Classroom Schedule

Interchange: Advice from CWC Teachers

Fall 1998: Kip Wheeler and Jeremy Popp

Two of the presenters on the Teaching with Technology panel at the 1999 Fall Composition Conference, Kip Wheeler and Jeremy Popp, have taken the time to transcribe some of their advice.

Based on Kip's presentation, we asked him to respond to the following question: "Teaching with technology" does not, of course, only imply teaching in the Computers and Writing Classroom. How can teachers make productive use of technology in the traditional writing classroom?

Kip Wheeler
My only reminder would be to remember that technology ultimately should make your life (and teaching) easier. If it doesn't show signs of doing that, you should abandon that technology. With that *magister caveat*, here are some techniques I find useful that work just as well in the traditional writing classroom as they do in the computer classroom:

Handouts: Your tendency as a harried graduate student is to xerox other people's handouts to use in our own classes. Sometimes, however, that handout will skew your teaching. While the handout works fine in one class with one textbook and one particular number of students, it simply isn't as apt for a slightly different setting, or a slightly different reading. If you have the handout *saved* on computer disk, it is easy to make quick alterations to tailor the handout for your class this term.
It is also easy to update saved handouts to coincide with current events. (For instance, some of my original teaching handouts made references to "President Reagan." It was only a five seconds work to update it to "President Clinton.") Likewise, I have some cartoons on my handouts. The original cartoon is dessicated, yellowed, and difficult to copy as it fades due to acidity in the paper. However, the copy I have scanned into my computer to insert in handouts will be perpetually fresh and clear. I can also easily transfer it to a website as well. Yes, it is a pain to type up a handout rather than xerox it, but I think over the last eight years I've been teaching, it has saved me much more trouble.

Zip disk: Zip disks cost about $15 and hold as much as *ninety* 3.5 inch disks. I keep all my handouts, lectures, e-mail exchanges, and class materials conveniently located on a Zip disk (with a backup copy at home). At the beginning of each year, I make copies of all the classroom stuff and move it to a new disk. (Supposedly, Zip disks are guaranteed for life, but better to be secure than sorry). The number of files keep getting bigger, but the Zip disk holds so much material that a lack of room hasn't been a problem, as it has been for me when I use regular 3.5 inch disks.
The reason I advocate Zip disks is twofold. First, as a teacher, I don't have to search through a thick file cabinet to find my materials. It is all alphabetized and dated automatically on the zip disk. It makes it easy to open up, for example, my notes for the class I taught on gender in the Fall of 1996, right before I plan a similar class in Fall of 1999. I can compare my notes to see what worked and what didn't, update the old handouts, and see what other relevant resources I have squirreled away.

Second, when it comes time for me to go on the job market, and potential employers should ask me how or what I teach, I can pull out the zip disk and show them *every single* handout I have ever used, every e-mail exchange, every lecture, every typed response to a student paper, and every assignment I have used over the past eight years. If they want a copy to peruse, it's only 5 minutes' work to copy it to a second zip disk for them. For a teaching portfolio, nothing beats it for convenience, completeness, and the impression of being on the ball.

Macro-files and "canned" grammatical lessons: Another item I keep on disk is a bunch of "canned" lessons on common problems and questions. For instance these canned lessons might be punctuation exercises, a brief explanations of pronoun/antecedent agreement, or some suggestions for proof-reading, usually accompanied with references to page numbers in grammar handbooks or The Shape of Reason.
I have programmed such lessons as macros on my computer. When I type comments on student papers, I can insert these canned lessons from my own computer by hitting a function key. (For instance, I've set up F5 to insert a half page of information and examples about passive voice). If you don't have your own computer to use macros, you can simply keep the same material on disk in a single word-processing file, and then cut-and-paste the relevant material into your own comments. This alternative is a bit more time-consuming, but still much faster than typing up a complete explanation all over again.

It takes perhaps a day or two of work to prepare such grammatical lessons, but if they are saved in electronic format, you can update them, expand them, and use them over and over again. (Your students will be amazed at getting a full typed page of feedback also, even if 60% of that material is a generic grammatical lesson or two aimed at one of their specific problems.) Other advantages to this format are that you can also send the material via e-mail, add it to a web-page, or use it as the basis of a traditional handout. The conversion time from one format to another is minimal, sometimes no more than ten seconds of cutting and pasting.

Transparencies: When you are not in the computer room, consider using transparent overheads as an alternative to the chalkboard. Again, the cost in set-up time is significant, as you will have type up a full page of material and print it out. However, after that initial work is done, you can instantly produce thirty sentences in passive voice for the students to fix in class, without writing them all out manually on the blackboard. Then, you take their suggested revisions and correct them with a vis-a-vis marker, a non-permanent, wet-erase marker used to write on transparencies. (They come in seven colors, available in the University Bookstore, basement level).
After you are finished, simply run the transparency under water in the sink or waterfountain, and it is clean and reusable. If you are teaching two classes back-to-back, make two copies of the overhead transparency, and you can stuff the one that has been marked-up in your briefcase and use the second, clean copy in the second class.

If you are really ambitious, you can have Kinko's make color-overheads of charts and graphs to use as overheads. Or, you can make overlapping transparencies, one which has questions in black and a second copy with the answers in red, and then transpose the two. Though it seems silly, color really does make a difference in how well it holds the students' attention and how much professional ethos you have as an instructor.

E-mail: E-mail discussion lists work just as well in the traditional classroom setting as they do in the computer room. I prefer that all reading responses be done via e-mail. Be warned: to many students, e-mail assignments do not feel like "real work," and they may not bother proofreading their responses, or doing them on time, unless you make it clear to them what your expectations are. If you feel really ambitious (this works best in the computer classroom) you can have them do their responses twenty-four hours in advance of the class. Then go through the responses and select some students' quotations and arguments to use as the basis of the class discussion, either anonymously or attributing the authorship as you see fit. You can print them the quotes and make an overhead transparency to project before the class, or add them to your website, or whatever your heart desires.
Another tip: if you have the class subscribed to an e-mail discussion list, you can also have them subscribe to e-mail newsgroups to provide extra readings about current events....

Scissors. Camilla suggested this idea to me, and I have found that it can work really well if you think through the process and make sure the students understand what is expected of them.
Basically, to help the students with organization during peer evaluations days, bring to class a dozen pairs of scissors and an extra copy of their rough draft. Let the class cut their papers up by paragraph, then shuffle the order. Each student then trades with another student, who attempts to recombine the fragments into its original order. If there are places where the reader can't figure out which paragraph follows what, that is a sign the writer either needs a better transition, or the writer should rethink the order of ideas in the paper. Sometimes, this exercise will also help the student think through alternative ways to organize and approach the argument.

Another *magister caveat*: beware of the fact that some students miss the point of the exercise and re-assemble the essays like a puzzle, looking at the edge where the scissors have cut and then trying to piece the essay together by matching the "shapes" of the fragments rather than using content. To cure this tendency, have the author cut each edge *twice* rather than once, so that no paragraph's edge will precisely match the following paragraph's edge in shape.

Webpages. The final stage of geekdom is to create a class webpage. I have not yet fully incorporated webpages into my class, but I sense the possibilities. If you include the webpage's URL on your syllabus, the students can look there for updates and alterations. Also, if they lose their syllabuses, you can direct them to the webpage where they can print out a new copy without forcing you to spend some of your precious 400 xerox copies. It would also be easy to link your page to the CWC webpage, or to resources about logical fallacies, pertinent readings, etc. I am still struggling to learn HTML code, but for me, this is one of those areas where I time I put into the project seems to outweigh the time I would save by making use of the new technology. There are shortcuts such as homepage editing programs, which Rob Howard can demonstrate for you.
With any new technology, you must also weigh the time spent with the ultimate amount of time saved, determine the cost with the reward. Don't try and incorporate everything at once, or you'll break your academic back. I'd suggest starting with getting used to using the Zip disk to store all your notes, lectures, and e-mail exchanges. From there, try to add two or three new handouts each term you teach. After two years of teaching, you will have at least a dozen new resources. With that as a basis, branch out in new directions, using the original work as templates for web-pages, or transparencies, or macro-files. Think about not just this term, but the next ten or twenty years of teaching, and your portfolio as a teacher as well.

 

To Jeremy, we posed the following question: What would you say to those teachers who, not comfortable with or confident in their knowledge of computers, wonder if teaching the Computers and Writing Classroom would be worthwhile?

Jeremy Popp
I think anyone who is particularly anxious about using computers in the writing classroom is a great candidate for requesting to be assigned there. By forcing yourself into the situation where you have to answer the student question "why are we in THIS room" you will necessarily need to articulate how you plan to use the room. I found that I had fewer negative opinions about using computers to teach writing once I had tried it: the classic "green eggs and ham" approach. Once I was in the room for a few days I found the technology to be great.

I would also suggest using the computer classroom as a useful way to empower students to take an active role in teaching aspects of the course. I was very open about my lack of computer skill and not only would that have been painfully obvious, my students seemed to appreciate that they could participate in a genuine exchange of information.

Finally, don't forget that we are in the business of teaching WRITING, not computers. The computer can be used as one of the subject areas for the class discussion, but instructors shouldn't need to feel pressure to discuss computer-use ethics, technology and education, or any other computer based units unless they feel comfortable. I predominantly used the computers to facilitate freewriting, to encourage e-mail lists, and to allow my students to share something they knew better than I did. The computer presence never took over or crowded my writing instruction. When in doubt, tell the students to turn off the monitor and turn around-- you will be left with a nice circle!