Composition Reading Group: Selecting Readings

What would you like to read in the spring? During December and January, I hope to be able to settle upon a book to purchase for our group, and I am turning to you for your input.

As you know, this brown bag group will meet monthly to discuss a pre-selected chapter from one of our texts. This group may also occasionally host guest speakers/facilitators, such as representatives of the Learning Center and Feinberg Library.

We should be able to get copies of the St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing (6th Ed.) for free; so, if people are interested in this volume, that would involve little more than contacting our Bedford/St. Martin's representative, Lori Butcher.

I would, however, also like to order for each of you a copy of one of two books that have been mentioned as possible texts for our group:
(1) John Bean's Engaging Ideas
(2) Donald Murray's The Craft of Revision (5th Ed.) (Thanks for the recommendation, Greg!)

In posting this blog entry, I am initiating a specific conversation on which of these three books you would like to have our group read. As your "vote," I would like those of you who can during late December and early January to provide a brief, written position on which of these books you'd like to have our group read. In formulating your position, I would like you to consider how these books and their tables of address our proposed meetings' themes.

Our proposed meetings' themes include the following:
(1) students’ acculturation to college,
(2) using computers to teach writing,
(3) how to teach analysis and support critical thinking in ENG 100 and 101,
(4) how to teach students not to plagiarize,
(5) how to teach students argumentation,
(6) how to work with the Learning Center and Feinberg Library in teaching writing at Plattsburgh,
(7) how to teach revision
(8) how to differentiate instruction to accommodate diverse learners

The tables of contents for these texts are located at the following sites:

Bean (when you get to this page, click on the "look inside" feature)
Murray
St. Martin's Guide

I have for your perusal a copy of each of these books in my office on the bookshelf immediately to the right of the front door.

I am really excited about this group, and I thank you in advance for any thoughts you have on these proposed readings. Again, if you could share your thoughts by early to mid January, this will enable us to get started perhaps in the second week of spring.

In the meantime, thanks again for all of your hard work, and please have a great, much-deserved break.

Tom

First post

I decided I would create a blog about my experiences of working as a First Year Writing program coordinator at SUNY Plattsburgh, a position that begins in Fall 2008. I have never blogged before, but when my friend Kati suggested that I ought to consider blogging upon moving from MN to NY, this seemed the right thing to do. It seemed, mostly, a place where I could be exploratory in trying to figure out my new position's demands while also being systematic--actually doing data collection of the experience that seemed manageable during what would obviously prove to be a very challenging, unpredictable, exciting time. In the past, I had decided against creating a blog because I did not want to be watched; as I like to say, I still get great satisfaction out of and find necessary pulling my wires out, being off the grid, etc. I guess you could call it paranoia, too, but it's more than that. In any event, blogging felt right as a means of uncovering the meaning of the experience of working s a FYW program coordinator.

So today, I am throwing down the gauntlet. Here it is.

I have another, more concrete reason for doing it today. I will be going to the Council of Writing Program Administrators' summer workshop for new and continuing WPAs--an event that takes place between 7/6 and 7/9 in Denver, CO, this year. I decided to go to this event at the recommendation of two WPAs and mentors of mine at the University of Minnesota, Drs. Tim Gustafson and Thomas Reynolds. When my chair at Plattsburgh, Dr. Tom Morrissey, said he could fund my attendance at this meeting, I quickly signed up. I hoped it would help me develop a map of sorts for the work I'd soon be doing.

I still have that hope today, and it is why I am writing this now. At Denver, I hope to learn a lot, and I will use this blog as a place for recording my perceptions of the experience as it unfolds.

I have gotten started on my map by reading Brown and Enos's The Writing Program Administrator's Resource, and this has been helpful. I hope the workshop will help me extend that map.

Well, that is all for now.