English 1000 - Instructor Guide

Section 2, Support

The University of Missouri, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the English Department provide many services to help instructors maintain healthy classroom learning environments. The most used services are discussed in this section.

2-1 The Supervisory System

Each instructor teaching a section of English 1000 is assigned to a member of the composition staff (the director, associate director, or one of the graduate students or non-regular faculty rotating through this staff assignment). Each staff member (sometimes called a liaison or coordinator) is responsible for eight or more instructors and should be the first to be contacted about problems, concerns or support. For new instructors, coordinators serve as mentors.

The supervisory system is designed to allow maximum interaction with and support of our composition faculty. The goal is not to make all English 1000 classes exactly alike, but to ensure that our various classes serve the same general purposes and that there is ample collegial discussion to introduce new teachers to local practice and to allow everyone to contribute to its gradual evolution.

Composition administrators must periodically deflect criticism that our program gives inexperienced teachers too much latitude in choosing texts and themes and in designing assignments. The supervisory system provides the Director and Associate Director a sense of what actually happens in courses they could not otherwise have knowledge of and allows a response: "Yes, we give our instructors great latitude, but we also monitor the result carefully and are prepared to help when things go wrong."

Coordinators will complete the following checklists each semester. Please respond reasonably quickly to their requests for information. Not all materials collected are permanently filed; you are welcome to look at your file in the composition office at any time and to add pertinent materials.

2-1a Checklist 1: Syllabus and Class Plan

1. Are basic information and course policies announced?

• Is contact information provided (office, phone, email)?
• Are office hours announced and are they held in the office?
• Is there a clear system for computing grades, including a scale with plus/minus?
• Are the consequences of absences and late papers addressed?
• Are there adequate warnings and information about plagiarism, and statements on accommodation for disabilities?
• Is the teacher planning to be in the classroom every class day?
• Have assignment sheets, or at least brief descriptions of all papers, been provided?

2. Do the assignments and course structure have the required features of an English 1000 course?

• Are there assignments that invite students to experiment with a given subject in different media? [Note: Ideally, at least one assignment calls for students to experiment with new media. When that's not possible, students can still be invited to contrast traditional media: oral and print deliveries or visual and verbal representations.]
• Are there papers on subjects about which people can reasonably disagree? [Note: Challenging assignments move students beyond pro/con arguments. Ideally, at least one assignment prompts students to use a set of criteria or identify their lens for addressing the question.]
• Are there at least three assignments that require sources other than personal experience? [Note: Ideally, at least one assignment calls for close examination of a limited number of sources.]
• Are there at least three assignments for which the instructor is providing substantive feedback in the drafting process? [Note: "Revision" and "invention" might be understood as two sides of a continuous process. The key point here is that writing faculty provide significant, retrievable feedback prior to the final submission.]
• Are peer reviews required for at least one paper?

3. Are there practices that (whether sound or unsound) frequently produce complaints?(1)

• No points assigned for revisable submissions.
• More than 10% of the grade determined by factors other than quality of writing?
• Points off for absences?
• Group projects that count more than 10% of the grade?
• Political, sexual, or religious/anti-religious material that might suggest to some students that the teacher is proselytizing rather than teaching composition.

2-1b     Checklist 2: Instructor's Teaching Record

1. How many times has this instructor taught English 1000?
2. What were the GPA(s) in the last semester taught?
3. If a GPA was above 3.2 or below 2.2, does the instructor have a comment or explanation?
4. Student evaluations from last semester taught:

• Any complaints about canceled classes or missed appointments?
• Any complaints about papers not handed back or not handed back on time?
• Any complaints about intolerance of students' identities or of ideas?
• Any glowing comments quotable in letters of recommendation?
• What was the average rating of the class?
• What was the average rating of the teacher?

6-1c     Checklist 3: Grading and Marking

(Based on a blind reading by the observer of two random papers and a look at the marked and graded version of the same.)

1. What grades did you assign the papers? What grades did the teacher assign?
2. Approximately how many words of commentary did the teacher give the student?
3. Did the teacher use handbook numbers or symbols in the marking? If not, how did he or she address usage problems?
4. If you were in the students' situation, would you find the commentary:

exceptionally clear . . . . clear . . . . unclear

complimentary . . . . balanced . . . . negative

5. Do you see any sign of plagiarism or misuse of sources?

6-1d     Checklist 4: Class Observation

1. What time did class begin and end?
2. How many students were present? How many absent?
3. How many participated actively (said more than a single sentence)?
4. Describe the content of lesson.
5. Describe or attach materials used (handouts, books, writing on the board, etc.) and collected (drafts, exercises, etc.).
6. By rough percentages, how was class time divided among teacher talk, student talk, and silence?
7. Did any students behave in ways that suggest they will have trouble managing themselves in class? Describe the behavior and the student.

6-1e     Checklist 5: Debriefing

(To be completed with or by the instructor.)
1. What can the composition office do better to help composition instructors?
2. Has your class this semester produced a success (an effective assignment, for example) or a failure you want to communicate to others?
3. Are there students with whom you are having particular difficulty? Who are they, and what can we do to help you help them or to be prepared for their complaints.

2-2 The Writing Lab

Located in 100 Student Success Center, the MU Writing Lab provides a host of services useful to composition instructors. Its tutors, English graduate students or upper-level undergraduates from the Honors College, can talk with students about any aspect of writing in any course that is not writing intensive. These tutors are available for 50-minute sessions, which are free of charge to any undergraduate. The lab also offers services through the Online Writery.

The tutors consult with students at any stage of their writing process, from understanding texts and brainstorming, to organizing, developing, and polishing final drafts. The lab offers workshops for students in grammar, punctuation, and sentence combining, as well as consultations on avoiding plagiarism by properly finding, using, and documenting outside sources.

When sending students to the lab, instructors should encourage them to take the assignment sheet and their draft. If available, an earlier draft with teacher comments can focus the session on the instructor's goals for the course. By discussing their written work with a trained tutor, students gain a new perspective on writing with clarity, accuracy, and audience-awareness.

At the beginning of each semester, tutors from the writing lab will contact composition instructors about visiting classes to pass out bookmarks and to give a short (5 - 10 minute) presentation about the services the writing lab provides. Instructors in other classes may request bookmarks and presentations. For more information, contact the director of the Writing Lab, Elaine Hocks, at 882-4420.

2-3 Counseling Center

The composition courses at the University of Missouri are typically among the smallest courses that students will enroll in as undergraduates. The environment in these courses often makes students feel more comfortable discussing personal problems with composition instructors than with instructors from other courses. At times, students may seek counsel and guidance from instructors that instructors cannot provide. After all, most of us are not trained counselors; providing psychological counseling is inappropriate, perhaps illegal, and maybe dangerous. Students who seek such guidance from instructors should be referred to the MU Counseling Center, 119 Parker Hall. Among the services the center provides are counseling in interpersonal relationships, personal growth and well-being, stress and time management, self-esteem, loss and grief, life planning, conflict resolution, concerns about sexuality, substance abuse, and the myriad challenges that confront students new to the university. For more information, the Counseling Center can be reached at 882-6601.

2-4 Academic Support Center

The Academic Support Center supplies audio-visual equipment for the university. Televisions, DVD players, video cassette recorders, overhead projectors and slide equipment, and video rentals are the services most requested by composition instructors. Arrangements for audio-visual equipment are made through Ginny Shestko at the Tate 107 front desk, or 882-6421. Audio-visual requests require at least 48 hours to fill. ASC has also set up several media classrooms on campus. Instructors may schedule these rooms with at least one week's notice.

2-5 Library Orientation/Instruction

The Ellis Library Reference Department offers library orientation sessions for English 1000 classes. There are two options available to instructors: the first is a basic library tour that is designed to familiarize new students with the library; the second is a tutorial held in the library's Electronic Classroom that introduces students to some of the library databases including MERLIN and InfoTrac. The orientation sessions are offered from the second through tenth weeks of the semester. The reference librarians will customize their instruction to focus on assignments in individual courses but also recommend some general instruction. The reference department encourages a two class period orientation/instruction where students get an orientation to the building plus an in-depth introduction to the MERLIN Library Catalog and Databases. To schedule a library orientation, contact the reference department secretaries at 882-4692. For more information on the orientation program, contact Goodie Bhullar at 882-9163.

2-6 Computer Use in English 1000

No sections of English 1000 are scheduled to take place in computer classrooms. Instructors sometimes make arrangements to have one or two class periods held in a computer classroom in order to provide specific instruction for students. If you are interested in such an arrangement, you may contact Dana Kinnison in the composition office who works with registration to see if a lab is available at the time you need it. Then instructors may fill out the request at DoIT's website to reserve the room.

Most courses, however, rely on some computing use. It is not uncommon for English 1000 courses to continue discussion begun in class on electronic listserves, or for courses to have syllabi, assignment sheets, or other resources available on the web. Some instructors also allow electronic submissions of papers. Computer classroom management programs like WebCT or, more popular on this campus, Blackboard, may be established by contacting Andrew White, Assistant Director of Educational Technologies at Missouri (ET@MO), at 882-1374 or WhiteAC@missouri.edu.

Students have access to approximately 600 computers spread over several free student computing labs. Computing labs are located in a variety of places, including several of the dorm clusters. Hours vary, so students will need to contact the sites individually. The computing labs in Arts and Sciences 10 and Physics 135, as well as Jones, Lathrop, and Laws Halls are open 24 hours.

2-7 Workshops/Brown Bags

The Campus Writing Program holds regular brown bag luncheons to discuss writing issues. For information on these luncheons, visit the Campus Writing Program.

2-8 Further Information

For more information on these programs and others see also the University's academic handbook, the Graduate School's handbook and calendar, and the individual departments discussed above.

(1) This is not meant as a list of forbidden practices. The aim is to give the director time to understand the instructor's practice before a complaint is made.

address: 107 Tate Hall, Columbia, MO 65211-1500
phone: 573.882.6421 | fax: 573.882.5785 | department email: umcenglish@missouri.edu

website email: englishweb@missouri.edu
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