Division of Rhetoric and Composition
University of Texas at Austin

Professor: M. A. Syverson
Email: syverson@uts.cc.utexas.edu
Office: Par 124
Phone: 471.8734
Office Hours: 2-5 Monday, or by appointment

Course Unique Number: 31100
Time: 2:00-3:30 TTH
Place: Par 102

Course Description:

How does the use of computer technologies change teaching and learning in English Studies?

This course is designed to address the growing need for English courses which take full advantage of the resources of electronic scholarship, composing, and communication available via computer-networked classrooms, the Internet, and hypermedia. The course will grow from the theoretical and practical interests of students and faculty in the DRC and the English Department. Graduate students at UT often gain considerable experience teaching in networked classrooms, and some students have played a big role in adapting existing courses for them. This course, however, will help students design, from the ground up, solid courses in their specific areas of interest. In this way they may begin to integrate particular theoretical interests with their application in practice. During the semester, students will have time to design 3-5 courses that they would be prepared to teach, with full documentation, including course descriptions, syllabi, reading lists, and evaluation criteria. They will be well-equipped to demonstrate and discuss their teaching plans during the job search, and to implement interesting courses right away in their new positions. Existing courses offered by the DRC and the English Department may become subjects for student projects: faculty are invited to submit course materials for adaptation, or to collaborate with students in the course to modify or develop specific courses which will incorporate computer technologies.
Students will work independently based on their particular interests.
Topics for the course include:

• Establishing the audience for the proposed course.
• Setting course goals: what do you hope students will gain from this course? How does the course coordinate with the department's needs and interests?
• Course readings: Pitching the reading at the appropriate level. what texts do students need to gain a good grounding in the subject? How much reading is enough? How will students be accountable for the readings?
• Course activities: what kinds of activities, both computer-based and otherwise, will engage students actively in the course?
• Developing other resources: what other resources can supplement class readings and activities (i.e., guest experts, outside lecturers, field trips for observation, software demonstrations, library workshops, etc.)
• Evaluation: what "counts" toward student evaluations? How will students be evaluated?
• Preparing a syllabus
• Preparing a course proposal to submit to the department
• Preparing an appealing course description

Texts:

• Online materials as assigned
• Hillocks, Teaching Writing as Reflective Practice
• Wiggins, Understanding by Design
• Kohn, Punished by Rewards
• Selfe, Literacy and Computers
• Hawisher, Re-imagining Computers and Composition
• Weimer, Improving Your Classroom Teaching

Prerequisites: Basic computer skills. This course does not teach fundamental computer skills; students who would like to enroll for the course, but lack computer skills can gain the necessary skills in classes offered by the computation center and the library. Students should be able to handle basic word processing, email, Web searches. They should be familiar with disk and file management including formatting, copying, and saving files to a disk.

The CWRL classroom:

This course is held in a CWRL networked computer classroom, which offers a variety of resources for constructing projects, researching topics, and communicating with each other and with other researchers.

Please note: Basic computer skills are not taught in this course. Students should be familiar with keyboarding, copying and saving files to disks, word processing, and sending and receiving email. Students are required to have a computer account with both email and web posting privileges. There will be a self-paced tutorial available for students new to web authoring.

I enjoy meeting with students to discuss your thoughts, concerns, and questions about the class. Please feel free to stop by my office during office hours, or email me with questions or suggestions for the class.

Grading Policy:

Grades in this course are determined on the basis of an Online Learning Record (LRO), which accompanies a portfolio of work presented at the midterm and at the end of the course.These portfolios present a selection of student work, both formal and informal, completed during the semester, ongoing observations about student learning, and analysis of student work and interpretations with respect to the student's development across five dimensions of learning: confidence and independence, knowledge and understanding, skills and strategies, use of prior and emerging experience, and reflectiveness. This development centers around the major strands of work in the course: rhetoric and composition, research, technology, and collaboration. Please review the information at the LRO web site carefully.

Please note: All assigned work, including informal writing, proposals, rough drafts, finished projects, peer critiques, the midterm LRO and final LRO must be completed and submitted on time to receive a passing grade in this course. Except under extraordinary circumstances, there will be no incompletes in this class.

Attendance: This class is highly collaborative. When you miss class, the class also misses you. My absence policy is that four absences result in a failing grade for the course; three absences result in a reduced grade for the course. Arriving late, after the start of class, usually (but not always) signaled by a bell, or leaving early count for one-half an absence.

Students with disabilities: I will make every attempt to support your work in this class. The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic adjustments for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471.6259, 471.4641 TTY.