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 Joiner and I explore these questions
with a few of our fellow English department colleagues.
is the English 101 experiment. Well, it is October
25th and we are here to... Continue the English
101 Experiment Podcast, Episode 2. I'm Monica
Mankin, Associate Professor of English at Delgado
Community College. I'm Mason Joiner. I am an
Assistant Professor of English at Delgado Community
College. And here we've got... I'm Joseph Buckley.
An assistant professor of English at Delgado
Community College. And how long have you been
teaching at Delgado, Joe? Ooh. I don't know.
2016, I think. Yeah, we were hired the same year.
Yeah. Six years full -time. And then, like, I
don't know, like four, I don't know, many semesters
of adjuncting. And tutoring before that. Well,
so. Joe, let's catch up a little bit on what
we talked about last time. In our first episode,
we were just sort of giving a general outline
of what our experiment is. We are doing something
radical and not assigning any essays to our students.
We are having them design their own compositions
and working with them on a... very much a one
-on -one kind of basis in planning their projects
and such. What else, Monica? I think that kind
of summarizes the core of the experiment, which
is that we're not doing the assigning. We're
not spending our time explaining assignment instructions
or requirements. What else was covered on this
podcast? I guess maybe the why, you know, like
why are we doing this? Why are we blowing? Well,
we're not really blowing everything up. I don't
really like describing it that way. It's very
violent. Well, and it's also like this is very
controlled, actually, because we did spend a
lot of time planning what we're doing. And it's
not just a free for all. It's a it's an experiment,
which, you know, there's a control. There's something
controlled about it. But, yeah, so we really
just spent a lot of time with our colleague,
Corey Pellerin, talking about why we're trying
new things, why we're taking this approach. And
and and that was kind of the goal of episode
one. And I think in this episode, our goal is
to sort of to like zoom in just one step and
and talk about how those student projects are
developed and monitored over the course of the
semester. So like, how do you develop these?
Because you have to have some way of evaluating
them, right? So how does this come about? Right.
We haven't gotten to evaluation yet. Oh, I'm
sorry. Just monitoring. You know, evaluation
is part of the process. We actually, at this
point in the semester, haven't gotten there yet.
We literally haven't gotten there yet. Oh, okay.
I thought you meant in the conversation. I was
like, I'm sorry! No. So I think the process sort
of started asking the students to think about
what... authentic composing they might want to
do in their lives, in their personal life, in
their online, I guess, presence at work, right?
Is there anything that you want or need to write?
Maybe, again, for yourself or as a professional
or in some other way. And so we sort of had a
list of ideas just to sort of get to wrap their
minds around. what are things that people write
in real life? You know, like not just for a class.
What were those? Well, I want to add to that
before we like dive into what the projects, potential
projects were. I think, too, like we were spending
a lot of time journaling and especially at the
beginning, we talked a lot about goal setting
and having students sort of think about their
own goals, like what they want to achieve in
a composition course. So to connect with what
Mason was just saying about the kind of writing
you need to do in your professional life, your
personal life. I had students thinking really
about their major. What kind of demands does
your major have? And, you know, how can you use
that to develop a composition project? So we
did spend a lot of time on goals. And that actually
took a lot longer than I thought that it would.
Yeah. And then. But there's some good goals,
right, that I've actually brought the handout
that we used. Actually, Mason was the one that
put this together, but I borrowed it from my
class. And so there's just a list of goals that
students have kind of mentioned over the years
and then that maybe came up in journaling in
class that were compiled here. Yeah, this whole
list came from, you know, asking them what their
goals were, and they, like, turned that in on
a loose -leaf sheet of paper, and I sort of compiled
all this. Some of these are from, like, maybe
what one student wrote. So some of these are
like combinations. Several students said something
along the lines of this. So, yeah, for example.
Yeah. So there's everything from understanding
language better to having more confidence when
reading or writing, thinking bigger, writing
longer works, focusing on my mental health, testing
myself, pushing myself out of my comfort zone,
finding freedom. Like there's some real philosophical
goals here. kind of cool coming from our students
yeah do you guys find that those to to circle
back to this key word that i uh um do you find
that that's those are authentic answers are those
answers that people have told them in their lives
that they should like wanting to read and write
better is that what they act is that true is
that a authentic statement I think for some of
them it really is. They really do want to improve
their writing. They feel like they're not good
at it. And they know this is a composition class.
I think maybe on some level, maybe this is what
you're getting at with this question, is that
they feel like that's what we're supposed to
be doing. But I do think that for some of them
it is a genuine goal. And I think I've seen that
kind of realized even as we've been working on
these projects. So I think that, yeah. Yes and
no. I mean, it's a general enough phrase that
they may not really understand what it means
to be better at reading and writing. Right. But
I think even the ones that are sort of just throwing
that out as a, sure, I'm in English class. I
want to get better at English. You know, I think
even though they may just be saying that on some
level, those students also acknowledge that that
is a real skill that they could perhaps improve
in. Yeah. And that that's and that they're in
the environment, the classroom to do. That's
like what we're here to do. So lying authenticity,
I guess, in that instance, doesn't even it doesn't
even matter because it's like that's the end
game anyways. Right. To be better. Yeah. As I
said, it took longer than I thought for students
to establish goals because I think maybe there
was some of that. Like, oh, I put goals I thought
you wanted me to put. But you actually want me
to put my own goals. I think that it was just
kind of hard for them to wrap their minds around
the idea that they were totally in charge. Your
education is for you. It's not for me. Your education
is for you. What do you want to get out of the
class? Did you guys see some break? through moments
probably so like you you see the canned answer
like uh english and then like a week or two after
journaling you're like holy shit this person
actually came up with a like legitimate goal
in their in their specific like experience or
whatever yeah yeah and so that's like there was
a whole process of starting with goal setting
and then helping them connect goals to projects
and then to actions for completing those projects
so To come back to the question about projects,
what are some of the projects, Mason, that we
kind of gave as examples, which some of my students
took them and ran in a different, you know, just
as a springboard. Right. Yeah, I've edited this
list a bit, I think, for future semesters. But,
gosh, from memory, totally from memory, I'm thinking
there was something about... Writing a... Actually,
you don't have to use your memory. Paper. I'm
a fan of a helpful handout. So there are lots
of letters that people have to write. You might
be a personal letter, sure, but job application
letters. We have to write letters of recommendation.
That's like a skill that you... Cover letters.
Cover letters, business letters, things like...
So what I've always loved about letters as an
assignment is it has a... extremely specific
audience, the most specific audience perhaps
that any piece of writing can have. What else?
We talked about writing the first chapter of
that novel you've always wanted to write. Joe,
you've got that novel. We've all got that novel.
It's all in there somewhere. Writing a freelance
article for a local website, newspaper, magazine.
Restaurant reviews is one that a lot of the students
really latched on to. I had in one section at
least several students want to compile a cookbook
of family recipes, stuff like that, you know,
stuff that doesn't just sit on a database or
in a cloud or in a desk drawer, like stuff that
actually applies to something outside of Delgado.
Yeah, because that is one of the... if we want
to call it a requirement, is that they do have
to deliver their compositions to the audiences
that they're intended for. So yeah, I have also
have, the cookbook one is really, I have a couple
of students, one in my 8 o 'clock English 101,
compiling a cookbook that is family recipes,
but it's also connected to mental health. So
for each recipe, there's a... an explanation
of how these ingredients like contribute to your
health and how that, um, and there's a lot of
punning, like, you know, there's banana nut bread
and then it's all about like, you know, being
nutty. Like it's just really, it's really fun.
And then another student is, uh, it's a cookbook
of Turkish recipes that she wants to pass down
to her children. Um, so she's including some
narrative in there and kind of the significance
of these meals and in the context of their culture.
I will say that I have been enjoying the variety
of projects. I'm not looking at 25 of the same
exact thing within a one -week period. Only 24
cookbooks in that class. Also, you could sell
those. Cookbooks is something you could sell.
That's like a legitimate, like lucrative. Totally.
I even had one student looking at Amazon Publishing.
Oh, yeah. For their project, which would be really
awesome. I think it might have been a cookbook,
yeah. Yeah. That's as outside of Delgado as real
world as it can get. So I just met with a student
today to go over her draft and she reviewed 52
articles and synthesized them to address some
of the problems with current cancer research
and to try to kind of push forward to a solution.
It was over my head. Is this 102? Is this 110?
This is in your graduate class? This is my ENRI.
This is in my English 101 for non -native speakers.
She already works in the field, but she's working
on her degree. Of course, that's what she's trying
to do. But yeah, it's very, I was just really
impressed. And initially, she had planned to
do two projects, and I told her, no, you just
focus on this one. You read 52 articles. Oh,
you're done. Yeah. So we're working on she wants
to publish it in a medical journal. So now we're
kind of the next phase is I wanted her to send
me the list of journals that she's looking at
so that I can help her to kind of revise and
finalize according to those standards. Yeah.
I mean, how awesome will it be if she gets public?
You know, like that's just yeah, it's really
it's very exciting. Very satisfying. So after
we have. sort of help the students develop their
composition project ideas, sort of the next phase
of that was creating what we, the language that
we landed on was an action plan. You know, we
had thrown around the idea of like calling it
a proposal or a compass. And action plan, I liked
because it's a Google -able. that shows you real
-world examples of something called an action
plan spreadsheet, like a spreadsheet kind of
thing that breaks a project down into tasks.
Every task has a target completion date, has
like a little progress bar, all that kind of
stuff. Wait, a progress bar? Is there like an
app for this? It's an Excel spreadsheet, baby.
Oh, just an Excel spreadsheet. It doesn't have
to be advanced. It can just be an approximation.
But who doesn't like a progress bar, right? You're
speaking the language of the masses, man. So
yeah, how did that go in your classes, Monica,
the action plans? Right, so one thing that I
learned that I will do differently next time
is to maybe help spend a little more time, maybe
workshop some of the action plans so that...
because there was kind of some confusion about
the goal and the action. And some of their goals
were ending up where there should have been actions.
And so I think we need to talk a little bit more
about verbs and what kind of verbs we use when
we're talking about completing something. But
once we've sort of worked through that, having
them transfer those actions to the spreadsheet,
putting in a time, like... You should have seen
their faces when they were like, I can set my
own deadlines. And I said, yeah, there's only
two deadlines we can't negotiate with, and that's
the midterm grade and the final grade. So we
need to keep that in mind. And we decided as
a class when we wanted to make sure everybody
was done with projects. So our kind of end date
is that Monday before the Thanksgiving break.
So everybody should have delivered their compositions
to their audiences by then. But I think, yeah,
it's like I said, this part took a lot longer
than I anticipated, but probably because none
of us have ever done this before. But I think
I've noticed them like they come in and when
they have time to be working on their projects,
like I see them opening up these timelines and
checking off that this is done or updating. And
I think it's really been a helpful tool for them
to keep track of themselves and to kind of keep
the end goal in mind without me even having to
remind them. So what comes up? So you've got
to do an action plan for 15 or whatever, 14 weeks,
whatever, 13. What if a student says, and I know
this came up, I'd had to have, okay, here's my
action plan, four weeks, done. See you guys in
December. What do you say to that? I say you
have time for another project. Yeah, yeah. But
what if they argue that this project completes
all the goal, right? Do they keep pressing? Have
they pressed that? So one of the things that
we did, both of us, Mason and I, with our students,
was we spent a time at the beginning when we
were helping them to develop their ideas and
their action plans, talking about equity, talking
about how much work should be involved, and talking
about the work that's expected. across English
101 classes in the college? And how do we make
sure that we're doing that work too? And they
talked with each other and we talked as a class.
And after those conversations, everybody kind
of felt like they were. you know, they were on
track, they were doing the same amount of work.
They made suggestions to each other. If somebody
was like, I'm just, I'm going to write a college
admission essay, or I'm going to write a cover
letter. Then I could hear classmates saying,
well, maybe you should also do this too, because
it's not going to take you, you know, eight weeks
to write a college admission letter. So they
were really encouraging each other to develop
additional projects for the, to kind of make
sure that everybody's doing an equal amount of
work. Nice. Yeah. And, you know, as far as, Are
they composing enough and enough of academic
kind of work for English 101? I think part of
this action plan, part of the beauty of this
action plan for us is that without ever really
saying it to them, your action plan is something
that you've composed. And it's a very professional
academic thing that you've composed. Yeah. I
mean, they probably spent more. man hours, labor
hours than they would on a traditional narrative
essay or whatever, right? They've spent weeks
on this because it's a living dot, right? It's
continually revised and edited. The action plan
itself could be the final product. What if someone
got that meta? Oh, wow. For my first project,
I'm going to create an action plan. To create
this action plan, I will create an action plan.
I'm going to deliver it. My target audience will
be a class in the next semester. I will be doing
this for the class in the next semester. See,
this is why you need to join our experiment,
Joe. Yeah, man. I like this meta stuff. But I
imagine I will have some of my students again
next semester for English 102. And that action
plan is going to come up again. And I hope that
this time they'll know what I'm asking them to
do. Because I think even this semester, having
my students do their research proposal was just...
It was, what the F is this? I don't even know
what you're turning in. This isn't even what
I've asked. So I think that... This is something
students need to know how to do. Especially for
a research paper. For any kind of big project
that's time -consuming and has many parts, you
need to be able to break it down. You need to
be able to understand that you don't wait until
the night before to try to get chat GPT to write
you some bullshit. You have to think about it
and be responsible. Foresight. You've got to
have some foresight. So Monica Jo had also asked
about how we are monitoring these projects. You
want to take a first stab at that? Yeah. Monitoring.
It sounds so clinical. Not to be conflated with
evaluation, which is what I mistakenly did. So
I'm guessing with monitoring, I guess that's
kind of like how are we helping keep students
on track? How are we checking progress? So this
is happening like almost every day in class and
also through conferencing. So, yeah, students
have had time to work in class on. drafts we're
now kind of we're workshopping drafts we're workshopping
so we're doing things on like a micro and macro
level um where we are workshopping entire pieces
but i'm also i've also had them start to like
just pull sentences out of what they're working
on so that we can kind of focus on sentence you
know strengthening our sentences um in the context
of the larger purpose of our of our projects
um so it's just like i it's Right now, it feels
very smooth. It feels like things are humming
along for the most part. I can't say it will
feel like that next week, but I am meeting right
now, too, with students with their Checkpoint
3 conference. That's the purpose of the girl
that I met with today who did the amazing. cancer
research right synthesis uh so yeah so they are
and the thing is like they're eager to check
in they want to show me what they're doing they
want to show each other i when i was leaving
my 101 this morning they were hanging out with
each other in class like they weren't leaving
and they were like talking to each other like
people who don't even sit next to each other
in class were like getting together because they
had read each other's drafts that are in our
canvas discussion forum and they were like giving
each other feedback just because nice you know
so they're kind of also keeping each other on
you know engaged and and moving forward yeah
yeah at the i think before the semester started
monica and i had outlined um four four specific
checkpoints and and maybe maybe we'll renew re
negotiate that but uh um but like so first checkpoint
and by checkpoint uh this would be a one -on
-one conference required one -on -one conference
right um as for me i think was uh was sort of
shoring up their their composition ideas you
know in connection to their goals um their personal
goals uh um checkpoint two is like you've done
your action plan. It's time for me to look at
it and say, all right, so I see you've got, maybe
consider adding more tasks here pertaining to
obtaining feedback on this draft. And so sort
of our opportunity to offer feedback on the action
plans, checkpoint three is sort of like draft
time. We're looking at rough drafts and that's
where I'm at currently in the process. And checkpoint
four is going to be like the final, conference
where where we talk to the student about what
they've composed over the course of the semester
how they've delivered those those compositions
um how how much they felt like they achieved
their goals uh and uh yeah and it's kind of it's
an opportunity for them to self -evaluate so
the grade will be i i'm kind of thinking of it
as a collaboration between me and the student
the student kind of the whole point here was
to give them more agency and i think By the end
of the term, they should know what their grade
is without me having to tell them. So, I mean,
of course, I'm there as the heavy if I have to
be, but I don't foresee a lot of trouble with
that. Yeah, I think co -evaluation is something
I'm interested in exploring in those final conferences.
Co -evaluation. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I find that
students are usually pretty honest with what
they want. Or, you know, if they want an A, just,
you know, and they're vocal about it. Hey, I
want an A. Sure. That's usually enough. If they're
aware that they want the A, they usually understand.
Hopefully, yeah, they've been aware enough that
they did what they needed to do. That they did
what they needed to do. Yeah. They're not just
saying it blankly. But I imagine in a week or
two, we will start to discuss as a class, how
do we evaluate a body of work? And how do we
do that in the context of academic requirements
and what the purpose of the class is? You had
your own goals, but there's also what constitutes
an A, a B, a C, and really kind of have those
conversations with them about the work itself.
But I think also as... for like a course grade
because as we know we don't just evaluate it's
not just the products that students produce that
you know leads them to pass or fail there's other
factors that play into that so I like I'm looking
forward to having those conversations with them
in a week or two what about the um at the end
of the semester how are they going to share are
they going to share all this with each other
So some of them, I think they are like the class
will be the audience because they're that's who
they're composing for is other people that are,
you know, of the same age or their peers. But
other people like I think there'll be a lot of
submissions to Images magazine, which is Delgado's
student literary magazine. I'll be in the show
notes. Yeah. So. And then other, yeah, I have
some, some people are giving presentations or
they're, it fits in the context of their job.
So they're, they would be delivering it to their
coworkers at their job. Yeah. So, and that's
something we need to start talking about too.
Like it's just kind of a reminder of how are
we going to deliver these projects to their audiences.
So, yeah. And just a reminder of like, that's
the final step. So, yeah. Yeah, delivering it
is not like pressing submit to Canvas. Right,
yeah. What about this? What about this? What
is it? Week 11, right? Mm -hmm. Okay, so there's
always this one student, right? Like who shows
up, you know, haven't been there in 10 weeks,
showing up week 11. Okay, what do I need to do?
How is that different than like a normal semester
where I'm like, okay, you just need to do all
these things or whatever, the inverse of that.
You can't. The door is closed. Whatever it may
be. How are you guys approaching that? Have you
approached that? Has that come up? I mean, I've
had a lot of, not so much like somebody who hasn't
been here at all and is now showing up, but I've
had a lot in my 101 students who are present
either literally in person or digitally. They're
only present maybe once every couple of weeks.
Right. I've had a lot of that. Right. And yeah,
honestly, I don't have an answer to that question,
Joe. I'm still figuring that out, I think. Yeah.
Yeah. Monica, what do you think? So I I most
of my students are pretty consistent and the
ones who are not know what they should be doing
because they created their plan. So there isn't
a whole like, what did I miss? What are we doing?
Because. They know what they know, what they
should take them back to the top step. OK, start
creating an action plan. Yeah. And I I made it
very clear at the beginning that this course
is progressive. So there will be no showing up
at week 11 and turning in all your work from
the beginning. I mean, that doesn't work in any
in any. No, but I think radical. I think, though,
like, you know, when you have like, oh, we do
the narrative essay and then we do an analysis
essay and then we do. Students kind of do think
that those things are not connected and that
there's no. progression happening so they think
that oh well i just i can just turn that narrative
essay in in week 12 because it's not connected
to what we're even doing but it's and of course
we know that's not true but it's it's that kind
of structure to me is part of the problem it
create where this is really emphasizing process
in such a way that like students know that like
if they haven't written anything by now they're
in they're in trouble um but i don't i have some
students who kind of i just sent some emails
yesterday to kind of reach out to students that
i haven't seen for a couple class meetings but
that we're kind of on a good track and i don't
know what's happened to them um and there's still
time it's still that kind of like They could
still do it if they show up this week and I can
see what they've composed. But it is kind of
getting to that make or break point where you
just are out of time. And that means you didn't
keep up with your own timeline. Would you say
that this is a more, do your students in this
framework of class, is it a more independent?
Do they have more independence than the traditional?
other class are they more independent do you
guys take it how about this let me give you an
exact example do you guys take attendance oh
yeah very much okay it's 20 of the great so the
way the grade is determined the overall course
grade is 20 is attendance uh and i'm calling
it presence um that's good and the journal uh
yeah so it includes their journal and they have
to be present in class Then I think 10 % was
the action plan and timeline and 20 % are the
conference checkpoints. And then 50 % will be
the final compositions with their self -evaluation
included in that. So I guess to answer the question
of attendance, yes, it matters. Yeah, you can't...
But what if you're an independent superstar and
you... Is there like a way to circumvent that
in the sense of... Like, hey, I just want to
work with Mason. I just want to go to Mason's
office like once a week, chit chat with him.
I'm just like, you know, I'm reading 52 articles
and synthesizing the information. Are they kind
of left to their own devices, or do they have
to come in and sit there for the lecture on how
to summarize a paragraph or something? Well,
there are no lectures on how to summarize a paragraph.
But we might save that for the next episode.
Which is the day -to -day, what happens in the
classroom. Yeah, what we're going to do day -to
-day. And we're doing the grades. I'm like, I'm
sorry. It's okay. There's a lot to talk about.
That's kind of why we broke it up. But I do think
we are... out of time, so I don't know if we
want to just have a final thought. Final thoughts,
Joseph? Cool stuff. I don't have anything grand
to say. It's all just conjecture. It's all theory
crap, whatever. All that stuff. It's cool stuff.
Thank you for inviting me. Thanks for joining
us. We definitely appreciate you taking the time
out of your... You could be grading some stuff,
but you're here with us instead. I'm pretty much
halfway to solving world hunger, but now I'm
a little bit behind. 30 minutes behind. No big
deal. All right. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, listeners.
All right. Yeah, thanks, everyone. 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.