English Department - University Of Pennsylvania

English 800.301
Teaching of Literature and Composition
James English profile

T 12-3

Our primary aim in this course is to facilitate good teaching in English 3 and in your subsequent, self-structured English Writing classes. A good deal of the preparation and discussion for English 800 will thus be directly keyed to what you are doing in English 3, and in particular to the teaching of writing. I will visit your class twice, look at papers you have graded, and meet with you to discuss your teaching. I will also consult regularly with the two graduate-student mentors about how the English 3 classes are going, and modify 800 accordingly. Our secondary, and not unrelated, aim is to work out some broader cultural and pedagogical issues connected with the journalistic fetishes of "scandal" and "controversy," the notion of a "culture war," and the new pedagogical imperative to "teach the conflicts." In what ways are these conflicts or wars being misrepresented, misdiagnosed, mistaught? Can we abandon the paradigm of "controversy" without capitulating to some false utopia of consensus or of discourse untainted by violence? Toward this aim, we will be reading a number of essays by theorists of education and pedagogy, and staging a mini-conference on "Controversial Approaches to Pedagogy / Pedagogical Approaches to Controversy" in two sessions at the end of the semester.

Requirements and Grading

On the schedule, below, you will see three categories of assignment for each of our class meetings: Teaching Prep, 800 Prep, and Presentations. In the final weeks of the semester, Presentations will take the form of Conference Papers and Spring Syllabi.

Teaching Prep simply lists the main things you will need to have done before teaching English 3 that week. (For those of you teaching MWF, this obviously will need to be done before our class even m.)
800 Prep refers to the additional materials that you should prepare for our discussion. I have kept these assignments light, out of recognition that teaching a good English 3 will in itself require much of your time and energy this term. But keep in mind that English 800 is a two-CU graduate seminar, most likely the only seminar you will take on pedagogy, rhetoric, and composition studies: very important fields to have gained some mastery over before you enter the job market.
Presentations will be chosen by sign-up sheet the first or second class meeting. Each of you will do one 15-minute presentation during the first 10 weeks of the semester. These presentations are geared to the upcoming week in English 3, and you should aim in them to provide background information, bibliography, handouts, and any other materials that might be helpful to your fellow teachers. The idea is to share the labor of preparation by assigning one student each week to do most of the library research and other legwork for that week's teaching. Keep in mind that these presentations do not need to be flashy or impressively sophisticated; they should be down-to-earch, classroom-oriented, helpful.
In addition to your teaching-materials presentation, you will also be presenting a 15-minute conference paper on any topic hat could fit under the typically broad and vague rubric "Controversial Approaches to Pedagogy / Pedagogical Approaches to Controversy." You should treat this as an actual conference paper; pursue a topic that genuinely interests you, and don't worry too much about achieving a perfect fit with the putative conference title. My hope is that most of you will present these papers at actual conferences over the next year, thus gaining some useful professional experience and a line on your CV that reflects your serious engagement with pedagogical questions.

Your final presentation of the term will be a quick run through your spring syllabus. It is difficult to prepare a spring syllabus when you are in the midst of your fall teaching, but this is what we all have to do as teachers. Everyone will profit, I think, by seeing what the others are planning to do in their courses.

Grades for English 800 will be based on how well you accomplish all of this required work as well as on my assessment of how responsible and effective you have been as a teacher of English 3.

Books, Films, Bulkpack

BOOKS FOR ENGLISH 3 have been ordered through the Penn Book Center. You should receive desk copies of these:
BOOKS FOR ENGLISH 800 have also been ordered though the Penn Book Center. You should purchase these:
FILMS for English 3 will be shown on ResNet at the locations listed here:
- Kids
- Do the Right Thing
BULKPACKS for both courses will be available from Wharton Reprographics.

Schedule

Note that while the five units of the course as indicated below correspond to those on the English 3 syllabus, our own readings and preparations for English 800 tend to run ahead of this schedule by about a week. This is especially evident in the early weeks of the term, since we will be meeting twice--on Aug 29 and Sept 2--before the English 3 semester officially begins.

You can take shortcuts to: unit 1, weeks 2-3 (Conrad) | unit 2, weeks 4-6 (Heather, Culture Wars) | unit 3, weeks 7-8 (Kids, Right Thing) | unit 4, weeks 9-10 (Santiago) | unit 5, weeks 11-13 (Rushdie)

Introductions: Aug 28, Sept 2

Aug 28 (2:15-5:00)

Teaching Prep: Modify the master syllabus as appropriate for your class. (Note that it is a Tuesday/Thursday syllabus. If you are teaching MWF, you will need to decide how to space assignments, discussions, and workshops across three sessions a week.) Use the first class meeting, Sept 4 or 5 to go over syllabus, grading and attendance policies, goals and expectations, portfolios, and email/listserv/web page basics. Some suggestions and guidelines can be found on the master syllabus. Establish some ongoing writing assignments -- e.g., listserve posts (1/2 class every Monday by 5PM, 1/2 class every Wed by 5PM) with a 300-word maximum, in response to some discussion question(s) that you provide each week. You can save these posts in separate file folders for each student and review them with the final portfolios. Set aside 15 minutes of the first class meeting for a diagnostic writing exercise such as a one-paragraph self-characterization focusing on literary or artistic background and interests. Use these to get a rough sense of where your base line is, as well as to learn something about your students and to begin matching names to faces. Get started reading Heart of Darkness. 800 Prep: Go through all the pages of this syllabus and make a list of questions or concerns. Make a note to put Satanic Verses on your 50-book list. Read through the writing handbook and diagnose your own weaknesses regarding grammar, syntax, and punctuation. Do you know whether commas and semi-colons go on the inside or outside of single quotation marks? double quotation marks? Do you know when to use "whom"? Do you know the difference between "that" nd "which"? Can you identify a dangling participle or misplaced modifier? All of these problems, and many others, will come up in your students' papers. If you are shaky on these sorts of things, as I certainly was when I started teaching freshman English, now is the time to start working on them. Jack Lynch's Resources for Writers and Writing Instructors and his Grammar and Style Guide can be useful references for you as well as your students. Discussion: Goals and agenda; master syllabus and individual modifications; things to do in your first class meeting; diagnostic writing and two paradigms of composition pedagogy (correcting errors vs fostering confidence and creativity); striking the right balance of freindship/professionalism. Presentations: None

Sept 2

Teaching Prep: As above. Read Heart of Darkness 800 Prep: As above. Discussion: Heart of Darkness; teaching literature and teaching writing. How to get started. Presentations: None