Notes from Writing Circle Jan. 12, 2010**

1. We talked about putting material we have discussed on the wiki: |http://wluwritingcircle.wikispaces.com. Michael is not ready with what he presented, but will try to put something up. Terry said he will write up his three-point assessment scale. We will ask Deena to put up her dialogue assignment. 2. We tried to get an agenda established, and we filled only the first two dates. Feb. 3 we will read //Inventing the University// and Feb. 23 we will discuss rubrics. 3. I introduced Take 20 and we saw question 3: What is the biggest surprise about teaching writing? It triggered a wide-ranging discussion that took up the rest of the hour. Some of them were : a. Using the Writing Circle to have an impact on writing in an institutional context. Asking the question: Does Laurier have a writing culture? Can we create one? How do we introduce the idea to the institution? How do we make it part of the university’s mission? How do we emphasize the value of reading, writing, and publishing? b. Do we have an opportunity to use the initiation to celebrate Laurier’s upcoming 100th anniversary in 2011 as a venue for a writing event that could bring forward all these points for a university-wide discussion? c. Investigate the few senior discipline-specific writing courses at Laurier: i. CH390: Chemical Literature and Scientific Communication ii. RE400: Writing in Religious Studies iii. Emmy mentioned the ongoing criticism of 1st-year writing courses iv. Michael Imort suggested a hybrid model for an introductory writing course, d. The possibility of establishing writing groups.

HOMEWORK FOR NEXT CIRCLE (Feb 3): Read the following article for discussion []