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.
I'm Monica Mankin and this is the English 101
experiment. Welcome back to the English 101 Experiment
Podcast, episode number five. I'm Monica Mankin,
Associate Professor of English at Delgado Community
College. I am Mason Joiner, Assistant Professor
of English at Delgado Community College here
in rainy New Orleans. And I am Sean Monroe, an
Associate Professor of English also at Delgado
Community College in chilly New Orleans. I did
say associate professor, right? I think you did.
Okay. Not that it really matters. Soon to be
full professor. I hope. Fingers crossed. Got
to get that promotion packet put together. Party
packet. It does not feel like a party. Feels
like a lot of paper cuts are in my future. Except
they're going to be digital paper cuts. No, I'm
doing it the old -fashioned way because that's
how I... If they let you. It's the last one I'm
going to do. The last dance. Yeah. I'm just going
to go with what I know. But thanks for joining
us today. Thank you for having me. I think we
should let everyone know that you are also known
as Professor Funrow. Uh -oh. Yeah. So we're here
to have a good time talking about challenges.
And maybe some pleasant surprises with this experiment.
Hopefully plenty of pleasant surprises. And some
unpleasant surprises, too. Yeah. And some fun
surprises. Yeah. So what would you like to know,
Funro? Oh, that is a great question. So what's
been maybe your, and this question goes to both
of y 'all, what's been the favorite project that
your students came up with this semester? The
one that you were most pleased about, most excited
to read, most excited to grade, most excited
to experience. That is a great question. I can
do two. Yeah, go for it. Let's see. So I have
one student who is doing, in addition to a loosely
autobiographical play about a bad experience
moving to... Wisconsin. It's not really about
Wisconsin. Anyway. And she's also working on
this project that I may have mentioned on the
pod before, where it's like nine or ten short,
discrete pieces that are all sort of tied together
on the topic of self and womanhood. And it started
off with a monologue, and she read that monologue
in my... early in the semester. She had just
written it like end of week one or start of week
two or something. And it was fantastic. And I'm
looking forward to seeing the rest of those.
I had another student. Oh, sorry, Sean. What
were some of the other discrete pieces that went
into that? So it started with a monologue. So
there's a piece that she was sort of unsure about
where it fits in the thematic. network of them
uh where it's the point of view of her cat and
uh yeah it's a lot of fun um yeah well and we'll
say she was she was you know concerned about
where that one fits in um i did have a student
who from early on he was saying he's gonna write
the first chapter of a novel um and he got off
to a slow start i think but i read just a few
days ago that first chapter and um I was telling
Monica about this the other day. I'm not sure
how intentional it is. I think there's some intent
involved, but he's really playing with the form
of his narrative in some really fun ways. And
ways that in teacher mode, looking immediately
as I read for things to say, oh, well, here's
something that you can do. I just totally, I
had to go back afterwards. Once I got further
down the page, I was like, oh, I see what you're
doing now. I was totally wrong. Ignore what I
said earlier. So, for example, he'll say something
like, the narrator says, you know, I saw two
guys ahead on the road, and we had a conversation
that went something like this, colon, guy one,
you know, whatever guy one's dialogue is, guy
two. And then later we learn that guy one's name
is... Luis, and so then it becomes Luis and Guy
2, and then when we learn Guy 2's name, it's
Luis and Bo, and so it's sort of like the narrator
is informing the reader as he learns information,
which I thought was a lot of fun. That's cool,
yeah. I also had a student, I got a sad email
today from the student, though. So she's also
writing the first chapter of a novel, which then
after workshop decided she wanted to go ahead
and write chapters two and three as well. And
she had really done a great job. She had actually
integrated some of our early journal assignments.
She had sort of repurposed them and integrated
them into the story as description and like kind
of some character development, which was kind
of cool to see that when I was reading. reading
through it in preparation for workshop, going,
oh, that was from the journal. Good for you for
bringing that into your work. But she apparently
is not going to be able to finish the semester
due to some family issues, which is just such
a bummer. It is. Yeah, but she said that she's
going to continue writing her novel, so I hope
that's... true and inspired some lifelong writing
and learning hopefully I hope so yeah it would
be really nice if she's able to come back at
some point and can kind of check on her um as
far as I mean I don't know I can't pick like
one there it's 12 we only have 30 minutes so
um I think for me too there's another student
who I was concerned about at the beginning because
she seemed just really unsure of what she was
doing in college and of course not really having
an idea of what to do for a project so we started
with just her writing keeping a personal journal
but then through that project she developed like
a six -page essay that's this very interesting
like compare comparison of like like I guess
the way that we see the sort of main female character
It's like in the beginning, it's this kind of
like what everybody looks like, the perfect person,
the perfect version of her that is expected and
that she feels like she has to put forward. But
then in the second half, it transitions into
like this kind of dark reality that is just it
was just really honest and raw and like felt
like she maybe had a little bit of a breakthrough
with herself this semester. It was kind of cool
to see. that there was like a, like a, just an
authentic moment of like, Nope, this is who I
am. And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm not sure. And
that's okay. That's okay. And then I think for
her too, the workshop was really helpful because
a lot of people were able to identify and respond
to what she was writing about. And that she felt
like that was really cool to know that it's not
a, it's not as unique of an experience as it
can sometimes feel. not having direction, especially
when you're 18 or 19 years old. That sounds like
the kind of piece that could qualify for the
Nathan Smith Prize this year. Oh, don't I know
it. Creative nonfiction. I have shared this with
my classes. Submit it on in there. So there probably
will be a lot of submissions to images, I hope,
from my students. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Yeah,
so there's more. I also had a student who wrote
a screenplay. Yeah, love that. Yeah, yeah. That's
exciting. I'm going to try to push her into Mason's
English 102 next semester. So you're going to
be able to kind of continue some of these assignments
that the students wanted. You're working together
in that fashion as well? We have not extended
this experiment to English 102 yet, but I do
read a play. Actually, we just finished it today
in my 102 class. We do read a play, and I think
that student would enjoy just that as a text
to write about. Cool. Well, since y 'all have
talked about a couple of the highs, no more fun
row. Now it's bummer row. Great. What have been
some of the most maybe challenging projects the
students have offered to you or some maybe since
we're in week 14 of the semester, we're almost
to the end. What are some things where you saw
students kind of butting up against or getting
bogged down in the details that maybe you could
steer them around next semester? Well, I will
say one of the challenges. that I hope I have
some ideas to address in the future is the kind
of like documentation citation aspect of things,
because students are working on projects that
are for different audiences. So they're not all
going to just be using MLA, which I mean, I'm
completely fine with that. I feel like they've
been asking the right question. Like, how do
I give this source credit? But it's, it is hard
to manage that, especially like with not. really
knowing what I was going to be dealing with in
terms of the kinds of stuff students would want
to write. So it was a pleasant surprise that
many students did lean in more academic directions,
but then it was also like, well, now I got all
this work to do to help them all figure out how
do I cite these things, these sources that I'm
using. So that was definitely a challenge. Yeah.
I think... I'd say one of the biggest challenges
moving forward in this experiment is there are
students who will, no matter how much we talk
about what's fair and how much people are composing,
I'm finding there are more students, I guess,
than I expected who are pretty set on writing
as little as possible. Oh, yeah. Where are the
minimum requirements so I can meet them? Yeah,
and when this experiment doesn't really have
clear minimum requirements, we've talked about
what's fair, but, you know, there was no floor
established, really. Students are writing, I
think, some students are writing well under what
we would hope the floor would be. I have a couple
of those. I think some of our conversations in
the past week have been helpful for them, just
to admit that they are below. where they even
intended to be. Because I have some students
who were going to do two projects, but then they
only finished one, and now they're feeling the
time. They didn't manage their time very well.
So, yeah, I think that is also something that
I think we need to address for next time is what
do we do with those students who... are just
trying to do. But I mean, I think that those
students are in every, it doesn't matter what
approach you take. I've got them in my non -experimental
class. Yeah. And they're, and they're just, they're
always going to just do the very least possible.
They write exactly 400 words. And they're not
good words and they don't, and it's, and you
know, I don't know that this experiment is going
to solve all the problems we face in a composition
class. So is there an opportunity during the
semester where students can like kind of see
other, people's projects and like see how much
work they're doing and kind of like you know
maybe have a chance to be like oh damn this person
has written like 12 pages i've done like one
page i better start doing more stuff You mentioned
workshop, I think. Yeah. So workshop is one of
the ways. I also had them this last week get
up and talk like after they journaled for a little
bit about their own sense of their accomplishments
or lack of accomplishments this semester. I had
them get up and walk around and talk to each
other, which is what we did at the beginning
when we were establishing fairness and they were
sharing with each other like what their projects
were going to be and making sure that everybody
was kind of. planning to do the same amount of
work. So they had to cut. That's where a lot
of students, I think, got real with themselves
because they're like, yeah, like I know my classmate
wrote this eight page narrative and I wrote like
a one page cover letter for a job. So that's
a great idea. I didn't I didn't think to do that.
That's a really good idea, though, just to have
them walk around and interact with each other
about here's what I've accomplished. What about
you? Oh, wow. OK, there's some serious like interpersonal,
you know. accountability there yeah which is
kind of fantastic yeah so you don't have to do
all that police work you know right like go talk
to see people and they'll look you in the eyes
and you'll be able to figure out if it's fair
or not yeah yeah and i really i really emphasize
that they need to move around like they need
to talk to the people they don't sit next to
every day and it's funny because i'm in one i'm
in a computer classroom where they all have rolling
chairs so they're just rolling around the room
like conferencing with each other it's kind of
that's good yeah How do they see each other's
work in your class, Mason? A lot of the same.
Workshops we've done, starting with style imitations
and then later moving into their composition
projects. They've done small group workshopping,
so they'll send it to me ahead of time, and then
I'll have, say, four copies of everyone's piece
for workshop that day. get in their little groups
of four, pass it around. Everybody annotates
that and then gives it back to the, after discussion,
gives it back to the author. We've also done
live social annotation on the projector using
Hypothesis with the whole class annotating and
talking about a particular work at once. That's
intense. I kind of like that. But how long does
that take in the classroom? About, I'd say, 20
minutes per, yeah, 20, 25 minutes per piece,
depending on how long it is. So you've got the
hypothesis up on the big screen. That's right.
And so as they add stuff, they can see kind of
what everybody's adding. Totally. Yeah, that's
fantastic. And it does work on their phones so
that if you're not in a computer lab, you can
still manage this in -class activity. Yeah. And
when I know that that's what we're doing, I'll
invite them to bring their larger devices as
well. Yeah. Yeah, we used a discussion forum.
I didn't do the hypothesis, but I'm going to
do it next semester because that's a really great
idea. Just for pushing the conversation, I think,
even a little deeper when we're having workshop.
I think my students did a good job with it. I
really made the writer accountable for the note
taking during the discussion of the piece. But
everybody just posted their work in a discussion
forum with their questions that they wanted to.
you know, get feedback on. And then that seemed,
it was really interesting because I think a lot
of students read each other's work, even though
they didn't sit next to each other and we hadn't
workshopped them yet because I would hear them
talking about their work or like going over to
somebody in the room and being like, I really
liked your piece. Will you, can you tell me what
you think of this paragraph? So, yeah, it was
a pleasant surprise, pleasant side effect of
encouraging. It's more like an amazing surprise.
We're actually, like, engaging without the point
requirements and stuff. Yeah. It was very interesting
that once we got rid of some of those requirements
that students, they don't need them. Yeah. So
you mentioned delivery at the end of the semester.
So tell me a little bit about this, delivery.
Well, we're asking them to deliver at least one
of their projects to its target audience. And
so that can mean submitting it for publication.
That can mean publishing it yourself online via
blog or some other public forum. What else can
it mean, Monica? Well, okay, for example, I have
a student who's composing videos. He wants to
compose a, I guess it's a YouTube channel for
his business. So he's composing a video. So social
media is an option, I guess, for publishing,
putting your composition in front of an audience.
We're also going to have a good old -fashioned
reading in the last day of class. So there are
some students who that's how they will deliver
their composition. I know I have a student. who
uh he composed a graphic novel but he's also
composing a ted talk and then like just for fun
he's writing a funny story i mean he's so he
i don't know if he's gonna deliver his funny
story or he's gonna do his ted talk for us I've
got one student who's writing a, she's a nursing
student. She's writing a handbook of advice for
nursing students. That's amazing. I love that.
Yeah. And so we talked yesterday about somehow
getting that to someone in the faculty or administration
of charity. Leslie Saloniero is who you want
to talk to. All right. And she can kind of arrange
it in a book format and like. Probably print
some copies for you. Cool. Sweet. Good to know.
I was on my to -do list. Yeah, the nursing program
might be able to print some copies or something.
Sweet. Okay. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's
like, here's an actual thing that's going to
help future students. That's amazing. Yeah. A
plus. Yeah. We also created the composition orchard.
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Yeah. We're working on just a Google site that
will function. loosely like a review or a journal
for student work. And we still have to flesh
this stuff out, but we're going to have a clear
purpose, what we're looking for, clear submission
guidelines. so that students can submit their
work to this composition orchard is the pending
name. I love apples. Yeah, right? And there will
be a page for academic work, a page for poetry,
fiction, other genres that I put there. Oh, media
will be one. Yeah, it's like this podcast I'm
doing in my classes, they kind of just stay kind
of in the class. Right. I feel like if they had
an opportunity to, you know. Publish them somewhere
like that. Because they mostly say they're like,
I don't really want this on like Google podcast
or like Apple podcast so that like people can
listen to it. But I feel like something like
that, they would dive on it immediately. Yeah.
And I like the idea. Like that handbook just
made me think like if the site was kind of like
students writing for students so that if it was
kind of centered around topics that would be
interesting to other students at Delgado and
maybe helpful. I don't know. It's still in the
brainstorm phase. But I really like this as a
concept. And yeah, it's a public space that they
can share that assumedly in a Google search people
could stumble onto. I'm not sure. how high those
Google sites end up in a Google results list.
Well, if we're not going to pay for the top billing,
probably not very high. Is that it? Oh, right.
We live in capitalism. Yeah. But if it's something
that we're sharing and if like your students
in your class were like, oh, let's put our podcast
on the orchard, you know, like. I'd be like,
all right, prep it up here, add some more stuff
to it, edit it and add another little project
to their thing. It'd be wonderful. Yeah, it'd
be cool to hear what other faculty students are
doing, you know, outside of writing. Yeah. It
also seems like after a while it would give students,
because you could like maybe say what class this
came out of. And so students could be like, oh,
Joyner, Manka, Monroe, Pellerin, McCarthy. Like,
ooh, these look like fun media teachers, teachers
who are teaching media and stuff like that. Yeah.
Were there any big challenges that you faced?
Monica, that we haven't discussed that you wanted
to talk or any other big pleasant or unpleasant
surprises that had been on your mind? Yeah, I
guess I in my my notes that I made for today,
I was thinking about earlier in the semester
when we were like. oh, we need to explain what
a composition is to our students. That was a
wake -up call. No one ever explained that to
me in college, that's for sure. Yeah, there was
an assumption on both of our parts that they
would understand what we mean. That's the name
of the course. Right, right. But we never used
that word. Never. But I think, and also emphasizing
when we're talking about delivery and developing
projects to really be thinking about a public
audience. Like yourself? As the audience, that
was definitely a challenge. There's another big
challenge. I think a lot of the options that
I had drafted up for my students to, you know,
just to see what all the possibilities of composition
that are out there. Some of them had very narrow
audiences. Letters, and I've got a lot of students
writing letters. And I think that is not right
for this course. I think, yeah, when we're talking
about delivery, I think it's more than, oh, I
read this to my mom. You know? Yeah. Open letters
are a specific genre that can work very well.
Even something like I've done letters to the
editors in the past. And NOLA .com, our local
newspaper, is kind of starting to have a decent
letter to the editor section. Cool. where I think
students could probably get in there and, you
know. That's a great idea. Yeah, that's great.
Get a pretty quick response back because I think
they respond back in like one or two weeks because
they're super, you know, you have to write them
very fast. Yeah, yeah. But you get something
back very fast. Cool. That's good to know. Yeah,
but I think specifying that a little bit more
clearly next time around. would be good and then
maybe using maybe using like the narrow audience
of a letter to at least like talk about qualities
of letter writing and then be able to transition
into a discussion of then well what makes this
different from an open letter and thinking more
broadly about audience yeah like we just talked
about Baldwin's My Dungeon Shook and that's a
letter straight up to his nephew right but it's
also a giant open letter to yes yeah to America
yeah right Oh, gosh, yeah. What a fantastic piece.
I'll have to add it to the long list of texts.
It's in my 102 already. I don't want to, you
know, stack texts on top of each other. Mason,
we read this last semester. Yep. Well, here's
one of those corporal capitalist questions. What
are your pass rates looking like? Something an
administrator might ask you. How do you justify
this experiment, Miss Mankind and Mr. Joyner?
Yeah, I don't really know yet, I think. What
do you think, Monica? Well, one of my pleasant
surprises was that I do think that my attendance
and my engagement is up. And I think that...
I do feel like my students, this fostered, I
think, a much stronger sense of belonging for
my students, that they really did form an authentic
community where they are like actually buddies
with each other. And they were also helping each
other out as students in a way that I don't.
I mean, I think my students have always gotten
along fine. It's fine. But like this just felt
more alive. I wanted to go to class every day.
You know, I didn't have those days where I never
once was dreading going to class. I don't know
yet how it's all going to come out because we've
got two weeks to go. But I think this is kind
of a time when students, especially on a cold,
rainy day like today or like yesterday, where
we have a class of like three people, that hasn't
happened at all this semester. That in itself
is amazing. I have at least 16 students there
every single day. I'd say in both of mine, at
least with my 110, at least for the first half
of the class, I've been sitting closer to like
7 to 10 every day. But that's been for a few
weeks now. So I don't know if it's the time periods
or just students having personal issues coming
up in their lives. Yeah, I think there are certainly
buddies. pairs I'd say of buddies and in both
sections but I felt less community I think than
I had hoped for in mine I'll be interested you
know I don't know if we want to do this on air
or off air but just to really kind of compare
notes about things that were we did similarly
and things that we did differently yeah because
we didn't do everything exactly the same right
I think we both had sort of maybe different objectives
or different responses to things. We were very
aligned in like week one and two. Yeah. I think
we were doing the exact same stuff every day.
Then you're in the weeds. And then we're like,
oh. You've got to chop your way out. Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah. And I guess one of the things I would
like to do is invite our students. We talked
about this. It's like I invite some of our students
to come on the podcast. That's a great idea.
Maybe in the spring to just reflect on their
experience and then talk about maybe how it has
helped them in their other courses. Because I
think that's also part of justifying something
that looks very different to our colleagues and
our administrators. Because I think. Stakeholders.
I could see people being like, well, you're not
meeting the learning outcomes of that course.
But it's like, well, it just looks very different
than what we're all used to doing. Just because
you can't see it doesn't mean they're learning
these outcomes. They're not learning them, yeah.
Yeah, I can't wait to get students on the pod.
I think that's a great idea. I haven't asked
any of the students yet, but I've been thinking
about which ones I think would be most open to
talk about it. I feel like almost like even while
the class is fresh in their minds, like at the
end of exam week, if they have the time, if they
can volunteer that week, jump in right away with
them. Because if you wait until spring, we got,
you know. Mardi Gras earlier this year. Boom.
Yes. They've forgotten everything. All those
brain cells are gone. That's a good point. But
I don't know. I guess. So I'm giving them their
like little my little formative eval tomorrow.
And one of the questions is, would you be interested?
So I'll just ask them what they think. They've
been very forthcoming with their opinions of
the experiment. So I'm sure they'll let me know.
All right. Well, Sean, we sure do appreciate
you joining us on the pod today. Anything else
on your mind? Any questions before we go? Just
a little bit of hair up there. Oh, great. It
looks good. Thank you. All right. Well, yeah,
thank you very much. And thank you, listener.
And we'll talk to you next time. 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.