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. All right, well,
it's November 2nd. Another smoky day in New Orleans.
Oh, yeah. What is it, a marsh fire? That's what
I was told. Yeah, a swamp fire. Yeah, it's really
stinky outside. Fire on the bayou. I mean, I
don't love the fire, of course, but I do like
the smell. Kind of campfire smell. Yeah. Comforting.
I don't know. It's like really intense, though.
Like I was walking to work this morning and I'm
like, I might be sick. because it's just so strong
smells like things that aren't supposed to be
burning yeah definitely probably don't go for
a jog in it you know no definitely not smells
nice in here though yeah it's all right it's
okay it's all right yeah the studio is a nice
place on our campus um all right so we are here
for episode three of the english 101 experiment
i am monica mankin Associate Professor of English
at Delgado Community College. I'm Mason Joiner,
Assistant Professor of English at Delgado Community
College. I, too, am an Assistant Professor of
English at Delgado. My name is Andrew Gibbs.
And I'm Abby Wallig, Associate Professor here
at Delgado. All right. Well, we're really happy
to have you both here with us today to talk about
what happens day to day in our classes. And we
appreciate the work you put into preparing for
this conversation. So I think I'm just going
to be quiet and let you all take it away. Yeah,
thanks for having us. It's been fun to hear about
the project from afar, and I'm looking forward
to hearing more about it today. I guess we'll
start just very basic. What's your average class
look like on a day -to -day basis? How does it
begin? Yeah, I'll start. So one thing I started
this semester that I... have been enjoying and
I think has worked with three out of four of
my classes is I start by putting on music and
having everyone get up and say good morning to
each other. And I generally have like a little
list of like conversation prompts. So like this
morning, you know, ask somebody what's their
usual order at Starbucks, you know, that kind
of thing. As you say good morning. So that's
how we began. And I think it's sort of helped
to create a sense of community. Although for
those, there's like one 8 o 'clock section that
just is not into it. 8 a .m., they want to sit
down and not speak. But anyway, overall, it's
been a great experience starting off that way.
What songs have you used? Okay, so... Can we
mention copyrighted music? I suppose. This is
for educational purposes, so I think we can get
away with it. I started with The Dance by Kurt
Elling. It's a very short, uplifting jazz piece
about one and a half minutes long. And I made
a playlist. But when I ran out of my playlist,
I just started putting on lo -fi beats from YouTube.
And I've also gotten in the habit of having lo
-fi beats on almost the whole class and just
turning them up when they're writing, turning
it back down when we need to hear somebody speaking
and that kind of thing. So that I've really enjoyed.
Where are our lo -fi beats? Can't you hear them?
Put them in in post. What else do we do day to
day? Yeah, so one thing that, well, I had big
ideas about what I was going to do every day
and it hasn't quite gotten that way. We started
strong with journaling. So we were journaling
every day. to kind of get us started. And ideally,
and I think in the spring I will be better at
doing this, but I wanted to kind of start every
day with kind of a prompt or some kind of quote
that captures sort of the theme or the purpose
of what we're going to be doing. And then we
move into some kind of reading or, I mean, it
could be a video that we're reading together
or something more scholarly or a poem. But something
that's going to get us to talk about writing
and maybe even practice using some of the composition
elements we see at work in that text and then
reflecting on that. So all of this would ideally
be just happening in their journal as a way of
documenting what happened that day and kind of
allowing the students to be sort of the note
generators, the knowledge generators, instead
of me coming in and saying, OK, so today I'm
going to teach you how to write a summary. I'll
write all this down. Right. Yeah. But it's just
kind of like... one of those things when you
are experimenting, you never know quite what's
going to happen. But I started the semester with
a quote that's on my syllabus, and it's from
Rumi, and it says, as you start to walk on the
way, the way appears. And so during that first
week of class, we journaled about this quote
and what it kind of meant to us, what we kind
of reinterpreted it, paraphrased, if you want
to use academic terms, and just sort of talked
about how this applies to life and how it applies
to competition. and why we need to kind of keep
this in mind as we move forward in the course
because it is an experiment and things are going
to evolve like as we keep moving forward the
path will reveal itself to us but I cannot tell
you exactly what that path looks like today during
our first week of class so I think that kind
of helped them just be ready for you know just
the point is to just show up and keep moving
forward and if you're doing that you're gonna
be fine did they seem open to the loose end yeah
I also used that quote after you shared it with
me, Monica. And yeah, I thought that was a really
lovely like week one writing prompt. And I think
they all really got something out of that idea
of just we don't know where this path is going
quite, but we're walking it, you know. Yeah.
Yeah. And we're doing it together. So, yeah,
when you're showing up and we're all in it together,
it just feels it feels better, you know. Cool.
I love it. I see in bold, a course is a way,
a route, a journey. Sometimes we get off course.
I believe this is from Monica's notes. If the
course is the way, can you ever get off course?
That's a great philosophical question to consider.
I guess, yeah. I mean, then we question, what
does that mean to get off course? I don't think
we have gone off course, but I think allowing
for that space of getting lost. is really kind
of important because that's sometimes where we
learn things that we didn't really anticipate
learning. But I just was really attracted to
this idea. This is also on the syllabus, not
the sometimes we get off course. That was me
just kind of adding to this idea. But when I
have on my syllabus where it kind of explains
what we're doing this semester, this is the heading
that a course is a way, a route, a journey, because
I really wanted to plant that idea and reinforce
it with the quotation from Rumi. This is a one
foot in front of the other kind of process, which
I think has worked well for how we've been moving
through the course through the writing process
itself. Like at the beginning, I think the journal
was a lot easier to maintain because we were.
We were doing generative work and we were doing
practice exercises, a lot of style imitations
to kind of feel out how to use different elements
of style to create tone, to think about our purpose
and our audience a little bit more deeply as
students were also developing their ideas for
their projects and thinking about who those projects
would be for and how they might deliver them
to their specific audiences. Another thing that
I like about that idea about the... If the course
is the journey, can you ever get off course?
And maybe this goes into my teaching or grading
philosophy a little bit, but that if you have
undergone the course, then I think you've succeeded.
Regardless of the quote -unquote quality of what
you've produced in the course, having undergone
the course I feel like is a success. Success
is in the attempt. Yeah, exactly. Not the result,
right? Yes, yes. No, it's a good metaphor. And
I think I've likened myself before to some sort
of mile marker or like trail guide. And you do
kind of feel like you are pointing in the right
direction or hopefully in the right direction
as a professor. Other things to elaborate on
the trail metaphor? Well, I think the checkpoint,
right? We have these sort of conference checkpoints
along the way, so they are kind of like the mile
marker, right? The refugio. They have to check
in with us along the way. We talked a little
bit about this in our last episode, where how
are we monitoring these projects, and this is
really one of the ways. The conferencing element
is very important to that. Sorry, go ahead, Andrew.
No, I was just thinking as we go day to day,
it seems like we're very open to just letting
the day unfold, the lesson unfold, and seeing
where that takes us. Great approach. I see the
logic behind it. I also see the potential for
a lot of anxiety about the unknown and the uncertainty
of what lies ahead. Has that been a problem for
y 'all? Back in week one, I gave them a list
of... My expectations for them, and one of those
expectations was that you be open to, oh gosh,
I forget my exact wording, but being open to
the unfamiliar. And so I think that's that anxiety
that you're referring to. I think we sort of
addressed explicitly. From the beginning, uh
-huh. And just being aware that... that the stakes
are not high when we're in class, you know, that
we're focusing a lot on experimentation. And
so any of that anxiety of not knowing, you know,
what's going to come, sort of acknowledging it
hopefully quells that anxiety a bit. Right. Talking
about the unknown and that it's there and that
it's okay. Right. I see. That makes sense. I
think also one of the, I mean, I guess this question
is about student anxiety. I think one of the
things that tends to make students anxious are
deadlines, right? It's this kind of thing. And
since they are completely in control of that,
I mean, we talked a lot about the only two we
can't negotiate are midterm and final grade deadlines
because I can't change those. So we have to work
with them. But they've been in control of that.
And then the checkpoints, there's like a range
of time for them to come have those conferences
within that range so that there's a lot of flexibility
about when things are getting feedback. which
I think that has helped them because they're
in control. So if they know they have like a
major test or like midterm week was really awful
for a lot of my students for the number of tests
they were having to take, but they didn't have
to worry about it because they had set their
deadlines around that so that it wasn't like
I was also collecting some major assessment.
So I think in some ways this is one of the least.
anxiety -ridden semesters I've experienced with
students. Monica asked, whose anxiety are we
talking about? With a 101 experiment, I can think
of a few professors who would have a lot of anxiety
with the unknown, so that's a two -way street.
I even might put myself in that category. I think
Emerson says the health of the eye demands a
horizon. um and when i'm thinking about assignments
and deadlines i do find myself kind of working
backwards knowing that okay we have to be at
this point in three weeks then where do we need
to be in two in one and then the minutiae you
know within those days and class periods um so
Are you working backwards less and just kind
of letting it develop brick by brick and all
of a sudden you have a coliseum or what's going
on? I think Monica can attest that I've certainly
undergone some anxiety over this project certain
weeks more than others, and I think that's part
of it. And at some point I did have to think
about, yeah, I did have to work backwards a little
bit, especially nearing we're in the second half
of the semester, really almost the second. the
final quarter of the semester. And so I had to
think about, all right, we still need to talk
about self -evaluation. We still need to workshop
rough drafts in class. And so I sort of had to
work backwards a bit, excluding week 16 for final
exams, excluding week 15 for Thanksgiving, and
figure out, all right, we've got a limited amount
of time, and I still definitely need to take
them through these processes. That helped me,
yes. But yes, especially around the middle of
the semester, I was feeling pretty anxious about
what we were accomplishing. But you're feeling
better now? A little bit better. Why are you
feeling a little bit better? Well, in regards
to a little bit and not a lot. Completely better.
We're at that point in the semester where I think
we're losing a lot of students to just... Maybe
they're giving up. It's a war of attrition. And
so I was hoping for less of that with this project.
I was hoping this experiment would encourage
more completion. A magic ticket. So that's been
a result that differed from my expectation. That's
been tough to bear. Your own self -reflection
is going to be important. Okay, yes. So that's
a bit about that. Well, it sounds like the project's
not going too well. Am I overreaching? I think
we're having very different experiences. We've
been kind of comparing notes along the way, and
we haven't really dug deep into maybe what some
of these factors are. I know we haven't done
everything exactly the same way either. We've
also talked a lot about how everyone is going
to kind of teach who they are. So that also plays
a part in how your students are responding. So
if your students are sensing your anxiety or
your... Lack of confidence. And I don't know
that that's what's happening. I'm just saying
as an example that that plays a rough part. I'm
also like in all computer classrooms all the
time. So I've been able to really like give my
students that time. in my presence to actually
compose and to kind of confer with them while
that process was happening I don't I don't think
you're in a computer classroom except for like
your studio time correct right so there's just
a lot that plays into what's happening with the
results and I think this is the first semester
we're doing this so I don't know If it's really
a fair expectation that it's going to somehow
magically change all these problems that we encounter
with students, I don't even think that was the
goal of the experiment. But I think expectations
are really important to think about, too, because,
yeah, we all hope that, you know, we'll find
some kind of. Elixir. Yeah, and our class will
just be the best class. All the students will
talk about it and want to take it. And sometimes
that happens because you had a really great group.
The cards. The cards you dealt sometimes can
be a factor. But very cool, y 'all. I'm just
teasing you about it not working out. Yes. You're
a big teaser. I'm a big teaser. Just wait until
next week. I like the question of how does class
end? Because we were talking about benchmarks,
working backwards. Yes. How do you kind of sum
up what they're going to be taken away from that
day? How do you put a cap on it? Especially if
you're doing experimental imitation. Well, something
that, you know. Monica has already mentioned
our attempt at creating a habit of journaling
in class. And so one style of journal prompt
that I've come back to a lot after, say, a workshop
in class, and we can talk about that as well,
is to ask them, you know, from whatever we did
in class today, and I'll name that in the prompt,
what are you taking away about writing or being
a writer? I think that's great. Yeah, I mean,
that's how you want to conclude a body paragraph
with a takeaway message, and you want to do that
at the end of every class period. That makes
a lot of sense. I need to be doing that. What
are the takeaways? What did we learn today? Give
that time at the end. Yeah, and then it is just
kind of like a recap, like the looking forward,
like, so next time we'll pick up here. Like I
said, the journal in my class really kind of
hasn't had the... it kind of disappeared when
we started composing projects and we started
workshopping projects and I really I want to
kind of revive it for these last couple of weeks
so that it's a more reflective process particularly
at the end of class like now that we've been
workshopping different types of compositions
and you've been you know working on your on your
projects it's like what are kind of what are
those big things that you're kind of learning
that you want to take with you into your other
courses and into your life That's wonderful.
One of the strengths that I'm hearing from y
'all is the verbal interaction that students
are having at the beginning with your good morning
exercise, your acknowledgement of the day and
of each other, and then also this acknowledgement
of what was learned or what was studied at the
end of the day. In my classes, I'll just share
that I'll have some sort of similar question
as part of the discussion board, what were today's
main takeaways, but the conclusion always feels
flat, though it's written about, students kind
of complete it, trickle out one by one, and then
there's this kind of lifeless energy at the end,
and then we get down to just one or two who are
left, and it's kind of a really soft ending,
whereas I think this verbal acknowledgement at
the end of here's what we learned kind of seems
to put a point on the day, kind of the point
at the end of the diamond or something. Yeah.
I like that. Thank you. I think I like that about
this process as well. Wonderful. You keep mentioning
the workshops you do in class with all these
varied topics and projects. Can you give an example
of a typical workshop day? Definitely. Monica
has earlier alluded to style limitations. In
my classes, when we went into the style limitation
portion of the semester, We started with a self
-portrait poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. And
everybody then, after analyzing the poem, we
all wrote our own self -portrait poems imitating
this Millay poem here. And so that was like,
say, a Tuesday. And then the following day, everyone,
or the following class period, that Thursday,
I had everyone send me their imitations. And
then before class, you know, I printed out, say,
four copies of everyone's imitation and sorted
them into small workshop groups. So then everyone
could, like, hand out, you know, a copy of their
imitation to each of their workshop group members.
We had a sort of a workshopping guide, what workshopping
is like and the process of that. And each group
then... on their own would you know that one
person would read their their imitation of that
of that self -portrait poem and then they would
they would talk about it the next person reads
theirs they're all making annotations on each
other's copies the the author then gathers all
of those annotations back up and then we move
into studio or if you know if we didn't have
a studio period they go home and revise those
imitations send the revisions back to me and
then i would upload them on my as an imitations
gallery so they can all see their finished imitations
all together. Before we go any further, I wonder
if we need to define studio, what we're talking
about, just for any listeners who do not teach
here at Delgado Community College. Does someone
want to kind of tackle what that is? Well, if
you're out in the audience, don't feel alone.
Many of our own faculty aren't sure what it is
either. It is identified as question of the decade
in the notes. Well, what is it supposed to be?
That's it. No one really knows. It's kind of
like rhetoric. No one really knows what it is.
Okay. So we have these courses. We have English
101, which is a three credit hour course. And
then we have English 110, which is a six credit
hour course. And it's supposed to be a three
hour lecture with a three hour studio. But yeah.
Okay. So there's some difficulty within our department
of kind of identifying what is that. I'm not
quite sure. It's essentially for practice. Yeah.
Like, I mean, what do you do in a studio? You
work, right? Yeah. But, yeah, I just felt like
if you don't teach her, you might not really
know what we're talking about. That studio is
almost always, I believe, in a computer lab so
that students can actually work on writing whatever
it is they're being asked to write with the teachers
or with interaction with the teacher in the room.
And each other. And each other, absolutely, yes.
Open space. So that's what studio is. So, yeah,
I didn't do style imitation workshops. We did
share and just kind of we were doing claps and
snaps, like just kind of celebrating the practice
part of what we were doing. I started doing workshops
of projects around week eight. And I definitely
have notes for myself on how I want to do this
differently moving forward. But I think I. We
just created a discussion forum in Canvas. I
had everybody spend some time in their journal
really thinking about questions for feedback.
We read about how do we ask for good feedback
and also think about how do we apply feedback.
Do you need to do everything that someone suggests
that you do, including your teacher or a coach
in a writing center somewhere? How do you sort
through all the advice that you might get and
make your own decisions about how to revise?
So they developed at least five questions. Some
of them did have more than that about their project,
what they were hoping to get feedback on. And
then we, it's kind of a traditional MFA workshop
style where the writer kind of, I do let them
tell us what their questions are, what their
concerns are, and then they have to be quiet
and just take notes while the rest of us discuss
the piece. And then, so they're really the one
that's in charge of the note -taking about what's
being said. I haven't really made anyone write
anything. But I think in the spring, I want to,
Mesa kind of had this epiphany one day when we
were talking about workshop in class. And does
the social annotation tool hypothesis work on
their phones? And it does. And I think actually
just using that as a way of having them give
each other written feedback in addition to a
discussion. Yeah, like I want to use that next
semester. Yeah, I've been using that for workshopping
their rough drafts of their composition projects.
Yeah, I like having... putting everyone's rough
draft, again, up on a page on my Google site.
And then that Google site goes into the hypothesis
annotation tool, or that page, rather, on the
site goes into the annotation tool so that everyone
sitting in class together on their devices, we
can be reading it on the projector and everyone
can be annotating in real time. And we can interact
with those annotations verbally in real time
as well. It almost sounds like your workshops
are learning how to workshop. Yes. Sure, yeah,
absolutely. And that they're guiding. I like
that some of them are self -guided. That I don't
just tell you because it's better when they seek
out what they need. Yeah, and I talked a lot
about the difference between peer review and
have you done peer review before? And they're
like, yes, and they're all rolling their eyes.
I said, yeah, because it's the teacher really
giving you, like, a list of questions to make
sure you're following the assignment instructions.
And it doesn't, like, I have been frustrated
with that process for quite a while. I'm going
to take your advice on my next assignment and
have them come up with it. Cool. Yeah, like,
it's just, yeah, it's, and because that's all
part of the experiment. For me, what was important
is that helping students develop their own agency.
And so it should come from them, right? They're
the one that's invested in creating this composition.
It's not, you know, I can't tell you what you
need to work on, you know, really. I mean, I
can, but the goal is to really put them in that,
in control. Right. That sounds like it's really
engaging and there's a lot of meta -analysis
in your day -to -day class. Are there grades
day -to -day? Attendance, certainly. Attendance.
Or at least I think both of us are waiting pretty
highly just to emphasize the importance of simply
being in the room and engaging with your classmates.
The journal is a part of that grade. I'm also
assessing it a little bit separately. I'm not
sure it's working in the way I'm assessing it
now, but the journal is also kind of a daily
grade. What about you, Monica? Other daily grades
that come to mind? Not really. I mean, those
tools that we use in Canvas, like the discussion
forums and all of that, are not graded. They're
there simply as a tool to share work and give
feedback, but I'm not really, I'm not grading
as much, quite frankly. I'm not sure how this
is going to work out overall. But the grade breakdown
for the course grade is, yeah, it's 20 % presence
in the journal. And the journal is always done
in class in my class. So I'm not really assessing
it separately. Because if you're there, then
I know you did it. And it all kind of comes out
in the wash. But the conferencing is another
20%. They have four checkpoints they have to
meet. And then 10 % was the action plan and timeline
for developing their projects. And then the other
50 % will be the projects themselves, the delivery
to their audiences. And I think I'm going to
have them do some kind of like self -reflective
writing where they evaluate themselves. What
grade? Have they earned? And look back on those
goals that they set at the beginning of the semester
and why they chose those projects and how well
do they think they achieved those goals? How
much revision went into creating those final
projects? And overall, how would you grade them?
So yeah, like you said earlier, I need to start,
like this is where we need to be moving here.
And I think in tomorrow's classes, I will be
bringing this up as kind of a preview of next
week's focus. That's another great way to bring
journaling back into it here at the end, is in
the now reflection, self -evaluation, all that
kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And students aren't
stressed. There's not a million low -stakes things,
the grade -grubbing and unnecessary extrinsic
rewards. Nope. Good. You said you do four individualized
conferences. Do you do the same amount? That's
right, yes. And I guess we wanted to know if
there's a script or questions you tackle for
individualized conferences, and we know you have
them four times. I do not have a script for these
conferences, although... I think making it clearer
for next semester, to the students at least,
than I did this semester, what the purpose of
each of those checkpoints is, I think I can do
that better. So it's not so much a script, but
it's like... You know, so exactly. So when a
student comes in for checkpoint two, they realize
before they get there that we're going to be
talking about your action plan here. When they
come in for checkpoint three, they realize we're
looking at a rough draft of your one of your
compositions. And so I've over time tried to
make that clear because I could I saw earlier
on that they just show up without a clue what
they're doing. Exactly. Yeah. Like I made it
to my conference. I'm here. I mean, showing up
is half the battle, right? Yeah, I think because
I don't think my students have been confused
about the purpose of the conferences. I did combine,
like, so they do have four checkpoints, but I
allowed them to check off one and two in one
conference if they were that kind of that far
along with knowing what they wanted to be working
on. The first checkpoint is kind of a, what do
you want to work on? and helping them to develop
ideas for projects if they're not quite sure
about it um and then the second one is the act
like really going over the action plan on their
timeline and making sure this is realistic and
um fits with the fairness conversations that
we had early on and then uh yeah and then when
it now uh we're in the we're finishing up checkpoint
three which is meeting with me to look at drafts
while we're also work shipping yeah like just
kind of checking in because some students are
doing more than one project because they're not
giant projects um but we've only workshopped
one of them as a class so we're checking in with
each other on the other one and how's that going
and are you keeping up with your deadlines can
you give us that example of this two -parter
What do you like? Like a student who might be
working on two projects instead of one. Yeah.
So I have a couple I have a few students who
chose to write like a like a professional cover
letter for a job. But, you know, you don't need
12 weeks to write a cover letter, I would hope.
So they are also writing like they decided they
wanted to write an article for an online magazine
like that on a subject that appeals to them.
I have another student that wrote a review of
a video game, and then he also wants to write,
like, a little Western gunslinger short story.
No one does Westerns anymore. That's great. No,
it was cool, yeah. Yeah, so it's just kind of
like... So they don't have to connect even. No.
No, what they have to connect to are the goals
that the students set for themselves at the beginning
of the semester. So we spend a lot of time on,
like, okay, so if you want to improve your confidence...
when you're crafting sentences, then what are
you going to... write to help you work toward
that goal. I think with my English language students,
there was a lot of like, I want to practice my
speaking fluency. So there are a lot more like
oral compositions that they're working on. I've
had some students though that like did have multiple
projects. And then like now we're kind of checking
in and I'm like, you don't need to do a second
project. Like you have done enough. Like you
just need to focus on making this like the best
possible version of itself. Because a lot of
these things are very long. Actually, it's surprising
when you just let them do what they would like
to do, how much they will write without you having
to pull teeth. I've had, I would say, actually,
I don't know that I've had that experience with
my groups. I was thinking, you know, starting
to see more rough drafts in the second half of
class. I was hoping they would write longer.
So just, I don't know what that is. That's an
observation, a curiosity. that probably just
depends on the groups of students that we're
working with. Yeah, and I honestly didn't anticipate
that, and I think it's just some of them. It's
what they chose that they just had a lot to say.
Now, some of the pieces don't need to be as long
as their drafts are, and we've talked about that
in workshops. They're like, okay, there's a lot
of stuff here that... makes it hard to know what
the focus and the purpose is that's muddied but
but it's you know as I tell them I think it's
a lot easier sometimes to cut than it is to try
to stretch something out you know when you feel
like you've run out of things to say and then
it's just repetitive yeah I wish we could all
see Abby's face at home. Reading papers. Repetitive
eyebrows raised. Previty is the soul's weapon.
I thought this was over. It's still going? Yeah.
Three more paragraphs. Yeah. I don't know. These
papers get me every time. I write this really
long end comment. I'm like, oh my gosh. I thought
it was done. That's just half the shows on TV
these days. Like, really? Another season of this?
Where are we going? Or all these revivals of
shows that, you know, you're like, really? We're
bringing this back again? Why can't we just leave
things in their time? The story of Frasier has
been told. He's in San Francisco now, Andrew.
Oh, shoot. I got to tune in. I love San Francisco.
All right, are there any other, did you guys
have any other questions, anything else you'd
like to know about our day -to -day with our
students? You sort of wrote this response out
about documentation, and I think you both concur
that the documentation will depend on the project.
Some might be APA, some might be MLA. Sure. And
maybe that's something you tackle in conferences
or... Just kind of go around the room, put them
in pairs. I'm not sure how. Sorry, no, you, Monica,
go ahead with this one, I think. No, I think
you should go because you actually created an
exercise for them to do as a class. Try it out
this morning. Oh, good. How did it go? Okay,
I think. So last week we read an article that
integrates sources, right? And so then. To go
in hand with our practice of style imitation,
I had like nine or ten excerpts from that article
where the author is blending source language
with original language. And so then the task
this morning for them was to take two of those
examples and then imitate the sentence, imitate
the way that she blends source language with...
original language um and sort of the content
of their of their imitation sentences would just
be any other language from her article um and
so uh that that has been yeah then we of course
uh workshopped immediately after using a discussion
board workshop the sentences that they wrote
and they partnered up and tried to work together
to revise each other's sentences and then you
would then post your partner's revised sentence
on the same discussion board under their original
post. And I think it would have benefited maybe
from more time. But it was a good practice. It
was good practice, I think. Yeah, I'm kind of
addressing it as it comes up in workshop because
people are, it does very much depend on. how
they're planning to deliver their their composition
so I like I have a student I mentioned before
who reviewed 52 sources and synthesized them
all on it's all about cancer research and like
a certain problem within cancer research and
treatment and kind of trying to call for a solution
to this problem I mean very very sophisticated
stuff and so obviously She wants to submit it
to a medical journal. That's going to have a
very specific requirement for how that journal
wants those sources documented. And then I have
other students who are doing a little more general
audience kind of writing. And if it's for a website,
that might just be hyperlinks. And so I think
it's really opened up the discussion of documentation.
you know, this MLA do it exactly like this, which
they don't remember anyway. Like you have to
teach it every single semester, no matter if
you had that student previously, you know, every
paper. Yeah. So it's like, and I think they're
more, they're actually more engaged in like understanding
how do I not, how do I give the source credit?
How do I document this? Like even I have a student
who's developed a cookbook and was just asking
how to cite. certain sources used because the
student connects the recipes to mental health
and self -care and that kind of thing. But cites
sources to help support that. So the question
becomes not how do I do MLA, but how do I give
this source credit? And I think that's a more
important question. A much more contemporary
question because you don't really confront MLA
in the wild too often. It's kind of like a white
rhino or something like that. The unicorn. Thank
you. That's what it is. Well, yeah. So I hope
that answers that question. I mean, I think that's
something I definitely feel like I could do a
better job with next time. But kind of going
into this like blind, not really knowing what
students were going to gravitate to in terms
of project development. Yeah, it's it's it is
challenging to think on your feet and on the
fly and be responding to all of that. But I have
a journal of ideas for next time. Yeah, thanks
for considering tailoring to the individual.
And I feel like that might, you'd hope that helped
with attrition because we know a lot of our students
give up when they don't get that individual attention.
So keep practicing that. Thanks, Abby. Yeah,
thank you. Yeah, keep going, guys. Thank you,
Andrew. Day by day. Yeah. One step at a time.
Yeah. Isn't that a song? Wasn't that a show?
A TV show from the 90s? 80s maybe? Step by step.
Step by step. All right. Thanks for sharing,
y 'all. Thank you. Thanks for talking with us.
Thanks for joining us. And thank you, listener.
Thank you, listeners. 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.