September 2, 2021 Lesson Plan

Finalize Grading Contract (10-15 minutes)

 

**Go to Discord “# grading-contract-discussion” and offer any thoughts you have. It is under “Lessons.” Read below to offer thoughts and I will try to respond by Saturday.**

 

Let’s talk through the grading contract with attention to questions or revisions. I’m pulling from the survey that you completed for Tuesday night (Aug 31), but anything else is up for discussion:

  • How does Final and Midterm factor into grade? It factors in like everything else. Make sure you do the assignment in spirit it is asked to be done and make sure you do it on time.
  • I feel like “in order to get a A, extra work is required” could be confusing about one’s progress in course. I think this is in response to just a general “how do I know if I’m doing well or not?” sort of question. If so, you will get this from my comments on your writing (especially on the more formal, large assignments). You just won’t have a grade attached to those assignments.
  • What is a “Gimme/Plea”? Let’s go to the contract draft and I’ll talk through that. This just means that in a highly unusual circumstance, you can use this once a semester to come up with a long-term accommodation plan beyond things I might do at any time in short term. This is only really reserved for highly unusual moments where something affects you for multiple weeks.
  • For the extra assignments, I don’t think all of them should be worth just one grade unit. Go through each option and talk through what we think they should be worth. I think the lesson/activity one could arguably be worth more than 2. I don’t think the reflection replacement assignment is, because though it is more work, it also replaces an assignment that is a decent amount of work. Other thoughts or responses to what I write here?
  • I just don’t like how the default grade is B. Maybe it can be B+. I went with “B” as default grade because, generally speaking, doing the bare minimum equates to B in quality-based grades (sometimes a C, since C is technically supposed to be average). I’m open to talking more about this, though.

Any other questions? Any amendments?

Remember: we will revisit this again at midterm to make more adjustments if we need to.

 

**one more thing: for extra Reading/Listening Posts, you can email me when you do your two extra posts if you choose to do that**

 

More Democracy! Final Vote for Podcast (5-10 minutes)

 

**On Discord, go to “# podcast-second-round-vote” and make your case for any of the podcasts. Once ready, complete the second round vote by liking one of the podcasts that I have typed into the top of the thread.**

 

70 Million had 8 votes in first round vote

Nice White Parents had 4 votes in first round vote

The Promise had 2 votes in first round vote

Before we do our second round vote, would anyone like to make a case for any of these podcasts? Do you want to make an argument why it would be particularly interesting to spend time with the podcast and that topic.

Keep checking the schedule as I will incorporate podcast episodes as listening assignments. Also, now that I know the podcast, I will finalize the rhetorical analysis assignment (first draft due September 21) and will have that uploaded to Blackboard today or tomorrow (it will be in the September 21 Labor Instructions folder)

 

Labor Assignments Check-in (5-10 minutes)

 

**If questions, go to “# labor-assignments-questions” and ask them there.**

 

This is just written again from the Week 2 announcement email, but wanted to see if there are questions.

Labor Logs:

-fill them out right before you start working and right after you get done (the appropriate columns for each of these)
-split up assignments even if they occur during same block of time (e.g., if you work 10-12pm where you read annotation handout and watch linguistic facts video, you would still split this up into two separate entries)
-don’t forget to add duration. This can be easy to forget because it is something you do at end and can be easily overlooked. Duration is really important, as is engagement, because when we get a lot of labor data from filling in these logs we can compare averages for different tasks.
-Label work based on primary activity. For instance, even if some writing is involved in a task, it might be primarily writing (e.g., reading poem where you send me a brief message is more reading than writing).

Labor Posts

-As long as you are posting in the *middle* of your work session want you are having a pause or you deliberately stop for a break, you are good to go here. Do the minimum 25 words, talk about what you did + how are you are feeling about it.

 

Labor Journal Entries

focus more on *how* you did work, environment you did work in, how you felt at various moments rather than *what* content of work was. Tell me what you did for context, but the real value is how it went for you, how you felt, where you worked, what you learned from doing work during that moment for future work you might do.
-remember to read over questions to answer in Labor Journal instructions for the week.
-Here is a good example of above from a person in class:
This week’s labor session consisted of completing the August 30 assignment, particularly annotating the “Immigrant Can’t Write Poetry” piece, composing a response on Discord and watching a Linguistics Facts of Life Habitus video. This session made me feel quite anxious as I did not expect the assignment to be so long. Yes, the tasks were simple, however it felt like it was difficult not to miss the details. The part of this assignment I was most curious about was annotating the poem. I had many unique thoughts about “Immigrant Can’t Write Poetry” which I am excited to express during our class discussion next week. Overall, the intensity of this labor session was a 3, it was somewhat challenging to focus on a list of tasks. Working in a library was definitely the key to making the session as productive as it was. For the next time and beyond, I would advise myself not to do work right after class, as I believe that was the main factor that contributed to poor concentration. Overtime I wish to learn how to make labor sessions for this class more productive and how to manage the various types of tasks that are assigned. This week, I realized that it is not as simple for me to manage different kinds of work in one session. It is more familiar to me to do one kind of work at a time, for example just focusing on reading and annotating or just watching a video.

 

Languages, Identities, Rhetorical Chocies (30-40 minutes)

 

*Review this and we will talk about this in a future class.*

 

In the video I had you watch for Tuesday, I mentioned different “stances” people could take. There is:

  • Rhetorical Stance: knowing/communicating subject matter, making choices based on what audience finds pleasing or interesting, and making choices about how you present yourself in ways that the audience would find pleasing or desirable.
  • Pedant’s Stance: Putting more emphasis on the content you want to communicate and less attention on.
  • Entertainer’s Stance: Putting more emphasis on how you are presenting yourself.
  • Advertiser’s Stance: Putting more emphasis on doing things that would please the audience.

Questions on Stance:

  1. What stances does the speaker(s) in the poem “Immigrant Can’t Write Poetry” use? What makes you think that?–have at least 1 specific example from the poem
  2. What stances does Anzaldúa use in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”? What makes you think that?–have at least 1 specific example from the essay

Take 2 minutes and go back through annotations you made on both readings, skim through the readings themselves. Start to note what stands out to you as useful for answering the above questions. For 5 minutes, write in response to the two above questions.

Let’s share some responses in pairs and groups for 5-10 minutes.

 

So what?

I think these two readings display how many (all?) of us carry around with us several languages, but we might feel embarrassed or shamed into only using some of them in certain situations. What do we do with that shame? How do we balance that with goals we want to achieve with our words?

How do we get the most joy we can out of using the languages that we want to use?

How do we deal with stigma?

How much is up to us and how much should be up to readers/listeners?

What do we do with all of this in regard to writing we do?

 

Reading/Listening Post + Comment

Hopefully the Reading/Listening Post due by tonight at 11:59pm can be a start for thinking through these sorts of questions. You are also expected to post at least one comment on someone else’s post.

Give your best effort on this, I will comment on all of them by the weekend or early next week. This is very informal, “get your thoughts out” kind of writing. Please stay on track and complete this by Thursday night (September 2) 

 

Survey (20 minutes)

*This is postponed.*

Prof. Blankenship is here for the first of two surveys you will complete if you decided to participate in the study Prof. Blankenship told you about last week.

 

Close Out and Next Time (2-5 minutes)

-Our class infrastructure is pretty much set now! Keep yourself updated on schedule as I incorporate podcast episodes we will listen to over next 4-6 weeks. I will also finalize the Grading Contract and post it on Blackboard.

-We went through the tension of all of the languages we have, how we deal with stigma and joy, and how to deal with our goals as writers. An important problem we will have to consider throughout our lives. Who we are is always intermixed with what we say and write, whether we like it or not.

-We have no asynchronous work due on Tuesday, September 7 because it is a holiday and no classes are held at Baruch.

-For Thursday, September 9, I will have Labor Instructions posted by Saturday or Sunday of this weekend.