What would happen if instead of composing predetermined
assignments, college composition students could
compose whatever they want to compose? What would
happen if students could set their own deadlines
and grade their own work? Find out as assistant
professor Mason Joyner and I explore these questions
with a few of our fellow English department colleagues.
is the English 101 experiment. Alright, I guess,
are we calling this the, uh... English 101 Experiment?
Yeah, let's do it. The English 101 Experiment.
All right, so welcome to the English 101 Experiment
podcast. Edition. Episode one. Oops. That was
my lunch reminder to eat. All right, so I guess
we should probably introduce ourselves in case
we ever have any listeners who don't work at
Delgado Community College. Yep. So, Corey, why
don't you... Get us started. Sure. My name is
Corey Pellerin, and I'm an English instructor
at Delgado. My name is Mason Joiner. I am also
an English instructor at Delgado Community College
in New Orleans, Louisiana. Okay, and I'm Monica
Mankin, and I'm an associate professor of English.
No, I mean, you all have ranks. You just didn't
say them. Yes, yes. Yes, so also at Delgado Community
College. I don't know. How long have you been
working here? I've been here since 2011. Well,
I started adjuncting in 2016 and then was hired
full -time in 2018. Okay. Yeah, and I've been
here since January 2020. Okay. And then you were
teaching somewhere else before that, right? Yeah,
I was at South Louisiana Community College in
Lafayette. Cool. All right, cool. Closer to home?
Closer to home, yeah. Okay. All right, so we've
been colleagues for a while now, a little while
now. So I guess if we can get started with just
kind of what is this experiment? Why are we calling
it an English 101 experiment? I guess Mason,
do you want to jump on that one? Sure. Well,
so Monica and I last semester really started
talking more about being tired of what we were
doing in English 101 and not feeling successful
or worthwhile to the students. We, I think for
me and I think for Monica as well, wanted to
sort of... tap into that feeling that we had
in school, like falling in love with writing,
falling in love with language. For me, that was
like the summer I was going into eighth grade,
I think. I took a creative writing course at
the Advanced Program for Young Scholars in Natchitoches,
Louisiana. The instructor of that course, Ralph
Adamo, is currently a professor at Xavier University
and a friend of mine now, I'm lucky to say. But
at that time, my mind was blown at how fun and
cool just experimental writing was. And I want
to make my English 101 class more like that and
less of explaining instructions for a particular
assignment. At the end of the semester, have
I taught them how to write or have I taught them
how to write this assignment? And I guess I didn't
like that feeling. Well, they know how to write
the one thing I asked them to write. I mean,
more than one thing, but they know how to write
those four things I asked them to write. But
do they really know? Yeah. But do they know how
to write it? Because then they go to the next
level and it's like, they go to English 102 and
you're like, I just had you last semester and
you don't remember anything that we did. Yeah.
So I guess in the way of like, what is the experiment?
We decided to... not give our students any assignments
which sounds crazy so our students are actually
designing their own composition projects so we
are here to talk about that and Corey we invited
you to join us for this first discussion because
we heard in the hallway that you are also experimenting
so you want to share with us a little bit about
what your experiment is and what prompted you
to try something new this semester. Yeah, sure.
So I realized that my students, very similar
to you guys, that if we were discussing a particular
type of writing, they could understand that for
the most part. They needed to check off a certain
amount of things in order to get... the grade
that they wanted, but there really wasn't much
of them internalizing what they were actually
saying. I didn't feel like they were really owning
their education as much as I would ideally hope
that they would. And I think that comes with
a considerable amount of buy -in, and I think
there just might be this kind of... The language
that we're using or the types of assessment that
we were using doesn't really gel, for lack of
a better word, with the workforce or really just
with the knowledge that they already have. And
I really wanted to come up with something that
they could build on that to where they would
feel the buy -in, they would feel proud of what
they were producing. What I came up with is instead
of having them write essays, they were participating
in a bunch of smaller writing assignments, but
a lot of collaborative writing assignments. And
it culminates in these different projects. And
the projects are going to be, or are, you know,
to throw out the word multimodal, where students
are producing presentations where they have visual
text. and also um and also sound to where they
can create something that i think closer mimics
what they interact with day by day to where if
they can do that then they can understand okay
so what are the choices of the author here who
are they trying to reach and how can i be most
impactful and uh so yeah so we settled on those
kinds of projects and um Yeah, they've been going
pretty well so far. Great. That's great. Yeah,
I think one of the things that you're speaking
to is also something that Mason and I talked
a lot about, which is encouraging student agency
and creating more authentic situations for writing,
like actually helping them to develop that critical
mind that a writer has about purpose and audience.
Like the language of assignments and assessment
really narrows that down and makes it very boring
and I think hard for students to grasp. I know
that's one of the things we were burnt out with.
We know we have these learning outcomes and we
know we have to kind of check these boxes for
the bureaucratic side of school. But is that
working to help students actually leave these
classes? with real knowledge that they will apply
later. And even if not all of them proceed to
the next level having written something that
we would call necessarily academic, what we have
done is given them the opportunity to write something
that they cared about, which I would say an ordinary
English 101 class is far less likely to do. And
if they've written something that they really
care about, academic or not, That, to me, seems
far more valuable than having learned how to
put together an academic essay. Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah. I don't know if we want to get into the
academic essay today. Well, just a teaser. Well,
no, but I guess I'm asking, do we want to talk
a little bit about it? Because I know we're sort
of aware, like you were just talking about the
workforce and kind of the changing face of like...
real world knowledge. And I don't know that the
rest of academia is paying any attention to that,
but we do seem to put a lot of emphasis on these
academic skills when most of our students are
not going to go to graduate school. They're not
going to, you know, spend a lot of time. writing
academic papers or reading academic sources.
I mean, yes, they need to be able to navigate
that as a student, but are we placing too much
emphasis on that? I feel like that's something
that we might be reacting to in this experiment.
Our frustration with that, that we're not serving
them in the way that I feel like we need to serve
them. And then, of course, there will be voices
saying that we in this experiment are not serving
them the way they need to be served. I guess
there's a difference in philosophy sort of at
the core of that. Yeah, I mean, well, it just
depends on what the student's goal is. I mean,
like you're saying, most of the students aren't
probably going to be going to graduate school
or having degrees in academia. So what does it
help if we're just trying to hammer in these
ideas that we experienced and loved but aren't
necessarily applicable to the world that we live
in? I think one of the things that's been interesting
to me is how many of my students, without me
assigning them academic essays, are actually
creating academic texts. Because they are passionate
about a topic, because they are excited to be
able to turn their composition into a podcast
or a video or a presentation and not... necessarily
be bound to a traditional academic essay. And
then some of them are just going to write an
academic essay because they find all of this
technology and stuff overwhelming. It's like
they're able to play to their strengths and they're
still choosing that, but it's their choice. It's
not... And then I haven't had to explain the
assignment over and over. They sort of seem to
intuit what needs to be done, which is kind of
amazing to see. as one of the results of the
experiment so far. It's, I think, ordinarily
not really, even in a traditional English 101
at Delgado, it's not terribly common that a student
would be writing a research paper. But I think
Monica and I both found students wanting to research,
and whether it's a paper or an article or something
else, they want to research and compile research
into a writing of their own. which is something
that even beyond what we would have ordinarily
asked. Well, yeah, and it puts us in the position
to where we can be those facilitators, right?
Where we can say, hey, look, I can steer you
in the direction. This is what you would need
in order to be able to deeply research and understand
your topic. And who doesn't want to do that,
right? I mean, I feel like it is more of a service
if we are helping them do something that is meaningful.
to where you have a better chance for it to stick,
and then perhaps they could apply it to whatever
other situation that they get in, right? Totally.
Yeah, I think that really is it. Monica and I
wanting to make our English 101 more meaningful
for us and for the students. And I think, I mean,
speaking for myself, this has been a really,
this semester so far has been really full of
meaning for me. I've been journaling along with
my students. which has helped me. I am, in addition
to my students designing their own composition
projects, I also set my own composition goals.
And so in the same way that our students are
growing as writers, I have the opportunity to
grow as a writer along with them, which is really
cool. Yeah, I like that a lot. The idea is that,
you know, that kind of gets me curious. So whenever
you told your students about this, were they
all really open to it or were they just like,
uh, what? That's a good question. I savored that
moment going over my sort of customized syllabus,
liquid syllabus, I guess is the term, and we
all now have one of those. I let it sink in for
a moment. I said, I'm not going to assign you
any essays. And just sitting in that moment for
a second was a lot of fun and seeing their faces.
But to answer your question more directly, I
think they were very open to it. Yes. Yes, I
had kind of a similar experience. I don't think
it really sunk in the first day when I said this,
but as we started to talk about what does this
look like and how are we going to navigate this
together, they started to get very excited about
it. Just seeing that, like, oh, you mean I can
do this? I want to do this. You mean I can? And
I'm like, yeah, go for it. And so, yeah, it wasn't
really hard to get them to buy in. I was afraid
of having students that are just like, just tell
me what to do. But I haven't had that problem
at all. Yeah, and I think their enthusiasm for
the experiment extends even into when we started
talking about what is a fair workload for students
in an English 101 class, what other English 101
students are expected to compose quantitatively.
And they were totally, I think, into that and
setting their own goals that are commensurate
with the appropriate amount of work for an English
101 student. Yeah, I've been really impressed
with the students' buy -in. And I think creating
a more, I don't know if official is the right
word, but a more official space for them to define
their own goals, I think has been pretty, that's
part of what's bringing that meaning that I think
we were craving into the classroom, because it's
not just about... the student learning outcomes
defined by the college catalog that have to be
transferable across all colleges in the world.
But they are able to add to that their own goals,
which, like, I'm getting things from, like, I
want to be a more empathetic person to I want
to have a stronger writing style. Things that
I don't, I think sometimes, especially when we're
feeling burned out, we start to see our students
in a very static way and like, they don't care.
They're not in it. They don't have goals, but
I just feel like this has really reminded me
that that's not true. They are coming here with
ideas in mind about who they want to be. Some
of them are still trying to figure that out,
but this is giving them an opportunity to do
that too. Yeah. And I think that the different
things that we're trying is We've talked about
the engagement, but also the end product. So
I've had my students just finish their first
projects. And the feedback that I've gotten from
them, we had a sort of debriefing. So what did
you like about this experience? What are some
things that you might have liked to have seen
added to it to where I can kind of refine it
a little bit? And I think by and large it's been
really positive. Quite a few students were talking
about how they did something that they didn't
think that they could do, right? And I don't
know how many times I've gotten that with essays.
Yeah, I agree. To where if they have something
that they're kind of proud of and that they can
just show it to other people on their phone and
be like, hey, no, I did this. And sort of really,
really be proud of that. I don't know. To me,
that... That is something that, I don't know,
that's what we're looking for, right? We want
them to have that connection to their work, to
the writing that they're trying to communicate.
So ordinarily, you know, they put their paper
in canvas or in my desk drawer, and it never
leaves canvas or my desk drawer until it eventually
goes into a shredder in 10 years. So encouraging
them to deliver their works. to an audience somehow.
I think, yeah, to what you're saying, Corey,
is a game changer for them. Yeah, and maybe we
should define that a little bit more. So the
experiment isn't just walking in and saying,
like, it's a free -for -all. We do have some
guidelines that we're following that we developed
as a result of, I mean, on our own years of just
getting worn out by things and trying to find
a new way. But last year, As part of our professional
development, all of us went through the reading
apprenticeship, which I don't know how much we
want to talk about that, but that is kind of
what pushed us to make this more concrete and
to say we're going to do this. So we built out
some guidelines for ourselves. So this experiment
is students designing their own compositions,
but with that understanding that they must deliver
them to an actual audience. which we're still
working our way toward an understanding of what
that means and how to do that. But I think that
for me, it's creating that authenticity that
I think was missing. And like you said, it's
just like, what is the point if it doesn't go
anywhere after the semester? The whole point
is for you to put your oar in, right? Put your
voice out there, be part of a conversation that's
already happening, influence people. entertain
people, whatever the purpose is there, do it.
Absolutely. Yeah. I'd say adding on to, you know,
fleshing out what the experiment is, in addition
to delivering their work, they are creating,
they are totally accountable for their own deadlines
and establishing and keeping up with their own
deadlines. And they are composing what we've
landed on as an action plan. breaking down their
projects into discrete tasks and giving each
task a deadline. And they're also, we haven't
gotten to this yet, I'm not sure Monica if any
of your classes have yet, but they're going to
be designing their own evaluation criteria as
well. So there's a lot of layered analysis of
their own work and their own process in the experiment
as well. Right. And I would say that even though
if a student doesn't write an academic essay
this semester, are they leaving our class with
academic skills? I think so. Absolutely. Yeah.
Being able to sit down and use a spreadsheet
to manage your time and think about the parts
of a process that need to take place. Being able
to connect goals with actions. I mean, students,
even if they're not composing an academic text,
my students have still all been using the databases.
to research, just to become experts on whatever
they're writing about. So I feel like they're
still going to leave this class with skills that
they can use that hopefully they will be more
likely to use because they were invested in the
process of using them in this class. I think
it's important to mention, too, that the other
component of our experiment does involve conferencing,
right? Required conference time. I don't know
kind of what your philosophy is with that, Corey,
or how you're using conferences. Yeah, I did
it, what, about a year ago. I kind of crammed
it all in into a short period of time. I think
maybe that wasn't the right move. Yeah, it's
rough when you're having to do it all at once.
But I do think that, you know, the little that
we've kind of spoken about this, that, you know,
y 'all doing your conferences to where you know
that the student is being thoughtful about their
process, you know, is obviously the way to go.
I'm kind of curious to see how it turns out for
y 'all. Probably still some ideas. We are also
curious. Yeah, we are also curious. Yeah, we
should maybe mention that we're about at the
midterm point in the semester. So halfway through,
definitely had some moments of thinking this
is a complete disaster. But then moments of like,
oh, no, this is working. It's working. Yeah,
I don't. So we're, I guess. We were briefly talking
about conferencing on the walk over to the studio
here. I'm working with my students. They have
four conference checkpoints they have to hit,
and the first two could be done in one conference
if they kind of knew what they wanted to do and
they already had their action plan and timeline
finished. And now we're working on like a progress
check. So I'm meeting with them to look at their
drafts. I'm also preparing them for in -class
workshops. So we're going to be talking about
the difference between peer review, which is
probably what most of them have heard of and
done before, and like how a workshop is different
from that. Because again, I think it's about
student agency. It's student driven rather than
here's a list of questions that I as the instructor
am giving you to make sure you're meeting the
requirements for the assignment. So I'm actually
looking forward to how that's going to go. Yeah,
I think I've been telling my classes that we're
going to start workshops on their composition
projects next week. We've sort of practiced doing
workshops of imitation pieces they've written
in class. They imitated a poem. They imitated
a short story. And they workshopped those. And
now we're going to try to apply those skills
to workshopping. at least of their projects.
Yeah, excerpts. Because I was looking today,
and I'm like, I have a student who composed a
translation. Oh, cool. And it's 10 pages single
-spaced. And I was like, oh, we're going to have
to just choose a section to workshop. But it's
exciting to see that somebody composed that much.
I have another student that wrote a profile that's
like eight pages. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever
you have that student who is just really into
it, they're like, look, I know you gave me the
parameter. This video needed to be five minutes
long, but it's 10 minutes long and it's all substance.
It's like you can't be mad at that. No, no. It's
really actually exciting. Like, you know. Yeah,
and then I guess the final conference checkpoint,
just to kind of go back to that, is the final
evaluation. So they do have to meet with me to
confer about their final grade in the course
because their composition projects total 50 %
of the grade for the course. Right. So, Monica,
what are you hoping this podcast will... Yeah,
I was hoping I would be the one to ask that question.
No, I think I hope that it will encourage maybe
a wider conversation. I mean, at least among
our faculty here at Delgado about not necessarily
divorcing the academic essay, but maybe not spending
so much time with it. And then also just maybe
trying to share that conversation with other
colleges. to see what's going on and how are
other colleagues responding to kind of the changing
nature of composition and our students' skills,
as Corey mentioned, and just kind of trying to
reinvigorate the process of teaching in 2023.
Yeah. What do you want? What is your hope for
this podcast? Well, coming from your answer and
tying it back to our purpose with the experiment,
this idea that we want to spread, at least among
our faculty here at Delgado, again goes back
to, for me, where this idea begins in that creative
writing class when I was... 12 or something right
in school I learned how to write academic essays
but I was good at them because I loved language
and I loved language because I learned I didn't
I didn't love language because I learned how
to write an essay right I loved language because
I learned I learned about poetry I learned about
short fiction I learned you know I learned about
the the language that feeds the soul first and
and that's where my mind is let's Let's help
the students who could fall in love with language.
Let's help that happen. Yeah. And if we've got
that, they can write anything. Yeah, it's like
you learned to write an essay because you loved
language. Exactly. Yeah. And yeah, so I mean,
that's not exactly the goal of the podcast. That's
the goal of the experiment. And the goal of the
podcast, I'd say, is to document certainly how
this goes for more of a... logistic standpoint
um does is this going to work in a classroom
so there's that yeah but more largely you have
to spread that message but go ahead monica i
was just gonna add that i think documenting it
as it's in progress keeps it's we're being honest
right because i think if you do this in retrospect
it's easy to polish things up and make it sound
like it was just perfect it worked so well but
i think talking about it in real time is helpful
for just, yeah, keeping it real, being authentic
in our practice. Which I think this idea of falling
in love with writing and wanting our students
to do that, I hope to help people remember why
they became... writing instructors. I didn't
get into this because I want to enforce rules
and nitpick over grammar. I got into it because
of my own love for language, as you've been talking
about, and wanting to share that with people.
And also, to keep it real, I think now is a good
time as any to say there are definitely students
in my class now that I fear are not taking the
self -directed writing projects seriously. I
mean, there are students that I'm concerned about
and trying to meet with those students and get
to what they want to say and what they want to
write and how they're going about it. It's a
challenge. It is. I don't want to, this first
episode, to paint like, it's going like such
a breeze already. We've already mastered teaching.
We're going to retire after this semester. You
know, it isn't perfect so far. No, I'm with you.
I do have a couple that I'm concerned about.
But I think the question is, would these be students
that I would still be concerned about even if
I were following a more traditional route here?
So I think, yeah, definitely let's keep that
conversation going and keep it honest. We're
running out of time, so I want to offer Corey,
do you have any final thoughts or comments that
you want to offer? Yeah, no, just that I'm pretty
excited about other instructors being passionate
about this, hearing that students are excited
about it. It's sort of a rejuvenation, as I think
you had mentioned. for for us to be excited about
it for students to be excited about it i mean
like that's what we want right we want like conversations
to be having we want for for our students to
be passionate about what they're doing and you
know honestly i i i like looking at these different
forms of their like their their projects they're
in in projects because they're just I don't know,
you get tired of reading thousands and thousands
and thousands of words and you're not really
convinced that their heart's into it and that
they're really internalizing what it is that
they're doing. But whenever you see these projects
that they have spent a lot of time on, that it's
just careful consideration, you know that you've
done, at least I think, you know, we'll feel
like we've accomplished something. They've created
something that represents them as a creator,
which we don't get that with an evaluation essay
or whatever, where it really feels like the product
that they're giving you is them as a creator.
Yeah, I think that's probably about it. Just
pretty excited that this is going on. Well, thank
you so much for chatting with us today and sharing
a little bit about what you're doing as well.
And we're going to keep talking with a few of
our other colleagues from Delgado. We're going
to dive into more detail about how projects are
developed and monitored, what we do in class
each day, how we're dealing with... The question
of grading, evaluating the students, and then,
of course, what some of the challenges and also
maybe pleasant surprises have been along the
way. Yeah, well, thank you all for having me.
I appreciate it. Thank you, Corey. And thank
you, listener. Thank you for tuning in to this
episode of the English 101 Experiment. Special
thanks to Christopher Nicotera, instructor of
music business at Delgado Community College,
for his recording assistance. All music heard
during this episode comes from the Free Music
Archive. Specific titles and artists are listed
on the English 101 Experiment website.