In-class workshop, Oct. 26th: Annotated Bibliography

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

This Friday, Oct. 30th, six tutors from the Writing Center are going to visit us. They will work with us in groups and go over our Literature Reviews, and teach us about successful peer-editing.

Today after class, I will email the Writing Center tutors your Literature Reviews that you have emailed to me before class today. Everyone who did not submit it will receive a failing grade for this homework assignment. You can still participate in the workshop on Friday with the tutors, but they won't have proofread your essay, and you won't receive any feedback. Those people lose the right to do a rewrite of their final essays.

If you cannot come to the workshop with the tutors on Friday, Oct. 30th, you MUST go to the Writing Center in person (either the center in Morris Library, or the evening-hours center in Trueblood) and have your essay proofread by a tutor there. The tutor needs to write a "conference summary" for me. You need to tell the tutor that; he/she won't do it automatically!!! If you don't attend the workshop, and don't provide a Writing Center conference summary, you will receive a failing grade for the workshop.

Today, Oct. 26th, we are composing our Annotated Bibliography in a class workshop.
It is DUE on Monday next week, in an email to yourself (and cc: to me).


For our in-class workshop today:
Instructions & 2 Sample Annotated Bibliographies:How and why to write Annotated Bibliographies
Link to an Annotated Bibliography in APA
Link to an Annotated Bibliography in MLA

We will write examples of each version on the board. You need your three sources with your underlined quotes again.

In-Class, Oct. 14: Test-Taking of Surveys + Lit Review

1) Our first activity today is to test-take a survey and grade it with the Survey Grading Rubric.
Click on the survey below your name on the list, have a piece of paper and a pen ready, and note down every button that does not work, every option that is missing, every spelling mistake, every wrong deadline or header, etc.!

Then, you are going to give the author of the survey you took WRITTEN feedback (by email; cc to your instructor for grading) of all the mistakes you found in the survey, and all the suggestions/additions you might have. You will also assign a grade and email the author (cc to me) the grading rubric (in the same email, as attachment).

Each student takes the survey of the person below his/her own name on our list on the blog below. The last person on the list takes the first person's survey. This way, every student will receive ONE peer-edit.

For those students who have missed classes: check my grade book for how many unexcused classes you have missed. I give you the unique opportunity of earning up to 3 extra credits to make up for 3 missed days by taking an extra survey per day, and by sending the corrective email and the grading rubric to the author of that survey. You MUST put in your email (in cc to me) that you did it for EXTRA CREDIT; otherwise, I will assume that it is for the mandatory one you did.

2) When you are done test-taking the survey, you can start on your Literature Review.

Basically, you will need the three research articles you have chosen, and which you brought to class today as print-outs, with the quotes underlined which you might want to use in your paper.

The Literature Review is a major component of your research essay and talks about the status quo of current research about your topic - its achievement as well as its shortcomings, which you are trying to fill by adding your own research.

It is a SYNTHESIS of your 3 external sources, not a SUMMARY. Merge, contrast, and compare your sources to one another, and find their shortcomings that you are going to fill with your own research.

You will need meaningful TRANSITIONS between your paragraphs. Don't talk about the first source in the first paragraph, then glue a second paragraph under it talking about the second source, and so on... You need to compare/contrast your sources, and find similarities and differences!

Read the following description of what a literature review is intended for, and of what components it consists.

You can choose whether you want to cite in APA or MLA, but be consistent! On this site, you will find a link to the APA style manual which helps you create the citations for your Lit Review in APA. On this link, you will find a link that helps you to create citations in MLA.

Remember these rules:

• Quotes that are under 4 lines go in your text flow and have quotation marks, and you indicate your source in parentheses: (Miller 2008, 59).
• Quotes that are 4 lines and over are indented, have NO quotation marks, and also have the source indication in parentheses. (See example text below.)

Then, create your own Literature Review, and type it into a blank Word document. Due date for the finished Lit Review is Monday, Oct. 19th, at class time, as an email to your instructor.

LENGTH REQUIREMENT:

Below is a sample of a Literature Review in APA style which I wrote for an education course:

(This is also the minimum length yours should be; you have 3 external sources, so you need to write 2-3 pages (double-spaced; we'll single-space after our peer editing session to achieve the required format.)
_______________________________________________________

A C.A.L.L. for Fresh Wind in Grammar Teaching: Computer Assisted Language Learning as Best Practice for Literacy Education

Literature Review

Who wants to learn grammar? Let’s put it another way: who wants to teach it? Given that this highly analytical topic with its morphology, etymology, and diagramming is one of the most unpopular curriculum components in English language arts both in the conception of students and teachers, there must be a best practice to convey it in an agreeable, content-immersed manner proper for our computer age. We notice that students in middle and high schools have a more and more limited knowledge of technical terms such as genitive or accusative, but skills in information technology exceeding those of the teachers. Instead of bemoaning the status quo, we should readily address those skills, for in 2012, technological literacy will become part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), or the Nation's Report Card, which means that in addition to reading, writing, math, science, history, etc., the technology literacy of students will be measured nationwide.

This important milestone in educational history justifies a more intense integration of information technology into the classrooms, exposing students and teachers alike to new software products and corresponding skills. Why not try it in grammar teaching? It can be argued that instead of drilling the technicalities of Greek and Roman grammar – a language the modern student does not understand – it might make more sense for teachers to use an alternative approach to teaching grammar, such as by imitation strategy, conveying it in the form of computer-assisted instruction in order to address the needs of the modern student.

More and more constructivist teachers change their methodologies by addressing their tech-savvy young audiences in a motivating way. According to Dexter and Anderson (1999), teachers make use of computer technology along a continuum of instructional styles ranging from instruction to construction, exposing their students to either drill and practice, with computer technology as complementation, or, respectively, to active work for knowledge-building, with computers as a tool (Dexter & Anderson 1999, p. 2). They purport that teachers are not only constant decision-makers, but also learners who have to go with the change in the “nowness” of instruction, and reflect upon their own effectiveness to make their teaching fit modern standards (Dexter & Anderson, 1999, 2).

In their study about teachers’ use of computers in their instruction, and their perception of the changes thus introduced in existent classroom practices, Dexter and Anderson quote one teacher who exemplifies the general attitude of all teachers interviewed by stating that computers are not driving, but facilitating the changes she makes: “It is not like there is a written curriculum for the computer. We kind of put it together as we go along based on the needs of the students. Like I said, we try and connect it as much as possible to what is happening in the classroom.” (Dexter & Anderson, 1999, p. 9)

Putting it together according to the needs of the students is also the aim of the present study about teaching grammar courses by using computer-assisted language learning (C.A.L.L.) in the form of WebQuests, blogs, online survey builders, etc. There are, however, characteristics of C.A.L.L. that Dexter and colleague do not mention – the immanent dangers, such as limited on-task supervision, the proneness to use Internet lingo in academic settings, plagiarism, and the leaving-behind of students who are less fortunate than the excelling tech geeks, such as the case study of an Amish student who had just learned what a computer was, but not yet how to use its higher functions. Kuang-wu Lee (2000) analyzes in detail the barriers of C.A.L.L., namely the financial obstacles, the availability of soft- and hardware, the technical and theoretical knowledge, and the acceptance of the technology. Despite all those adversaries, Lee concludes that what matters is not the technology, but how we use it, and states that

[c]omputers can/will never substitute teachers but they offer new opportunities for better language practice. They may actually make the process of language learning significantly richer and play a key role in the reform of a country's educational system. The next generation of students will feel a lot more confident with information technology than we do. As a result, they will also be able to use the Internet to communicate more effectively, practice language skills more thoroughly and solve language learning problems more easily. (Lee, 2000, n.p.)

While Lee – who tackles the subject from the point of view of foreign language learning – discusses computer technology in general, Zheng and colleagues (2004) go more into detail by describing the perceptions of WebQuests by higher-education learners. After a definition of the role of WebQuests and quotes of what they ought not to be, such as “a panacea for all manner of educational ills,” and “merely worksheets with URLs” (quoted in Zheng et al., 2004, p. 41), the researchers mention the key features of WebQuests: a) critical thinking, b) knowledge application,c) social skills, d) scaffolded learning. Their survey of the perceptions of males and females of their WebQuest learning led to the results that males and females both have equal opportunities to learn from scaffolding (including the components of content comprehension, learning, and goal attainment) as embedded in WebQuests without any gender preferences, and can perform equally well in cooperative learning. Although the researchers stress the difference between the old construct of WebQuests focusing on knowledge application and critical thinking versus the new one of constructivist problem solving, they underline that there cannot be uniform standards for WebQuests established, since they display a wide range of quality and design (Zheng et al., 2004, p. 48).

The present study is going to analyze university students’ perception of their grammar learning through WebQuests and other computer-assisted functionalities, hopefully coming to some general statements where this C.A.L.L. in literacy will lead us in the future.

In-Class, Oct. 5: Online Survey for Data Collection

ONLINE SURVEY to gather data pool:

Today, we are setting the foundation stone for our Unit 2 Essay: a research essay using your own collected data, and incorporating evidence supporting your thesis statement from secondary literature.

Our background will be Chapter 7 in our textbook.
Homework for Wednesday is to read Chapter 7 (it's about "evidence").

Each student needs 3 external sources for evidence from which you'll cite in APA or MLA style (we'll review how to do this in class).

Your evidence may solely come from peer-reviewed research articles you found at research data bases, such as JSTOR, ERIC, and Google Scholar.

Hint: JSTOR requires a password if you try to access it from off-campus. Therefore, log into Morris Library first with your DAWG tag number, and then go to JSTOR and search for your topic. If you are on-campus, you can go to www.jstor.org and simply search the database.

We are going to write this big essay in separate workshops in class, and you will finish up the different components as homework. If you miss classes, you have to check on the blog what we did during the workshop, and make up for it at home. We are going to work with deadlines, and if you miss them you won't get your survey answers in time to analyze and report them.

Purpose of surveys:

We are going to do opinion surveys, attitude surveys, or perception surveys with the general public, or special audiences you might choose (e.g., students; but NO SIU FACULTY!!!), in order to collect data that deal with our research essay topics.

If we only related what our 3 external sources say about our topic, we would write a REVIEW essay; however, we are going to do a real RESEARCH essay, that means we collect our own data about people's opinions, and THEN we'll use external sources to compare our findings with theirs (either affirm, or contradict, or expand).

Topics:

You are free to choose ANY topic you like!!! :-)
However, you must be able to find 3 research articles about your topic.

You can also choose topics from this list:

1. Do shocking images in anti-drug campaigns help prevent teenage drug abuse? like these ;-(
2. Does texting make students' grammar and writing worse?
3. Does the moral life of politicians influence voters' behavior?
4. Should ENG290 be offered as online course?
5. Does high school prepare students well enough for college essay writing?
6. Should art be aesthetic or political?
7. Should abortion be a decision of the mother-to-be?
8. Should euthanasia be legalized in the U.S.?
9. Should the attendance policy in college be abandoned?
10. Should cannabis for self-consumption be legalized in the U.S.?
11. Should the drinking age in the U.S. be lowered from 21 to 18?
.... etc.

HERE is a sample survey that students in 2008 have done as a group project on the topic of Genetics & Enhancement.

HERE is an example of a research essay as one of your 3 required external sources. It would be for a survey (research paper) about cosmetic surgery. It's called: "Cosmetic Surgery: Beauty as a Commodity," and was written by Debra Gimlin in 2000, and published in Qualitative Sociology 23 (1).

Today, you will pick a topic you are interested in, and we will put your topic on this blog next to your name. It will later be hyperlinked to your survey.

What we do in class today (workshop):

1) Choose a topic
2) Find 1 research article online about topic (the other 2 are homework for next Monday). Email this article as an attachment to yourself. You need to print it out at home, and to submit it to me with your final essay (can have annotations and underlining).
3) Begin to create survey. We'll continue in another class workshop.


For creating your online survey, you need to log into your email account to retrieve the log-in and password I sent you. Then, go to this website: http://www.surveymonkey.com/, and log in as a member.

Create a new survey, and give it a title according to this model:
firstname_lastname_topic, such as: christina_voss_anti-drug_campaign
Choose a background color, and begin typing your questions (we'll model that in class).

You don't need to SAVE your survey; surveymonkey automatically saves while you are typing, so you can simply log out in the end and continue later.

Rules:
1. You need a minimum of 20 questions (a maximum of 24; no more!)
2. The first four questions must be demographic (age, gender, race, provenance, years of experience, income, level of education, GPA, etc.)
3. You must have at least 2 matrices, and 2 open-ended text boxes. Vary your other questions' layout (vertical, horizontal, one choice, multiple choices, etc.).

Your topics:

1. Adkins, Lila: Should Abortion be the Decision of the Mother-to-Be?
2. Bassett, Alexander: Should the Drinking Age be lowered to 18 in the U.S.?
3. Butler, Courtney: Does Creativity affect Conscientiousness?
4. Carpenter, Scott: Should Abortion be the Decision of the Mother-to-Be?
5. Coleman, Wister: Cigarettes for Minors?
6. Doran, Kyle: Does Texting Make Students' Grammar/Writing Worse?
7. Dunn, Mercedes: AIDS Disease in Children
8. Goeke, Brandon: Attendance Policy in College?
9. Guy, Michele: Women In Combat Roles
10. Hayano, Ian: Gender Roles & the Media
11. Jacquot, Julianne: Alcohol Marketing Affects on Youth
12. Krones, Cameron: Should it be Legal to Carry a Firearm in Illinois?
13. Lass, Carl: Recreation Majors Survey
14. Lindsey, Korey: Should Cannabis be Legalized in the U.S.?
15. Scheil, Patrick: Should marijuana be legalized?
16. Sheehan, Clayton: Should the Drinking Age be Lowered to 18 in the U.S.?
17. Strieker, Courtney: Do Graphic Campaigns Impact Teen Drug Abuse?
18. Weichselbaum, Christopher: Attendance Policy in College
19. Westerlin, Mitchell: Should Texting/Talking on a Cell Phone While Driving be Illegal?
20. Russell, Anita: Death Penalty for Adults and Minors?
21. Shubert, Michael:

Rubric for Unit Essay 1

In-class activity on Friday, Oct. 2nd:

Today, we are creating the rubric for our unit essay 1.

I have invited the Writing Center tutors to join our class, and before they come we will give them our papers and rubrics, so they know what the prompt was, and how the work will be evaluated.

While it is not clear yet whether the tutors will come for unit 1 or 2 or even later, we will practice making rubrics. If you missed the class where we all created our passwords, you MUST create your Rubistar password today in class (or from home, if you are not here today) in order to participate in the Writing Center activity. Log into Rubistar with your password (or create a new profile, if you don't have one yet): http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

We are going to create the rubric together, but each rubric will be a little bit different, depending on how you define what would be an A, B, C, D, or F paper. We will most likely all have the same components (such as title, thesis statement, etc.). They need to be weighed in % or points according to importance (e.g., content is more important than spelling).

In order to find out which components we need, look at the original blog prompt for the Icarus essay. Don't just create a rubric component called "follows the prompt," but split it up into meaningful categories. Some people might follow the prompt in 5 steps, but forget to do steps 6 and 7, and you can't say, "didn't follow the prompt" and assign a bad grade for that. This is why you need to specify a bit more.

We will hyperlink all the rubrics we've created to this blog entry, so I can grade them and you have access. Therefore, once you've created your rubric, email yourself the hyperlink, come to the smartboard computer, open your email, get your hyperlink, and put it on this blog. If you don't finish in class, finish your rubric and email me the hyperlink; I will put it on the blog for you then.

Lila Adkins
Alexander Bassett
Courtney Butler
Scott Carpenter
Wister Coleman
Kyle Doran
Mercedes Dunn
Brandon Goeke
Michele Guy
Ian Hayano
Julianne Jacquot
Cameron Krones
Carl Lass
Korey Lindsey
Anita Russell
Patrick Scheil
Clayton Sheehan
Michael Shubert
Courtney Strieker
Christopher Weichselbaum
Mitchell Westerlin