Below are some additional thoughts about Grading and Peer Review, Grammar and Style, General writing resources, and Online resources. This is just a brief taste of our composition program. I would be delighted to discuss any parts of this further. Please just email me: Sara.Jameson@oregonstate.edu.
Peer Review
Peer Review (or "Writing Groups") take different shapes for
different GTAs. Some do peer reviews after conferences; others do it
before. Some get students into groups of 4-5 and have everyone review
everyone else's paper in class; others use smaller groups, and/or a
take-home letter combined with a brief in-class peer conference. Experiment
with methods until you hit upon one that works for you. Since classes
have different personalities, it can even be useful to choose your peer
review method based on your class's personality (or let the class vote
on its own peer review method!).
Peer Evaluation Guidelines: Could be used for an in-class or a take-home peer review
In-Class Writing Group Worksheet: Though tailored to the argument paper, this worksheet could easily be adapted to other units.
Guidelines for writing Peer Review letters: Basic guidelines for a take-home peer review letter, including a sample excerpt from a letter.
Guidelines for Peer Review and Conference Commentaries: A sample guideline sheet for the commentaries students write after the peer review and conference processes and turn in with their portfolios
Sample Peer Review Commentary: A sample of a commentary a student might write after a peer review (to be included in the portfolio).
Writing Group Experience Evaluation: An extensive feedback sheet that could be useful to you, and used in lieu of a peer review commentary
Peer Review Checklist: A basic checklist for the peer review process. Unfortunately, in a non-manipulable file format
Grading
As a GTA, you'll undoubtedly be placed in the position of giving a
student his or her first sub-par grade--a fun experience for neither
of you. In grading, it's useful to remember that you'll almost always
have a few D's and F's in a stack, and that you certainly won't have
all A's. Be fair; consider students as individuals, and challenge them
to improve as individual writers. At times, it may feel as if you are
holding different students to different standards. Know that this is
something every teacher struggles with. As students start to understand
that you're truly there to make them better writers, they won't lose
interest in their letter grades--but if you're lucky, they'll start
to care about more than that.
Scoring Guide: Students tend to put too much emphasis on letter grades as it is, and the scoring guide at least breaks the grading process into manageable parts for you, and understandable parts for them. Be sure to go over it in class before assigning the first paper.
Why Revision Doesn't Guarantee a Higher Grade: List of ten reasons a student doesn't automatically get a better grade when he or she revises, along with two reasons this isn't anything to be bummed about. This is a great sheet to hand out to students before a first conference, and an excellent chance to
Portfolio Grading Sheet: This is a grade sheet that can be included
with a portfolio--a little more thorough than the standard rubric.
Teaching Grammar
WR121 is not a grammar class; we go in with the assumption that student
writing will be relatively free of serious grammar and punctuation mistakes.
However, as you already know if you've looked at a set of WR121 papers
before, this is not the case. Though grammar certainly shouldn't be
the main focus of the class, many GTAs integrate grammar mini-lessons
at the beginning of each class, or on an as-needed basis. Many students
find it empowering to learn the difference between "who" and
"whom," or how to use a semicolon correctly--or they find
that as college writers, they suddenly care about these things for the
first time.
Five Tips for Teaching Grammar: From a past GTA.
Comma Worksheet: A worksheet that covers the major usages of the comma. Can be useful to do in groups, then discuss as a class.
Grammar Your Students Probably Won't Know: A list of lesson ideas from a GTA who kept track of her students' grammar/punctuation mistakes.
Grammar Inventory: Want to find out what your students don't know so you know what grammar lessons you might want to do? Give them this the first week and see what you learn.
Punctuation Made Simple: A great web source with lots of useful ideas and activities for teaching grammar.
Grammar Quiz: A short quiz that covers some grammar basics.
MLA Style
Here's what students will say they find frustrating: every teacher
seems to want a different form of citation from them! Thus, early on,
it's important to explain that you understand this frustration, and
also to explain the relative universality of MLA. Furthermore, let students
know that you don't expect them to memorize it (unless you do), but
that you do expect them to get it right in their papers. It's a form
of communication, after all--a way of letting a reader know what their
sources are, and ultimately, a way of asserting the credibility of their
evidence. Students tend not to resist MLA once they understand the reason
behind it--that it's essentially a form of communication between academics,
as opposed to a meaningless formality contrived to torture them!
Purdue Online Writing Lab, MLA Style: a really useful web source with many handouts, lessons, etc. explaining MLA.
MLA Citation Quiz: A very thorough quiz on different aspects of MLA style. Could be used in groups, with or without notes, depending what you want students to be able to do.
Works Cited Handout: A concise handout on how to make a works cited page.
Webster on MLA Style: Another website worth consulting.
This is a bank of writing resources that don't pertain specifically to one unit or another in the class. Many of these can be used as student handouts or activities; others may be useful as lecture notes.
Academic Writer's Checklist: A great writing checklist that focuses on conventions as well as content. Perfect for handing out to students.
Reading Responses: In order to help students look closely at the essays they read in class, it can be helpful to assign a few (or many small) reading responses. The goals of this exercise are to facilitate student understanding and improve the quality of class discussion.
Invention and Brainstorming Exercise: All too often, we expect students to write brilliant papers without giving them the tools to come up with brilliant ideas. Many sit down at their computers and begin writing without any kind of listmaking or preparation. This fabulous exercise takes students through three methods of brainstorming and allows them to work individually, in pairs, and as a class.
Dramatistic Pentad Brainstorming Exercise: Don't be fooled by the fancy name--this is a very useful and straightforward way to explore the characteristics of an idea or topic. Works well on groups, individually, or even as a whole class,
Cubing Brainstorming Exercise: Another method of exploring characteristics of an idea or topic.
Paper Presentation Guidelines: A how-to sheet for students; this GTA used five-minute in-class presentations in lieu of a paper for one of the units. Alternatively, some GTA's make presentations extra credit, or require them in addition to a (shorter) paper.
How Students Enter an Academic Conversation: A thorough chart that breaks student writing into four levels along the criteria of engagement (use of evidence, challenging ideas, constructing meaning), relevance, and credibility. May be useful for students to see, but likely more useful for you to look at in deciding what you expect of students and what your goals are in teaching the course.
Ten Commandments of Good Historical Writing: Designed to apply to history, but most are directly applicable to WR121 as well.
Final Process Memo: This can be included with the last portfolio. It gives a chance to reflect on their writing for the class, and also may give you a sense of how helpful different sections of the course have been for your students.
Short Library Session Quiz: This can be used after the library sessions, to make sure students weren't just checking their e-mail and playing Solitaire. If you decide to give it, be sure your librarian actually intends to cover all of this.
Summary of Formal Essays: An "Assignment Overview" sheet
can be useful to give out to students early in the quarter so they get
a sense of what's coming. This one covers Analyzing a Text, Exploring
on an Idea, and Arguing a Position.
Some teachers are more web-savvy than others, but it's generally fair to say that many of your students will be more web-savvy than you! Requiring occasional work online, or even constructing an incredibly basic website for your class can sometimes prove a useful resource. Know, too, that all students have web access at school, even if they don't at home; provided you give then a couple days' lead time, it's certainly fair to ask your students to to work online, go to a particular website, etc.
Here are just four of the many online resources available to aid in the teaching of WR 121:
Valley Library's WR 121 Resources page
provides the library workbook and directions and other tips. Each term,
the WR 121 class meets with a librarian for a more intensive introduction
to library research. The librarian will meet with the TA before the
library session to go over approaches and material to be covered.
2. Blackboard
Blackboard, OSU's online teaching module, provides a site for each class that TA's teach. This allows TA's to easily contact their students via a class email list and to post syllabus and course information, assignment directions and external links to facilitate the classroom learning. Blackboard also has a discussion board feature for posting questions for response. Some TA's like to use the Blackboard grading feature as well.
OSU's Technology Across the Curriculum (TAC) department provides many
workshops on learning Blackboard. Check here for upcoming dates. http://oregonstate.edu/tac/index.php
In addition, during near the start of each term, the English department
offers a Blackboard Quickstart workshop to cover the basics.
In addition, TA's have a site on Blackboard where they can find many resources for teaching on the WR 121 Community Resource site on Blackboard, which is continually expanding.
Guests can preview Blackboard and the Community Resource site by clicking
on Blackboard and logging in as "Guest." Once the page loads,
click the orange "Community Tab" at the top. In the Organization
Search box at upper left, insert the following <ID org_159019_YEAR2006>
and click GO. When the WR 121 Community Resources appears, click Preview.
3. OSUWrite Blogs
OSU has a pilot program through the TAC program providing blogs for instructors to use in teaching their courses. To sample some of the pilot blogs, click here. The TAC office assists instructors in setting up and maintaining the blogs, using various software such as Moveable Type.
Or you could use Blogger to set up your own blog at http://www.blogger.com or read about what a blog is and how you might use one at the Blogger Tour
4. Online Writing Labs and other resources
For an idea of some good online resources, just go to the English department's resources page which includes links to Online Writing Labs (OWLs) and citation sites.