State University of New York - College at Cortland
English Department
AED 308 Grammar and the Writing Process
Credit hours: 3
Dr. Noralyn Masselink
Fall 2007
Phone: 2068
Location: SW134
Office: 111D Old Main
Office Hours: MW 9:30-2:30
E-mail: masselinkn@cortland.edu
Required Texts:
The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd. ed. Ed. Calvert Watkins. Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Notebook of Readings ($22 due by second class period)
Troyka, Lynn Quitman. Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers. 8th. ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2007.
Highly recommended: Membership in the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
Course Description: (F) Engagement in the various stages of the writing process while determining the appropriate role of grammar in the Language Arts Curriculum through readings and practice. Prerequisite: 2.75 GPA, Junior Status. Co-requisites: AED 309/341. (3 cr. hr.)
Course Attendance Policy: You are expected to be in class with all work prepared every class period. For every absence beyond two, your final grade will be lowered one-third; absences beyond seven will result in automatic failure of the course. Repeated tardiness will count as an absence (3 late arrivals = one absence).
Evaluation of Student Performance:
Mini-lessons and assignments 50%
Comprehensive quiz 20%
Writing Project One 20%
Reflective essay 10%
Professionalism (adherence to dress code, body language during class, engagement during discussions, class participation, commitment to success, willingness to share concerns, maintenance of communication with professor in general). This last aspect will be factored into your final grade positively, negatively, or neutrally up to one-third of a letter grade.
Course Goals/Objectives: (Keyed to NCTE standards). The goals in this course are to help you
1) Develop lifelong habits of critical thinking and judgment (2.4) Assessment, Knowledge Base
2) Take an informed stance on the role of grammar in the Language Arts Curriculum (2.5, 3.1.1, 3.1.6, 3.1.7) Professional Standards, Knowledge Base
3) Gain knowledge and skills designed to promote your understanding of the writing process (1.1, 4.0, 5.1) Knowledge Base
4) Acquire a respect for and understanding of diversity in language use (3.1.3, 3.1.4) Diversity
5) Use a wide range of writing strategies and grow as a writer while producing different forms of written discourse (3.4) Personal Responsibility, Knowledge Base
Responsibilities:
1) Class Participation: I expect EVERY student to participate in class frequently. Essentially, it seems selfish to me for students to sit silently soaking up what others have to say without contributing anything to the learning community themselves. We will work hard to create an atmosphere of respect that is conducive to honest, open discussion. (2.1)
2)Responses to Assigned Readings: Read carefully, and conscientiously respond to each assignment. I expect you to write a response paper for every class that has a * by it. Responses must be typed. Actively engage with the assigned readings. I expect you to have a basic understanding of what you’ve read when you come into the classroom. Here are some questions you might try to answer in your responses:
* How does your personal experience relate to what you are reading?
* How does this reading relate to other things you’ve read?
* Do you agree or disagree with the author's claims? Why?
* How has the reading changed your thinking about something?
Occasionally, you might be asked to react to something that happened in the previous class. Responses will be graded on the number and length of the entries as well as on the level of engagement and insight (Remember that summarizing what you've read is NOT the same as responding to it!). (2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 3.2.2, 3.3, 3.4)
3) Homework: Your weekly writing assignments are related either to your writing project or to tasks you are expected to complete for AED 309/311. These assignments are due at the beginning of class whether or not you are able to attend on a given day. Late assignments (anything handed in after class starts on the due date) will be downgraded one-third of a letter grade for each day they are late. All assignments must be typed. If you hand in all eleven mini-lessons and assignments, I will drop your lowest grade. I record all initial grades, but also record and factor in any revisions you hand in as well. If you revise a mini-lesson, you must choose different passages to work with, and you must hand in the original version with the revised work. You may revise each mini-lesson only ONCE, so make sure you understand where you went wrong before you try again.
4) Writing projects: This course is a writing workshop. You will produce two major writing projects and will be writing for nearly every class period. The first project will be written in stages, and you will be given opportunities for serious revision before receiving a final grade.
It is your responsibility to make sure that Writing Project #1 and the Reflective Essay are ready to be handed in (no missing parts) at the beginning of the class period on which they are due. Major projects handed in after class has begun on the date due (or handed in without grading sheets) will be downgraded one third; anything handed in after class is dismissed that day will be down graded a full letter grade. Projects not completed and handed directly to me before I leave campus on the due date will not be accepted. PLEASE plan ahead to avoid disaster.
IMPORTANT NOTE: You will be submitting your work for the writing project in drafts. Each time you hand in a revised draft you MUST re-submit all of the previous drafts AND all grading sheets on which I’ve given you feedback. PLEASE do not re-submit work which has not addressed concerns and errors I’ve noted on the previous drafts. If you do so, I reserve the right to LOWER the original grade.
5) Academic Dishonesty: You must acknowledge all ideas which belong to someone else. Any ideas or writing assignments that are not drawn from your own imagination MUST be documented. If you are caught plagiarizing, you will fail this course. Please read Chapter 340 in the SUNY Cortland College Handbook for additional information. Please specify on the first page of each mini-lesson the text and author from which each mini-lesson is drawn.
If you are a student with a disability and wish to request accommodations, please contact the Office of Student Disability Services located in B-40 Van Hoesen Hall or call (607) 753-2066 for an appointment. Information regarding your disability will be treated in a confidential manner. Because many accommodations require early planning, requests should be made as early as possible.
Writing Project
For this first writing project, you must select one longer work of literature (play or novel); one longer and one shorter (short story, poem, essay); or two shorter (short stories, poems, essays) works of literature that you might teach in a junior or senior high school classroom. At least one of the works must be a piece of world literature; you might want to offer students a choice of works for the second selection. After re-reading the text(s), design a thought-provoking writing assignment for students. The assignment must address New York State Learning Standards 2 and/or 3, and must follow criteria specified in the Regents Examination Parts 2, 3, or 4. It must also engage the students on some kind of personal level (i.e., students must reflect on the relevance of the work and/or issues raised to their own lives). Once you design the prompt, you will then, over the course of the next ten weeks, walk yourself through all of the processes of producing a model response to the assignment: pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, proofreading, and publication. I have provided the due dates for these various stages, but YOU must provide the specific instructions (writing prompts) and models of each step.
You will also be doing a vocabulary study in conjunction with this project so choose works that have some challenging vocabulary in them. In addition, you will be producing mini-lessons that you might teach your students as they are working on the project. (2.3, 2.4, 3.1.7, 3.3, 3.4, 4.1, 4.2, 4.12)
Reflective Essay
The purpose of this essay is for you to contemplate the relationship between the contents of your writing project in all of its various parts and the process you went through to produce those pieces. Throughout the essay, you should consider what you have discovered about each of the following:
• yourself as a writer
• the writing process as a whole
• teaching in general
• the language component of “English Language Arts”
In your essay, you must discuss the seven stages identified below, reflecting as you do so on what the particular step taught you about one of the four elements identified above:
• Creating the prompt itself and justifying your choices
• Choosing vocabulary and related tasks
• Designing a pre-writing prompt and model
• Devising a sentence-combining mini-lesson
• Revising your essay after receiving revision-level feedback from me
• Engaging in in-class editing
• Preparing the project for publication (and perhaps reading the publication)
Your essay should be driven by a thesis which summarizes what you have learned. Keep in mind as you write what makes for effective introductions and conclusions, and be sure to use transitions throughout to lead the reader from one idea to the next. Personal references are appropriate throughout and claims should be substantiated by evidence (i.e. specific references to struggles, feedback, lessons learned, etc).
You will be graded on the depth of your reflection and the extent to which your essay addresses the criteria outlined above. You will also be graded on your integration of the various sentence combinations you have learned this semester. Finally, I will consider heavily the thoroughness of your editing as you attempt to bring this essay in conformity with the standards of EAE.
AED 308 - Syllabus *Indicates that a reading response is due
Read all assignments in the order given. Numbers in parentheses refer to pages in the notebook. T = the Troyka handbook
T 8/28 Look through reading lists and choose works for your first writing project
Read through Curriculum Essentials, Regents criteria, NYS ELA standards, Conclusion page from Chapter Six “Designing Writing Assignments,” and three sample assignments.
*R 8/30 "The Definition and Determination of Good English"
"Linguistics for Composition Teachers"
“Dialects”
"Some Thoughts on Teaching English"
Grammar Gram: “Can I Write Like I Speak?”
**Stop by my office if you would like to see additional models of assignment prompts**
*T 9/4 Introduction and Ch. 1 from Grammar for Teachers (31)
"Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar"
“Where’s the Language in English Language Arts Classrooms?”
"Enabling Student Growth"
"Who's Doing the Work" / Ten Basic Rules of Instruction
**If you need more guidance on how to design your writing assignment, please refer to “Designing Writing Assignments” in your notebook (49). You might find Figure 6.4 particularly helpful; Also keep in mind the eight questions from “Designing Writing Assignments”)**
DUE: First draft of justification of literary choices (14) and initial prompt for Writing Project #1
R 9/6 "Grammar vs. Usage" (59)
Grammar Gram: “Do My Ears Deceive Me?”
“Phonetics" (Do Ex. 1) Log on to WebCT
“How Spelling Supports Reading”
T Ch. 20
DUE: • Justification of literary choices and revised prompt for Writing Project #1 (Pay attention to the layout of your prompt).
•Select five items from the usage glossary in Troyka Ch.20 that you have had difficulties with in the past or were unaware of and type them up on a separate piece of paper.
T 9/11 Readings in notebook from "The Minimal Units of Meaning" (76) (do the exercise at the end of the article) to Slate Starter Sheet #2 (92)
T Ch. 22
DUE: • Bring Dictionary of Indo-European Roots to class
• Come up with an initial list of twenty vocabulary words including at least one homonym or easily confused pair (refer to “Factors Affecting Vocabulary Choices” before selecting words)
• Devise some kind of pre-writing activity to “get the juices flowing” with regard to your main writing assignment. The activity should get students to begin thinking about what they will later write about in detail and should provide some kind of base from which they will build the formal writing assignment. Require the use of a selected number of vocabulary words. BE CREATIVE!
• Prepare a well-written model of your pre-writing assignment.
R 9/13 Readings from “Indo-European Roots”(64) to Slate Starter Sheet #3
T Ch. 28g
DUE: • Finalize your list of vocabulary/spelling words
• Complete Indo-European root and related family search for each word using The Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (see model list in notebook).
In-class: Discussion of mnemonic devices and using context clues
T 9/18 In-class: Prepositions (183)
T Ch. 7h, 49
DUE: • Revised description of writing assignment with tentative thesis statement for your model
• Revised pre-writing prompt and model
• Teacher vocabulary resource sheet (Please set your list up exactly like the model list from Grapes of Wrath in your notebook):
► Morphological families for all vocabulary words where the root and family connections make sense (i.e., family members are not too esoteric; use Latin and/or Greek roots if that helps make connections more obvious; include as many related words as possible)
► For all words not having usable roots, decide what other “family” to use: Synonyms or Antonyms (must be in same part of speech as target word); Derivational family; Graphic organizer (semantic family of loosely associated words); Phonemic family
► Original mnemonic devices for two difficult-to-spell words and one homonym pair
• Place the above in a folder with Checklist for Writing Project (last page in pink Assessment Packet). All former drafts and feedback will be placed on the left side of the folder.
R 9/20 In-class: Verbs and Verbals (127-136)
T Ch. 7d, 7e; 8; 14b, d
DUE: • Select an appropriate literary passage and prepare a mini-lesson on prepositions.
• Along the way, get students to see the difference between prepositional phrase and syntactical structures they might mistake for prepositional phrases: infinitives and subordinate clauses which begin with one of the five subordinating conjunctions which sometimes function as prepositions
• Include scaffolded exercises and a follow-up assignment which you yourself complete. Refer to “Kinds of Writing that Emerge in Writing Workshop” for possible ideas for this and all of your future follow-up writing applications.
• See Assessment Packet for Grading Criteria for Mini-lessons
T 9/25 In-class: Go over possibilities for student vocabulary activities (113) ; teaching participial phrases
DUE: Your revised prompt and an outline of your model essay including the following:
• An introduction consisting of the following:
► Attention-getting opener
► Sentences that introduce topic and works to be considered
► Revised arguable claim (your thesis)
• Topic sentences for EACH body paragraph in your essay with CLEAR links to thesis
• Evidence you plan to use to prove the topic sentences
Refer to and bring to class the “In-class Revision of Outline” checklist from assessment packet
R 9/27 In-class: Nouns and pronouns (137 & 200)
T Ch. 7b, c, k-n; 29a, b
DUE: • Mini-lesson on participial phrases / Demonstration of dangling modifiers / Scaffolded Exercises
T 10/2 In-class: Coordinating Conjunctions, Compound Sentences (141ff)
T Ch. 7i, 17a-c
DUE: • Mini-lesson on appositives / Scaffolded exercises
R 10/4 In-class: Adjectives, Adverbs, Phrases vs. Clauses (157)
T Ch. 7o-q, 17e-g
DUE: • Mini-lesson on compound sentences / Scaffolded exercises
T 10/9 Clauses (continued) /Fragments (160)
T Ch. 9s, 12
DUE: • Revised assignment prompt
• Full draft of model writing assignment with at least one example of a compound sentence, one sentence with an appositive, and one sentence with a participial phrase (Refer to T Ch. 28b-f, h; 29c-e as you quote sources for your paper)
■Place the above on the right side of a folder along with my Checklist for Writing Project (Draft #2). All previous prompts with feedback/grading sheets go in the left side.
R 10/11 In-class: Parallelism (150 & 203)
T Ch. 18
DUE: • Revised Teacher Vocabulary sheet AND Student vocabulary worksheet for TEN of your words, demonstrating at least five different approaches to vocabulary instruction. Turn in with former drafts and assessment sheet from packet.
T 10/16 In-class: Comma splices, semi-colons, colons (152 & 161)
T Ch. 13, 25, 26
DUE: • Mini-lesson on parallelism and scaffolded exercises
R 10/18 In-class: Discussion of Analytical Grading Sheets (162 ff)
Pronoun Reference, Subject-Verb Agreement, Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
T Ch. 9, 10, 21g **Bring Troyka book to class**
DUE: Mini-lesson on colons and scaffolded exercises
T 10/23 T Ch. 34 (Refer to this chapter for in-text citation and Works Cited page)
In-class: Editing of paper
DUE: Revised draft of complete writing project. Your model must contain at least one example of each of the following: ▪ sentence containing an appositive
▪ compound sentence
▪ sentence with colon
▪ sentence with parallelism
▪ sentence with semi-colon
▪ participial phrase or adjective clause
R 10/25 In-class: Discuss field work analysis assignment **Bring Troyka again**
DUE: • Final revised and edited version of Project #1. Please place a clean copy of each of the following in the right side of the folder:
• Assignment prompt
• Vocabulary work (Teacher’s List and Student worksheet)
• Pre-writing prompt with model
• Model Essay
• Editing Level Error Sheet
• My analytical grading sheet from back of notebook (last four pages)
• In the left side of the folder, place all former drafts and assessment sheets.
T 10/30 Grammar Gram 18, 21, 33 (WebCT Post and Attachment)
In-class: Olive grove paper (172)
R 11/1 T Ch. 27, 30 / "Remedial Writers (173) (class will start at 8:30)
DUE: Identify editing level errors in “Education” essay (175)
Field Work Analysis #1
T 11/6 In-class: go over student paper (8:30)
DUE: • Using the Essay Evaluation Scale assess the “Uncontrollable Emotions” paper (177) twice (once as a first draft in need of revision: assign it a tentative score for Ideas, Organization, and vocabulary; a second time as a second draft in need of editing: identify all the editing level errors; assign it a tentative score for Sentence Structure, Punctuation, and Spelling)
R 11/8 In-class: Review for Comprehensive Test using Adjective Clauses as a Case Test (8:30)
DUE: • Publication-ready version of Writing Prompt, Vocabulary, and Model Essay
NO STAPLES PLEASE, one-sided copies only
T 11/13 Review for Comprehensive Test 8:00
R 11/15 Comprehensive Test
T 11/20 (WebCT Post and Attachment)
THANKSGIVING BREAK
T 11/27 Reflective Essay Due (In-class Editing) (8:00)
R 11/29 Final Draft of Reflective Essay Due (8:30) Discussion: From college to classroom
T 12/4 DUE: Portfolio Piece for Field Work (AED 309/311) (8:30)
Fifty-hour log sheet
Evaluation of Host Teacher
Host Teacher’s Evaluation of you
R 12/6 Course Wrap Up
Bibliography
Language and grammar in general:
Anderson, Jeff. Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer’s Workshop. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 2005.
Andrews, Larry. Language Exploration and Awareness. 2nd. ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 1998.
Barry, Anita K. English Grammar: Language as Human Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.
Birch, Barbara M. Learning and Teaching English Grammar, K-12. NJ: Pearson, 2005.
Clark, Mary M. The Structure of English for Readers, Writers, and Teachers. Glen Allen, VA: College Publishing, 2003.
Haussamen, Brock. Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2003.
Honeggar, Mark. English Grammar for Writing. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Hunter, Susan and Ray Wallace, Eds., The Place of Grammar in Writing Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1995.
Killgallon, Don. Sentence Composing. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1987.
Mulroy, David. The War Against Grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. 2003.
Power, Brenda Miller and Ruth Shagoury Hubbard. Language Development: A Reader for Teachers. 2nd. ed. NJ: Pearson, 2002.
Shaughnessy, Mina. Errors and Expectations. NY: Oxford P, 1977.
Wardaugh, Ronald. Understanding English Grammar: A Linguistic Approach. Oxford, Blackwell, 2003.
Weaver, Constance, Ed. Lessons to Share: On Teaching Grammar in Context. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1996.
Weaver, Constance. Teaching Grammar in Context. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. 1996.
Williams, James D. The Teacher’s Grammar Book.. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 1999.
Vocabulary and Spelling:
Carnicelli, Thomas. Words Work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.
Denning, Keith and William R. Leven, English Vocabulary Elements, Oxford UP, 1995.
Nilson. Alleen P. and Don L.F. Nilsen. Vocabulary Plus Highschool and Up: A Source-Based Approach. New York: Pearson, 2004.
Sipe, Rebecca Bowers. They Still Can’t Spell? Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003.
Tompkins, Gail E. and Cathy Blanchfield. Teaching Vocabulary. New Jersey: Pearson, 2004.
Web Sources:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar: <http://www.ATEG.org>
English achievement in high school classrooms: <http://www.cela.albany.edu>
NCTE: <http://www.ncte.org>
North Carolina Conference of English Teachers <http://www.nccei.org/grammarguide.html>
Perdue on-line writing lab: <http://www.owl.trc.purdue.edu/resources.html>
Professor Charles Darling and Capital Community College's Guide to Grammar and Writing <http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm>
Sentence Sense <http://webster.commnet.edu/sensen/>