Kate Eickmeyer, Baruch WAC Fellow, 4 April 2019
What is the Teacher’s Guide to First-Year Writing?
The Teacher’s Guide is an instructor-facing set of resources for teaching 2100/T and 2150/T edited by Baruch’s writing program leadership and WAC fellows and featuring the work of Baruch faculty. It’s intended to be a polyvocal, flexible toolbox of methods, resources, and vocabularies that instructors can use to develop, revise, rethink, and enhance their first-year writing courses at Baruch.
Where do I access the Teacher’s Guide?
https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/writingteachersguide
Who is the Teacher’s Guide to First-Year Writing for?
The Teacher’s Guide is for all writing faculty, both first-time instructors and full-time veterans, regardless of whether they’re developing a course for the first time, are considering ways to enhance or revise courses they’ve taught for a long time, or just want to engage with Baruch’s lively, ever-changing world of writing pedagogy.
How does the Teacher’s Guide relate to Join the Conversation? Is it like an instructor’s manual?
The Teacher’s Guide is an instructor-facing compliment to Join the Conversation, but it’s a menu, not a manual. The Teacher’s Guide offers a variety of pedagogical approaches, syllabi, readings, assignments, and exercises that work well with Join the Conversation, but it’s arranged in modules so faculty can choose the materials that interest them individually. The materials on the website work with the reader and are consistent with current departmental guidelines and recommendations, but they aren’t necessarily tailored precisely to the reader because it’s so new. If you choose to adapt assignments and syllabi from the Teacher’s Guide for your own courses, we suggest consulting the dedicated section on “Using Join the Conversation” under “Pedagogy and Methods” for direct help with integrating the reader into your syllabus.
What does the Teacher’s Guide have to offer me?
Under “Assignments,” you’ll find assignments Baruch instructors have successfully used in their courses, arranged according to the recommended three-part assignment sequences for 2100 and 2150. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find lower-stakes assignments as well.
Under “Sample Syllabi,” you’ll find exactly that, for both 2100 and 2150. There’s also a link to a set of recommended Baruch-specific boilerplate provisions on course policies, plagiarism, participation, etc. These sample syllabus provisions aren’t meant to prescribe the substance of your course, but to offer you a convenient set of policies consistent with departmental standards so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and you can spend more time developing the creative and substantive components of your course.
“Assessment Strategies” offers resources for grading, including detailed rubrics, time-saving strategies, and theoretical perspectives for inspiration on how to approach evaluating student work.
“Pedagogy and Methods” begins with materials on using Join the Conversation in your course, including links to PDF versions of the materials from this symposium. It also features a nascent collection of reflections by Baruch faculty on a variety of topics related to pedagogy and methods.
“Key Terms” provides definitions of significant terms in composition and rhetoric that are useful both to know and to teach your students. The aim of this section is to create a common vocabulary for talking about writing at Baruch that students can use to name various aspects of the process and can transfer to conversations with multiple faculty members and other students.
“General Info” is an index of links, recommendations, and materials for some of the more practical necessities of teaching first-year writing at Baruch. If you have questions about Baruch, the writing program, the library, or the department, this section offers some convenient answers.
Can I contribute to the Teacher’s Guide?
Please feel free to submit your assignments, syllabi, pedagogical perspectives, and suggested readings to Seth, Lisa, or Kate. We’re maintaining this as an edited collection to keep the content to a user-friendly size and scope, but we welcome your submissions and want to represent a variety of voices.
Will the Teacher’s Guide be updated?
Yes. We will periodically add to and update the materials on the site to keep them culturally and bureaucratically current. As more faculty incorporate the reader into their 2100/T courses, we will add more sample assignments and syllabi tailored to the reader.