What to Expect in Chatham's First Year Writing Seminar
ENG105: First Year Writing Seminar is one of two classes that every Chatham student is required to take. As the foundation for their college writing career, this class, led by English and Creative Writing faculty members, provides the groundwork for research, citation, sentence structure, and paragraph formation. And beyond that, students often find this class to be a source of community and comfort in the midst of their first year transition. During all the planning to keep campus safe and healthy in Fall 2020, we caught up with Assistant Professor of English and Coordinator of First Year Writing, Dr. Carrie Tippen to discuss students’ options for course delivery, coursework highlights, and more. Check it out—
Professor of English, Dr. Carrie Tippen
What are students’ options for course delivery in the ENG105: First Year Writing Seminar?
Carrie Tippen: Students have three different ways they can take this class. We have a fully online delivery option which we've been running for three semesters now. In this class, there are still bi-weekly deadlines but there are no synchronous Zoom or in-class meetings. Next we have the virtual delivery option, which includes some synchronous zoom meetings with small groups. It'll be very similar to the on-ground class, but you'll be doing classroom activities through Zoom. Some activities will be done on your own in Brightspace, and some of them will be with the class on Zoom. Finally, we have the in-person classroom delivery option. We will meet with de-densified classrooms. All ENG105 sections have about 20 students, so we'll divide them into groups of 10. One day a week, your group of 10 students will meet in the classroom for an on-ground experience. The next class session will be with the other 10 students. In the meantime, there will be other online requirements. The only major difference between the on-ground experience and the virtual experience is when you meet with your group and where.
Are these options split up by section?
CT: Yes. We're hoping that if you're the kind of person who wants that Zoom experience, you are sure to register for a session that will be held virtually. First year students should have received an email letting them know what they are currently registered for and to give them some time to consider the options and choose the right section for them. They have until the add/drop deadline to choose which of those deliveries is going to work best for them.
The other thing I would add is that it is first year writing. It does not have to be first semester writing. If a student is concerned or can't find a seat in the method that they most want, there will be sessions in the spring and in the summer. There are a plenty of good reasons to wait to take this class. The stakes can be high in the first semester and students might find more success if they wait. I want to make sure that students know that this is a viable option that they can discuss with their academic advisor.
Is there any cap on how many students can be in a section?
CT: The cap is 20 for each class. If a class is full, they're not going to be added to it. That’s why it’s important that students select the best option for them.
what ARE the intended learning outcomes for this class and have they shifted at all given the pandemic?
CT: English 105 is a really important course. It's the foundation for all of the other writing that students will be doing, no matter what their major is. The things that they learn in this class for research, citation practices, sentence structure, and paragraphing are all transferrable to other courses. Our learning outcomes have always been very general education focused. Writing is of course the number one learning outcome. But we also have learning outcomes about information literacy, which helps ensure that students understand how to use the library resources, and about academic integrity, which includes practices for citation and how to avoid plagiarism. The only one that has changed a little is the oral presentation/oral communications learning outcome. That has always been fulfilled by a student standing in front of the class and giving a speech. This isn’t going to work right now, even for the on-ground classes. We usually do that at the end of the semester, and in these COVID-19 times, we're going to be doing it virtually across campus.
We've had good success already with the online version, even before COVID. We would do a pre-recorded presentation where students would create a visual aid and then record their voice over that visual aid. This term we're going to be doing that across all the sections. Now that we live in a world where it’s more common than ever to give a presentation on Zoom, it seems like a really good skill [to have].
HAVE YOU made any adjustments to the curriculum for this semester?
CT: It's nearly identical. The only thing that we're changing up is how we organize a class session. Now that we're only getting one 75-minute synchronous session per week, we have to think about what's most important for students to do while an instructor is there. We're taking on a flipped classroom model, which is well accepted as a pedagogically sound strategy for active learning. In this model, homework and classwork are flipped. Instead of getting a bunch of information from the teacher in the classroom, they're getting that information online. Their online work will include activities like reviewing a PowerPoint of instructions, reading articles, and participating in online discussions about their readings. The in-class session is going to be a guided practice of writing skills. A lot of what we’ll be doing in both virtual and in-class sections is giving students time to write based on a prompt or to revise their work based on an activity that's in front of them. We are focusing on how we can use those synchronous times to have the guidance of an expert writer in the room.
How are you planning to help mitigate any anxiety that first year students may be feeling right now?
CT: I know that they're going to [have anxiety]. One way to mitigate it is through choice. Maybe you’re the kind of person who needs someone to look them in the face and say, “Where is your work?” Maybe for your health, or the health of people that you love, you need to be a little bit distant but you still need someone to check on you once a week. Maybe you need more flexibility because you're caring for other people during the daytime hours. I think choice is the number one way of helping students mitigate that anxiety. You have control over how you want to take this course. The second way that we're going to do that is through communication and transparency. This is something that we're really good at in English 105, as a program. We like to tell students what's going on. We let them know what choices they have and help them work through that. Plus, we have a long history of being hands-on. You have a lot of communication with your English 105 instructor. We often become the people that students call on for recommendation letters, because we're the instructors you get to know the best in your first year. We have small classes. We have a lot of feedback. Building on that strength in this time is going to be really important to help students feel like someone is looking out for them; that's going to be us, we're gonna do our part. I also plan to have a lot of breathing exercises and meditation. It's something I've done for a long time. When tensions are running high in the community or around campus, we often start class that way. I say, “Let's breathe a little bit, and cool down. Everything is going to be okay.” From the programmatic to the personal, we're gonna do our best.
If a student is struggling in your first year writing seminar, will they still have opportunities to work with you one on one?
CT: Yes. We’re calling them meeting hours instead of office hours, partly because they're not in offices. But also because there are a lot of studies that show that first year students in particular don't understand what office hours are, and thus don't feel comfortable using them. Each instructor is setting aside specific times where students can have those meetings virtually. There are also several sections that will have graduate teaching assistants; these individuals are excellent resources for one on one sessions. We invite students to make appointments for virtual meetings for anything they need, whether it's helping them come up with a topic to write about or looking over an early draft of their work. Maybe it's going over the feedback that they received and trying to understand it better. You don't have to be struggling to have a virtual meeting. You can also meet with us just to get clarification or to have accountability. Even if you're in the online-only section that doesn't have any Zoom meetings, you can still have a meeting with your instructor. We also have a good relationship with the Office of Academic and Accessibility Resources (OAAR) and the Writing Center. I would definitely encourage students to meet with them as well.
How do you hope to foster classroom community in a virtual space?
CT: I think it will actually be easier than in the classroom life that we have just left. When we had 20 students in the class, there were always some students who got to speak more and some students who chose to speak less. When we had in class writing time, there were students who always raised their hand and wanted someone to come look over their shoulder and there were students who never got that attention. I think it's going to be easier when we have two groups of 10. There are fewer students to share attention with. Students are going to get to know those 10 people pretty well, whether they meet in class or virtually. When they're not in the class, or in the virtual session, they're participating in online discussions with the full group of 20. Because of the nature of the class and the kind of writing that we do, students tend to get to know each other well. They share writing, they read each other's writing, they talk to each other about their writing, they write about their selves and their own identities.
What can first years look forward to in this class?
CT: They can look forward to having that one-on-one attention that they expect from a small school like Chatham. They're going to have personalized feedback from their instructors at every stage of the writing process. They're going to have that small group experience of 10 to 20 students. I think they can look forward to a little bit of normalcy from our class. It is not so different from how we would usually do things. I think they're going to see experienced instructors using their best tools to meet the challenges of the moment.
Thanks to Dr. Carrie Tippen for updating us on the ENG105 curriculum. If First Year students have questions regarding which course delivery option will work best for them, we encourage them to email their instructor directly.
