What to do?

I have all of my writing students blog about our college's common book. This year, our book is Zeitoun. Most students like the book, which is written with straight-forward, simple, detail-rich prose.


One FYComp student wrote the following post. Sure, the blog is the place for casual, less-formally expressed discussion. And it's clear that this student's first language is not English, which is okay. But there are issues here make me wonder how s/he got into first-year composition:

Loving it The dark night finally arrived. working for five hours staight, Zumtoum uses bukets to catching the water that leaking from the roof, stuffing the broken windows with pillow, and move anything he could to the upstair, God, he must exhusted. I do like the author back and forth to discribs the Zumtoum and Kathy's conversations, so I know what is exactly they are thinking and felling. The story just grabs me into it; I can ever piture evey part of seduation like watching the movie, which is a great movie. The author's words can grab the readers mind, and I believe that is why the book is so succeful. I can't wait to read rest of it.

Really Great Workshop

I'd been nervous about giving a three-hour workshop on our college's Common Book (The Latehomecomer) to my colleagues: what if I bomb? What if they've just signed up to criticize? But all went well.

My partner was easy to work with: professional and approachable, sincere in her willingness to share what she's done with the Common Book. My colleagues were colleagial, sharing what had worked for them and inventing new ideas right on the spot.

We received compliments all around: one person even said she admired the way I demonstrated the techniques I was teaching about. All in all, a nice afternoon.

Common Book Blog

One of my colleagues asked for input about how we faculty are using the college's Common Book. He's presenting about it at next month's TYCA conference in Duluth, Oct. 2-4.

I'm having a good experience, so far, with my students' engagement. Here's the message I sent my colleague:

Hi, Larry.

I'm having some interesting success with the Common Book this semester, my first time working with a common book since I was gone last year. I decided to think about about the book for my writing courses (Engl 1021 and 1025) as a common topic for class discussions. The place/space for these discussions is cyberspace.

For both courses, I've set up blog (with Blogger) where students are discussing the book. In my totally online Engl 1025, technical writing class, I think of it as a way for them to "talk" with each other even though they don't see each other in class. The blog space is a kind of classroom space: it's secure because I've set it up so only "invited authors" can read/write to it (I invited the students via their college email accounts). For my face-to-face Engl 1021 courses (I have two sections), I've set up ONE blog where students from these two different classes are talking to each other.

If you want, I can add you as a "reader" for the blog so you can see some of the thoughtful things they're saying, stuff like today's Engl 1025 student's post about chapter 3: the student wrote, "According to the last part of the chapter [three], I cannot understand why American negotiators rejected the policy documents because we all share the same planet, the existing of people is much more important than obligation of a country. One over all conclusion about this chapter: It is great."

Cool, huh?
Julie
_________________________________________________________
Julie K. Daniels
English Department
Women and Gender Studies Program
Century College

Students are Blogging

It's great: students are talking with each other on our class blogs. I've found out that our Century Soccer team won this weekend in Wisconsin. I've also found out that the Common Book is resonating with my students.

This innovation might be a good idea.

Thinking Ahead

Wow, this new school year is going to be action-packed. Today's sessions filled me in on lots of new, cool stuff going on -- I can't say I was exactly "inspired," but I was eager to get in on projects.

One initiative is the Common Book Project, of course, and we're reading Field Notes From a Catastrophe this year. Author Elizabeth Kolbert is even coming to campus on March 10, 2009!

This video, from The New York Times blog "By the Numbers" by Charles M. Blow, will be of use, I think: it's called "Vampire Energy."

Persepolis

The book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is Century's Common Book for this year, the first year of the Common Book project. It's a great idea: all college students, staff, and faculty are encouraged to read this book and incorporate it into their courses. We've had great preparation and support for the Common Book, such as summer workshops and presentations by Century faculty experts, a college common book blog, and lists of resources for teaching and learning. These resources and events were created, scheduled, and managed by the tireless and creative colleague, Cullen Bailey Burns.

Amazingly, Cullen was able to get Satrapi to come to Century's campus on April 10! Quite a coup, since Satrapi will be promoting her movie Persepolis, which is based on both our Common Book and Persepolis 2.

I saw the movie this weekend and can't recommend it highly enough. The animation is simple yet sophisticated, layered and nuanced: it takes talent to convey subtle emotions in the eyes of an almost-cartoon face, tweaking eyebrows and mouth sizes to show determination, confusion, fear, ennui. The stylized marionettes based on playing-card images perfectly capture the house-of-cards qualities of the army, leaders, soldiers. The charcoal and watercolor backgrounds are beautiful.