This section puts the IPFW composition program in context by describing, in general terms, the university and the students who study there.
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) was founded in 1964 to serve Fort Wayne and surrounding counties. Though many of its faculty have distinguished themselves as writers and researchers in their particular fields, IPFW sees quality teaching as its primary emphasis. The faculty is committed to offering a wide variety of degree and certificate programs and to facilitating student success through innovative classroom methods and out-of-class consultations. The university is especially proud of its student support services, which include: a state-of-the-art University Writing Center; the Center for Academic Success and Advancement (CASA), a full-service tutoring center; Helmke Library; Multicultural Services; The Center for Women and Returning Adults; a daycare center; Services for Students with Disabilities; and numerous computer classrooms and open labs (see Section 7).
As a regional campus, IPFW attracts most of its students from Indiana’s northeastern counties. Thus, it is in a somewhat anomalous position with respect to diversity. While it is considerably more diverse than its primary service area, it is much less so than the city of Fort Wayne proper. Approximately 15% of the city’s population is African American whereas only 5%, about 550, of our students are. So, too, with the Hispanic constituency whose 240 members make up only 2% of the students but about 6% of the city. There are also 150 international students who hail from as far away as Bangladesh, Malaysia, Angola and Russia. In addition, there are another 175 or so who are resident in Fort Wayne but immigrated from other countries. These include many Burmese, Vietnamese, and Macedonians.
Most enrollees are from working class backgrounds and graduated in the middle halves of their high school classes. Many are older, returning students (the mean age is 26, the median 25); most, 57%, are women; many have children and single parents are common; many are the first in their families to attend college; most work in addition to studying. Though the full-time student population has increased in recent years, about 40% of students attend the university on a part-time basis. Housing for over 500 students is scheduled to open in the fall of 2004 and this may change the makeup of the student body somewhat.
A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education was entitled, “Why Johnny Can’t Write Even Though He Went to Princeton.” This provocative title embodies two common errors. The first is the hyperbolic “Can’t Write,” which pretends illiteracy but is in fact merely shorthand for “doesn’t write in the particular genre and dialect we would like him to.” The second problem is more subtle: it is the assumption that going to Princeton in itself should guarantee writing skill.
These errors are countered by the writing program’s three basic underlying assumptions. The first is that good writing is a learned skill, the second, its corollary, that all students can become good writers, and finally, good writing is based on clarity of purpose, audience analysis and knowledge of the parameters of the requisite genre, not genetics, intellectual brilliance or the quality of one’ s high school grades.
Although the widely accepted commonplace is that writing well is a matter of talent, both logic and research indicate this is not true. There is no recorded case of a child springing from the womb with pen in hand. Children are taught to write, and as in any craft, some may expend more energy, some may like it better, but writing is learned nevertheless. Those who put their minds to it improve their writing, usually throughout their lives. Over the past half century, research in rhetoric and composition has identified what we now call the writing process and pedagogical research has developed and continues to develop a wide variety of means of teaching students to identify their own optimal processes.
Even though they vary with the individual, writing processes are identifiable and therefore learnable. In other words, it is possible not only for all students to develop writing skills but also to become good writers.
The appellation “good writer” is, of course, contingent on knowledge of the purpose of the writing, its intended audience, and the conventions of the appropriate genre. For example, whereas non-standard dialects and usages are often prized in imaginative literature, linguistic studies, popular song lyrics and everyday conversation, they are also usually considered inappropriate or are simply not understood in academic discourse and business or technical writing. To complicate matters, what is “standard” is changing constantly. Hairston’s study among others has shown that educated speakers of English either do not recognize or are unbothered by locutions and constructions once considered unacceptable in standard English. “Unique” has come to mean simply “unusual” no matter what sense of loss lovers of English language may feel. So, writing teachers must ever be aware that tomorrow’s good writer is likely to be much different from today’s as audiences, usages and genres change. We are eternally torn between being innovators and conservators.
This section describes the lower-level writing courses and the procedures the IPFW Composition program maintains to help place students appropriately.
The Testing Coordinator in Academic Counseling and Career Services administers to all admitted first-year students the computerized Accuplacer Reading and Sentence Skills tests developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS). Students may take the tests a second time but the resulting placement stands regardless of its relationship to the first. Students may also petition the Director of Writing for a different placement. Normally, they would be required to submit a comprehensive portfolio of recent work on which the placement decision would be based. On rare occasions, students are transferred to another writing course on the basis of faculty recommendation.
Non-native speakers of English are placed, on the basis of the Michigan test and an in-class essay, in our English as a Second Language (ESL) course sequence W115, W116, W130 ESL, and W131 ESL.
Based on the Computerized Placement Test, other students take a course or courses in one of the following groups to satisfy their first-year writing requirement.
· W130 and W131: (2 courses; 6 credit hours with only W131 counting toward graduation) - for students needing an extra semester of writing practice.
· P131 (writing practicum) and W131: (2 courses; 5 credit hours with all credits counting toward graduation) - for students needing extra support to complete W131. Students must take the 2-hour practicum concurrently with W131.
· W131: (1 course; 3 credit hours) - for students capable of fulfilling their first-year writing requirement with a single course and no additional class-based support.
Most students are required to take a second writing course as determined by their major. Our department offers the following courses to fulfill that requirement:
· W232: Introduction to Business Writing, required by Public and Environmental Affairs and Organizational Leadership and Supervision for some of their majors.
· W233: Intermediate Expository Writing (Writing in the Disciplines), required by most IPFW departments.
· W234: Technical Report Writing, required for degrees in the engineering technologies and computer science.
· L202: Literary Interpretation, required for English and Linguistics majors.
Detailed descriptions of W130, P131, W131, and W233 follow.
Currently, W130, a three-credit-hour course with a maximum enrollment limit of 18, does not count toward any IPFW degree. Its grade is figured into a student’s accumulated grade point average but not the final graduation grade point average. In order to take W131, students placed into W130 must earn a C or better.
Designed for students with severe writing problems or anxieties, this course focuses on the basic skills necessary to write in a variety of genres for both personal and public audiences: determining purpose, analyzing audience, highlighting main points, developing and supporting main points, organizing material, and proofreading.
Students compose drafts and revisions of shorter (1-2 page) texts early in the semester and longer (4-5 page) texts by the end of the semester. At least one longer text should be written for an academic audience. A total of 12-15 pages of “final,” polished writing is expected. (It is assumed that faculty using portfolio assessment will offer students the chance to select their best 12 pages of polished work from a larger collection.) Whenever possible, students will determine their own topics, purposes, and audiences. The critical-reading and informal research abilities (e.g., reflection, observation, interviewing) that contribute to effective writing are also stressed.
Primary goals, in bold, should appear in every instructor’s course syllabus.
1. Read critically and write clearly and persuasively in various rhetorical contexts. To achieve this goal, students will:
· Read and write in a variety of genres for distinct purposes and for a variety of personal and public audiences.
· For each text, practice the recursive stages of the writing process: inventing, drafting, organizing, revising, sharing, drafting again, revising, editing.
· Compose texts that are focused (through implicit and explicit theses or claims) and developed (through details, examples, comparisons, statistics, citing of authorities, and so forth).
· For at least one project and, as a means of developing and supporting their ideas, practice summarizing and paraphrasing material from published texts.
· For each text, practice different ways of organizing and arranging ideas and content that are appropriate for various rhetorical contexts.
· Show progress toward mastering conventions of usage, spelling, punctuation, diction, and sentence structure that affect clarity and credibility.
2. Apply methods of inquiry appropriate to various rhetorical contexts. To achieve this goal, students will:
· Generate information using a variety of heuristics (e.g., freewriting, brainstorming, clustering, cubing, etc.)
· Use primary research methods such as observing and interviewing and incorporate the results into their texts.
· Be introduced to Helmke Library and its services and use computer indexes and the Internet to gather secondary information for at least one text.
· Synthesize materials drawn from primary and secondary sources with their own ideas and experiences. (At the W130 level, documentation may be informal. That is, students may use signal phrases to cite information [e.g., According to President George Bush; In Planned Parenthood’s view; The April 3, 1997, issue of Academe reports that. . . .).
3. Demonstrate critical thinking ability. To achieve this goal, students will:
· Annotate, analyze, evaluate, and discuss a variety of student and professional texts, focusing primarily on rhetorical principles under study.
· Analyze problems or issues from a variety of perspectives, moving beyond either/or reasoning.
· Analyze and discuss in writing their own work through reflective memos and/or journals.
Students are placed into W130 for a variety of reasons: some have problems with reading; others have problems organizing or developing ideas, focusing along a single line of thought, and maintaining a consistent voice or style. Most have problems with usage or grammar (e.g., fragments, subject-verb agreement errors, dangling modifiers). The purpose of W130, then, is not only to acquaint the student with a variety of rhetorical principles (sharing in the central purpose of W131) but also to identify and address the particular problems of individuals.
Many W130 students need to develop successful learning strategies, study habits and time management skills. In addition, almost all W130 students suffer at the beginning of the semester (and sometimes throughout) from writing anxiety.
Current pedagogical scholarship suggests that students learn best when they are active participants in the learning process. From this perspective, the traditional lecture (where a teacher stands at the front of the room and delivers information) is one of the least effective instructional methods. Lecturing in a writing class is particularly questionable because writers learn to write by writing, by getting feedback from readers, and by analyzing and responding to texts written by peers and professionals. Although many writing teachers use brief “mini-lectures” on specific writing issues with great success, most often they rely on whole-class discussions, small-group activities, written feedback, and one-on-one conferences to help students develop as writers.
Because students who are placed into W130 frequently have not been encouraged to see themselves as writers or scholars, it is especially important for teachers to design activities and assignments that require students to do what “real” writers and scholars do. In addition to reading and writing various kinds of texts, students in W130 should be encouraged: to reflect on their reading and writing in journals or short in-class papers; to discuss their reading and writing with others (peers and instructor); to present their findings in class presentations; and, whenever possible, to determine the purposes, audiences, and genres for their writing. They should also be provided ample time to experiment with various invention strategies, to compose early risk-free drafts, to get feedback from peers and the instructor on these drafts, and to revise based on this feedback before being assigned a final grade.
Designing each assignment to build on the previous ones works well with students because they have the opportunity to see writing as a learning process, not just isolated skills. You may want to begin your assignment sequence with a reflective personal narrative to help ground students in completely familiar territory. Then design a research project that initially involves personal interviews, observation, and surveys but gradually moves to secondary research strategies. Each of these steps moves students from seeing their experiences as the “source” of knowledge to seeing how their experiences fit into a larger community.
The following is a list of possible W130 assignments for a variety of writing genres, purposes, and audiences:
· Write a literacy narrative describing your reading and writing journey from early childhood to the present
· Write a profile of someone you respect, describing that individual, your relationship to him/her, and examples of how this person has influenced your life.
· Write a letter to your high school newspaper describing a problem that you feel merits attention, and offer solutions.
· Write a review of your favorite movie or book.
· Write an editorial to a local newspaper, persuading readers to take a stand.
· Write a brochure or instructions sheet that informs your reader about a specific concept (succeeding in high school athletics, surviving marching band, surviving parents’ divorce, etc.) or informs your reader how to do a specific task (install car stereo, shop for the best computer/car/stereo equipment, close the restaurant you work at, etc.).
The following are classroom practices that enhance learning and build community for W130 students.
Small-Group Activities: Placing students in small groups to discuss the day’s assignment or to critique each other’s writing allows every student in the class to participate in a relatively risk-free forum. Also, students get to bounce ideas off others to insure maximum exposure to the topic before proceeding with the next step of the assignment. Possible small-group activities include:
· allowing students to brainstorm ideas for topics, asking each group or individual to report progress either in a full-class discussion or in a journal entry.
· asking students to exchange journal responses to an assigned reading and reporting to the class how their responses varied. (This report can include students’ experiences, questions, solutions to a problem, etc., depending on the purpose of the journal assignment.)
· preparing an overhead with a short sample of exemplary student writing and ask each group to write a list of observations about the writing. Then ask each group to form some “criteria” for good writing based on their observation. Write a list of common criteria on the board.
· asking students to pick an “uncomfortable” paragraph or group of sentences on a current draft of writing to paraphrase for clarity. In small groups, have students read the original and the revision for feedback.
· having a group of students “teach” an assigned handbook or textbook reading to the rest of the class.
Whole-Class Discussions: Whole-class discussions can help reinforce concepts and answer questions as well as provide students with the chance to practice and improve their public speaking abilities. Instructors can engage students in in-class discussions that focus on an assigned reading, a sample of student writing, parameters of a paper assignment, etc. These work best when the teacher takes the role of facilitator, posing questions, soliciting questions from students, and directing students to respond to one another. They tend not to work well when the teacher has a pre-set agenda and does most of the talking.
Journals: Asking students to write responses to reading assignments or reflections to course-related experiences helps reinforce what they are learning as writers. Journals can also be “counted” toward the course grade, which encourages student accountability for doing the out-of-class reading.
Students can
· respond to course readings in journal entries
· write reflections of progress on a writing project
· brainstorm ideas for an upcoming assignment
· discuss the successes and problems with the interactions of a collaborative group
Individual Presentations: Students can obtain valuable public-speaking experience by orally presenting their ideas to their peers. Such presentations can be formal (e.g., the student stands in front of the class and uses note-cards and visuals) or informal (e.g., the student sits at her/his desk and shares ideas from a journal entry).
Conferences: Conferences, either in groups or one-on-one with the instructor, change students’ perception of themselves as writers. As they begin to exchange ideas and relate to each other and the instructor as fellow writers in a non-evaluative environment, they become more willing to take risks and enjoy the camaraderie of other writers. Conferences can be scheduled according to your availability-some instructors do short, in-class conferences, others have 15-20 minute individual conferences in a designated location (office, library, union), and some hold group conferences, meeting with 3 or 4 students at a time. It is perfectly acceptable to periodically cancel a class session to allow time for conferencing with students.
Students with marginal (between W131 and W130) placements are required to sign up for a W131 course plus this two-hour practicum with a minimum enrollment of 22. Practicum instructors cover skills (e.g., critical reading, summary, paraphrase, idea development, in-text citation, critiquing their own and others’ papers, revising, proofreading) necessary for successfully completing any W131 class—regardless of the assignments and approach used in it.
The practicum should provide opportunities for students to apply what they are learning to the writing they are doing for their respective W131 courses. Practicum instructors should employ the same active-learning techniques recommended for W130 and W131. Students who participate in this two-hour practicum should therefore enjoy greater success in W131.
W131 is our standard first-year composition course required for all IPFW degrees. W131 is a three-credit-hour course with a maximum enrollment of 22.
This course assumes that students have had regular practice writing various kinds of texts (e.g., journals, letters, essays, stories, poems) for both familiar and public audiences. The course attempts to bridge high school and college contexts by beginning with a focus on the most familiar genres (journals, letters, memoirs, free-verse poems, stories, e-mails), audiences (family, friends, local community), research strategies (reflection, observation, interviews), and subject matter (personal interest, pop culture, local topics). The course gradually moves students toward less-familiar, more public genres (essays, reviews, reports, position papers, annotated bibliographies, fiction, plays, books), audiences (colleagues, fellow club members, scholars), research strategies (library, Internet, film, TV, radio), and subject matter (civic and cultural issues, disciplinary topics). Whenever possible, students determine their own topics, purposes, and audiences.
A Total of 15-20 pages of “final” polished writing will be required. (Again, the number of polished pages submitted for evaluation may depend upon the assessment method used.) Critical reading will be emphasized.
Primary goals, in bold, should appear in every instructor’s course syllabus.
Upon completion of W131, students should be able to:
1. Read critically and write clearly and persuasively in various rhetorical contexts. To achieve this goal, students will:
· Read and write a variety of texts for distinct purposes and for a variety of personal, public, and academic audiences. Written work should include several out-of-class texts and some in-class writing. Most out-of-class texts should be four-to-five double-spaced, wordprocessed pages and should include some type of research. At least one longer (six-to-seven page) academic, researched project should be assigned.
· Practice the recursive stages of the writing process (e.g., inventing, drafting, organizing, revising, editing) for each project, and become aware of the differences in the processes required for different texts.
· Develop and support a significant and insightful main point, or thesis, in all papers.
· Compose texts that are focused and well-developed through the use of details, examples, comparisons, statistics, citation of authorities, and so forth.
· Practice summarizing and paraphrasing material from a variety of texts as a means of developing and supporting their ideas. These texts should include both mid-level (substantial) periodicals and scholarly journals.
· Practice different ways of organizing and arranging ideas and content that are appropriate for various rhetorical contexts; experiment with different document designs by manipulating spacing, fonts, graphics, colors, etc.
· Demonstrate knowledge of usage, spelling, punctuation, diction, and sentence structure conventions.
· Practice revision strategies that will lead to greater stylistic maturity.
2. Apply methods of inquiry appropriate to various rhetorical contexts. To achieve this goal, students will:
· Generate information using a variety of heuristics (e.g., freewriting, brainstorming, clustering, cubing, etc.)
· Learn to use for specific purposes computer databases and indexes, printed indexes, document delivery services, and the Internet.
· Use primary research methods such as observing and interviewing and incorporate the results in their papers.
· Synthesize materials drawn from various primary and secondary sources with their own ideas and experiences.
· Move beyond mere reporting of information to make an original contribution to knowledge.
· Document researched writing using formats appropriate for their audiences and forums (most often APA or MLA).
3. Demonstrate critical thinking through the interrelated activities of reading and writing. To achieve this goal, students will:
· Annotate, analyze, evaluate, and discuss a variety of student and professional texts, focusing primarily on rhetorical principles under study.
· Analyze problems or issues from a variety of perspectives, moving beyond either/or reasoning.
· Analyze and discuss in writing their own work through reflective memos and/or journals.
Although the students placed into W131 should write reasonably well, their abilities and backgrounds will still vary widely. Some will have graduated recently from high schools where they took a writing course expressly for college-bound seniors, or they will have completed W130; others will have years of experience working at jobs in which they write extensively. Some will have made it through high school with as little writing as they could manage, and often without any intention of coming to college, and still others will have spent years out of school without writing more than an occasional personal letter. Some will thus have learned what they know principally from training; others from experience. The former may have to unlearn a few things (they may have been taught never to use first-person pronouns, for example), and the latter may need to be assured that they really are quite literate, even though they don’t know or remember all the terms of the trade.
Like students in W130, those in W131 will probably need to be taught strategies for learning how to learn. Some will be anxious about writing.
As with W130, a workshop approach is recommended for W131. Students learn best when they are engaged through discussion, group-work, in-class writing, and teacher-student conferencing. Support practices (e.g., journal writing, presentations, conferencing) should be tailored to meet the goals of W131.
The previous list for W130 (see section 3.3.5) can also be adapted for W131 students. Again, it is helpful to sequence assignments so that one builds on the skills practiced for another. The following is a list of additional W131 assignments that are tried and true.
· Research aspects of your potential career (education, law enforcement, health care, engineering, business, etc.) and write an informative report on education requirements, costs, and prospective job opportunities.
· Using the career report as a foundation, look into current “issues” that are being debated about your career choice, and write a problem-solving memo to someone in your field.
· Write a Summary and Response essay on a substantial article written about a topic of your choice (This assignment lends itself to preparation for integrating sources into the students’ texts, providing instruction and practice in critical reading, analysis, summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting).
· Write a collaborative report on a local issue (on campus or in the community) that involves informing the reader of all aspects of the situation, exploring solutions to problems, and presenting this information in a public forum for a specified audience. (This assignment involves both field research—interviews, surveys, questionnaires—and secondary research.)
· Write a thesis-driven researched paper on a topic of personal interest that aims to inform and persuade a specific audience that your conclusions about the issues are valid.
W233 is the second semester writing course required by IPFW departments and schools as diverse as Nursing, Education, Business and Biology. It is a three-credit-hour course with a maximum enrollment of 22.
3.6.1 General Description of W233
W233 faculty assume that students have developed their abilities to write focused, well-developed texts, for both familiar and public audiences, using a variety of informal and formal research techniques. Beginning with a focus on some of the public (academic, professional) genres, audiences, and subjects introduced in W131, this course will move students toward writing that requires thorough and sustained inquiry and analysis. Emphasis will be placed on formal research methods and documentation conventions introduced in W131. Students will be encouraged to investigate topics and issues that are both personally meaningful and publicly relevant. A total of 22-26 pages of “final polished writing will be required. (Again, the number of polished pages submitted for evaluation will depend upon the assessment method used.) Critical reading will be emphasized.
The following goals should appear in all W233 syllabi. Upon completion of W233, students should be able to:
· Form research questions and conduct independent primary and secondary research appropriate for answering these questions.
· Analyze, compare, contrast, and evaluate examples of different kinds of texts written for different kinds of academic and professional audiences.
· Employ, on their own, processes of inventing, drafting, revising, and editing suitable for various kinds of public writing.
· Write researched essays that are issue-oriented, focused, well-supported, appropriately organized, and properly documented.
· Demonstrate familiarity with mechanical and stylistic conventions of academic and professional discourses.
· Demonstrate an ability to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their own texts.
By and large, students who get this far are the survivors. They typically have the motivation to succeed in college and they have learned how to play the game. Nevertheless, there will be considerable variety in a given class. Many will have completed W131 the previous semester and thus will have their researched paper experience in that class fresh in their minds. Some of these students, however, will still be somewhat immature and will need extra help finding suitable topics, formulating research questions, and doing quality research.
There will also be third and fourth year students, including last semester seniors who have been postponing taking it for years. These will tend to be mature and motivated although a few may be resistant and convinced that the course is just a meaningless hurdle.
W233 is often taken by people returning to school after long absences or who are applying to a graduate program in a field that requires W233 for the undergraduate major. Such students may have great anxieties but will usually be a pleasure to work with because of their goal orientation and work ethic.
Increasingly, we are getting transfer students with W131 equivalent credits from other institutions such as those in the new community college system. Some of these students will be very weak and should a W233 instructor have one of them, it is certainly appropriate to suggest that he might take W131 even though he has transfer credit for it.
Finally, many international students take W233 and there are no ESL sections. Thus, writing instructors will often encounter their first non-native speakers in this course. Although some will still have huge problems with English and hence will struggle in the class, most will revise repeatedly until their papers reach the level they want. Instructors are encouraged to allow international students to revise as often as they wish.
For many students, regardless of background, the concept of knowledge creation will be very difficult and they will still have a powerful urge to write the kind of reports they did in high school. Instructors will have to fight this battle over and over and over.
W233 instructors rely on many of the same teaching methods used for the 100-level courses (see section 3.3.7), recognizing that students at this level typically do not need as much guidance and structure. For example, they will want to encourage students to go through a process of inventing, formulating a research question, researching, drafting, and repeatedly revising. Some of the most common supporting practices include journal writing that encourages students to question, analyze, and respond to primary and secondary sources; in-class application of library and internet research strategies (NF B73, through room scheduling at 6123, and the library computer lab, LB 440A, at 6514, can be scheduled for this); small-group and whole-class workshops focusing on revision of student drafts; student presentations and/or student-led discussions on assigned reading, rhetorical strategies, and researched projects. Computer classrooms are particularly felicitous for W233.
Because many students at this level will be unfamiliar with the range of texts appropriate for public/academic audiences, they should be encouraged to analyze, compare, contrast, and evaluate texts written for a variety of audiences and purposes. They should also be guided in understanding the differences between professional, mid-level, and popular journals and books. For example, they might compare how the issue of global warming is treated in Science (professional), Discover (mid-level), and National Geographic or Readers Digest (popular), or they can compare two or three scholarly journal articles on the same topic to see how different researchers approach an issue and present their findings in writing.
Students should analyze texts in order to see how they work: what writers do with words to accomplish their purposes for writing, how they connect and relate parts of the writing.
Researched writing for W233 should involve formulating, and seeking answers to, a research question. One typical process for completing a W233 project would require students to 1) identify an area of concern and develop a preliminary research question; 2) do research (library and other) to identify issues, problems, and gaps in knowledge; 3) write an annotated bibliography, a review of the literature, a research proposal with a revised research question, a documented essay, and an abstract of the final draft.
Instructors design W233 assignments and assignment sequences in a variety of ways. Here are several examples:
· A portfolio focusing on a local issue. The student identifies a local issue of interest to him or her, then researches/investigates/analyzes it. This project involves an annotated bibliography, a review of the literature, and a researched, documented essay.
· A researched, documented essay focusing on issues/problems relevant to students’ academic majors. Students choose an issue of particular interest to them. In the process of inquiry/analysis, they should gain an understanding of discipline-specific conversations and discourse conventions.
· An interdisciplinary researched essay, focusing on a particular humanities text, in which the student formulates a preliminary research question based on his or her academic interests (e. g., a psychological, economic, political, or anthropological inquiry into a humanities text).
· A series of researched “chapters” on a student-generated topic which culminates, at the end of the semester, in a book. In their focused inquiry, research, and analysis, students use textbooks to help them understand and practice writing and revision strategies, research conventions, etc.
When we say that we teach writing, people often look at us sympathetically and say something like, “Too bad, you have to grade all those papers.” Unfortunately, that myth has its basis in the attitudes of some teachers. Responding to papers, however, can be in many ways one of the most important and satisfying aspects of the job. Note I say “responding,” not grading. There is a difference. Grading is most often thought of as assessment–deciding who has done outstanding work, who has failed and where to distribute those in between. But I would argue that assessment is only secondary, an institutional requirement, not a very good pedagogical tool. Responding, however, is of the essence. The good response nurtures student growth and establishes dialog critical to the writing enterprise. It is part of the fun of teaching writing.
At the college level, we highly educated and literate adults often feel a sense of superiority which leads to contempt for student efforts and despair at their improvement, but such feelings are our problems and should be carefully examined. Teaching, as William Zinsser observed, is one of the healing professions and it is in our comments that we should manifest our nurturing, curative powers rather than boredom, snobbery or exasperation. Like many other professionals, we must try to keep our personal problems and anxieties out of our work. Neither are student failings and gropings signs of intellectual incompetence nor are they our fault, but poor responses to them are.
In a practical sense, the assignment is the beginning of good critiques of student papers. If it is clear and detailed, fewer papers will miss it altogether, and those that do can be rescued during the drafting stages. In the syllabus or the assignment itself, it is always a good idea to explain the major criteria of judgment, but for many writers, they will only be learned in the draft-response cycle. It is one thing to write, “Papers should be well organized and concise!” and quite another to explain what that means in terms of an actual piece of writing. So, too, mentioning “poor development” in a comment often leaves students without any idea of what might be improved, whereas a suggestion for further specific explanation and support will be concrete enough for the author to understand and revise on his own. Most of the learning takes place in the latter activity; the other statements really assume students already know what extremely abstract concepts such as well organized, concise, and development mean, which, of course, they often do not.
Comments should be designed to do a number of things: point out the strengths of the draft, explain what the problems are and how they might be remedied, and encourage the writer to persist, build on her strengths and improve her weaknesses. Well formulated questions that will help students think for themselves can be useful, but often direct statements will get unambiguously to the point and thus be more helpful.
Final drafts raise a number of critical questions because at this juncture, along with the “finality” of the comments themselves, assessment raises its ugly head. On the one hand, we want to provide the writer with ideas he can use to improve upcoming papers and ultimately to write in different venues, but on the other, we feel a necessity to support the judgment we are making in terms of a grade. Portfolios vitiate this problem to some extent because the writer is actually submitting another draft which will be graded and thus comments on the third draft can downplay or even ignore assessment.
The comment at the end of the paper should emphasize its strengths and the improvements made during the drafting process as well as those compared to previous papers. Critical comments should summarize major problems in neutral, positive and/or humorous language with an eye on future writing as well as on building a constructive relationship with the writer. They might well include suggested strategies for improvement or links with the strengths of the writer. If this is the graded draft, they should be specific enough so that students can understand why they got the grade they did.
Assessment seems to be a problem of avoiding extremes. Calibration of grades within the program is not possible, and probably not desirable, but over the years, we have had instructors who gave all A’s and B’s, all C’s or mostly D’s and F’s. Unfortunately, we have also had those who proudly announce on the first day that they don’t give A’s because no one can attain their high standards. Each of these patterns is problematic. On the one hand, we cannot expect a room full of Morrisons and Vidals and then punish them for failing to be. On the other, since classes are assembled largely by chance, it is highly unlikely that 7 outstanding and 11 very good but no average students ended up in one section. In short, criteria should be fair and designed to reward achievement. Because of withdrawals, grades will tend to fall in a skewed bell curve, with mostly C’s, some B’s and very few A’s. Of course, from time to time, everyone has classes which happen to be fairly heavily shifted toward one extreme.
There is considerable disagreement among faculty about the weight in course grades of such things as attendance, class participation, peer critique performance, and getting papers in on time. In general, draconian rules seem to be pedagogically unsound, especially in an institution such as ours whose students are over-committed in a variety of ways. Thus, failing a student for absence even though he has done all writing assignments with C’s or better seems to send the message that writing improvement isn’t as important as physical presence. So, too, dropping grades sharply for lateness (either personal or in assignment submission) seems to say that quality of writing is not as important as meeting deadlines. This would seem particularly unfair because, after all, these are writing courses. Besides, faculty do not respond to and return all papers at the meeting after they were handed in. Thus, lateness is usually not even a matter of inconveniencing the instructor. Forbearance, it would seem, rather than punishment, should be the watchword.
At the end of the semester, the ultimate assessment question is “Has this student demonstrated the ability to write at the level necessary for success in other venues?” If the answer is yes, then a grade of C or above would seem appropriate.
Students often learn a great deal from self-assessment, which can take a variety of forms. Reflective writing in response to specific questions about a paper or portfolio is often useful. Later in the semester, most students will apply fair and reasonable grades to their own work and write insightful explanations for them. As students gain experience in peer critiques as well as revision, they also benefit from comparing their own drafts or different papers, noting their progress as well as weaknesses. Since the ultimate goal of writing courses is to help people become self-actualized writers, in all of these cases it can be reasonable for instructors to negotiate grades based on their and the students’ assessments.
Modern technology has made it possible for us to respond to students with tools other than pens and pencils. Computers, online classrooms, WebCT, audiotape, .wav files, and VideoLink Mail are the most common technologies in use at IPFW.
Papers can be collected either in hard copy, by email or bulletin board, or on disk and then the comments written on a computer. Both WordPerfect and Word have provisions for making comments and there are many helpful techniques such as using different colors for the instructor’s remarks. Collecting papers electronically makes the briefcase/backpack a lot lighter.
Spoken comments are usually superior to written because they allow more to be said in less time. The easiest technologies for them are audiotapes, which have been used here for over a decade, CDRW’s, .wav files, and VideoLink Mail. For further information on any of these technologies, contact the Director of Writing.
This section describes the responsibilities of associate faculty, graduate aids, the Director of Writing, and the Associate Director
The department has two classifications of part‑time teachers: associate faculty and graduate aides (GA's). The duties and qualifications for employment are the same except associate faculty already have a master's degree or higher while graduate aides are graduate students working on a master's degree in English at IPFW. Associate faculty are hired with either regular or provisional status depending on their prior college teaching experience and graduate course work taken in rhetoric and composition. (See Guidelines in Section 6.1.1, Application, Hiring, Evaluation, and Reappointment.) Both groups have, subject to the supervision of the Director and Associate Director of Writing, all of the teaching duties of full‑time faculty members.
The duties of associate faculty and graduate aides (GA's) may be generally described as follows:
Text Selection. Generally, new associate faculty and GA's will be assigned texts for use in their writing classes. Experienced faculty and GA's must choose from the department's adoption list the books which they feel will enable them best to achieve goals for particular courses. Any book not on the department list must be approved by the Director of Writing before it can be used.
Syllabus Preparation. Constructing a useful syllabus is like constructing any text: it's a time‑consuming process that involves research, audience analysis (Who are my students? How will they interpret and understand what I am writing?), drafting, revising based on feedback from informed readers (colleagues, including full-time writing faculty, or Writing Center consultants), and careful editing. Syllabi should be models of good writing for students. How do we want to present ourselves in writing—as writing teachers—to our students? What do the format, tone, content and style tell our students about our expectations for their writing?
A syllabus is also a contract between teacher and student (that's what a grade appeal committee will regard it as if a student should appeal a grade). Therefore, such things as grading standards and how students are being evaluated should be clearly and unambiguously stated. Vagueness oft leads to nasty encounters.
Syllabi can be sent to IPFW Printing Services for reproduction, posted on WebCT or web pages for students to download, or they may be printed in computer labs. Instructors should order a few additional copies for students (some may add a class during the first week or lose their original copy), for the department file, and for their Teacher Portfolio.
The syllabus should be distributed or downloaded at the first class session. If your syllabus is duplicated somewhere other than at IPFW Printing Services, a copy should also be turned into the English office the first week of class. There it will be placed into a file available to all writing faculty.
Because a semester syllabus is complex and can be overwhelming, students should be reminded to reread it at various times throughout the semester and to take responsibility for completing assignments and meeting due dates. Throughout the semester, any revisions or updates should be added to the office syllabus file. See Appendix A for detailed syllabus guidelines.
Class Preparation. Associate faculty and GA's are responsible for:
· conducting all class meetings,
· recording daily attendance (a university requirement connected to funding and student financial aid),
· preparing lesson plans with objectives for each class,
· making assignments,
· explaining material covered,
· modeling strategies needed to learn,
· providing examples,
· conducting discussions and peer response writing workshops.
Classes should be planned to fill the entire period. Tuesday/Thursday classes are 75 minutes, not 55 or 60. Teachers need to plan a logical sequence of activities for each class session, including the amount of time to spend on, and the rationale for, each activity (What are the benefits for the student in doing this assignment? How will class activities help students complete major assignments?). Teachers should give students an overview of the class session at the beginning of the period, perhaps writing key activities on the chalkboard. At the end of each class session, many teachers find it helpful to ask students to write a brief summary of what they learned that day, as well as any unanswered questions to be addressed in the next class session.
Faculty absence is governed by a departmental policy (See Section 6.3.2.).
Office Hours. Students should be able to talk with their teachers
outside the classroom and to reach them if they have questions or problems. Teachers
should hold at least one office hour per week for each course taught.
Grading. Associate faculty and GA's are solely responsible for assigning all grades for their students. IPFW uses a grading scale for final grades of A, B, C, D, F, or I (incomplete) with no pluses or minuses, although pluses and minuses can be used with letter grades on papers throughout the semester. Associate faculty and GA's should seek the advice of the Director of Writing on all incompletes to make sure that the conditions warrant an incomplete and that all necessary forms are filled out. (See Section 6.3.10.)
Faculty Development Opportunities: All writing faculty members are expected to engage in continuing professional growth in writing pedagogy, theories, and research. Besides the required fall-orientation meeting, associate faculty and graduate aides should plan on attending the monthly faculty development roundtables addressing specific concerns for teachers of writing. Identical sessions are held during the day and in the evening so that everyone may attend. Additional faculty development opportunities include: (a) attendance and presentations at scholarly conventions such as the Indiana Teachers of Writing Conference and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (some funds for registration fees are available); (b) reading in professional journals; (c) studying the numerous excellent writing-connected web sites; (d) on-campus gatherings like the Associate Faculty Conference; (e) workshops and training sessions sponsored by CELT and ITS; (f) the writing instructors’ WebCT page; and (h) the program newsletter.
Service. Experienced associate faculty may volunteer to serve on the Associate Faculty Council. The Composition Committee also selects from the associate faculty for its membership each year. One graduate aide may be selected by the Committee as well.
New associate faculty who have been hired provisionally because they lack graduate course work in rhetoric or composition and/or college teaching experience and new GA's are expected to take C505, Teaching Composition: Issues and Approaches, prior to their first semester of teaching. C505, offered Summer II and evenings in the Fall Semester, can be taken for two or three credits. Associate faculty generally take the course for two credits, and graduate aides take it for three. The university will pay the two‑credit fee for associate faculty regardless of the option they choose. To assure appointment, associate faculty and GA's must earn an A or B. A part of the fall orientation meeting counts toward course time for C505.
The department offers two types of mentoring for new faculty: 1) one-to-one mentoring by an experienced full-time faculty member and 2) small-group mentoring. The one-to-one mentoring is facilitated by the Director of Writing who matches new faculty with experienced faculty whose primary area of interest is writing instruction. The focus and frequency of one-to-one mentoring is determined by the new and experienced faculty members. Group mentoring sessions generally take place every two weeks at a mutually agreeable time and place. The Director of Writing and/or the Associate Director of Writing facilitate group mentoring sessions. The sessions address topics or issues important to new faculty.
Evaluations for reappointment for associate faculty and graduate aides are based on a report of teaching performance submitted by a member of the Composition Committee. This report is based on a teaching portfolio, as outlined below, and an informal discussion with the faculty member.
Annual Teaching Portfolio. For the first five years of employment, each spring all associate faculty and graduate aides seeking reappointment submit an annual Teaching Portfolio to the Composition Committee. The portfolio covers the previous year (spring and fall semesters). Faculty with five years of teaching experience at IPFW (or the equivalent) submit a portfolio every three years. The portfolio should include the following:
· A reflective introduction which includes a description of teaching philosophy or overall approach to teaching, the issues and goals pursued over the past year, and an explanation of how the portfolio materials document these issues and goals;
· A syllabus and assignment sequence for each course taught;
· Substantial student paper(s) with your response(s).
· Course evaluations from students;
· A descriptive observation of a class period from a colleague. (NOTE: all new faculty are observed by either the Director or the Associate Director of Writing.)
Faculty may also include other items such as a list of course materials prepared for students; a description of how computers or other non-print materials were used in teaching; steps taken to emphasize the relevance of different kinds of learning; a record of changes resulting from self- or student-evaluation; reading journal entries on improving teaching and implementing newly acquired ideas; review of new teaching materials for possible application; participation in conferences, workshops, and professional meetings to improve teaching; research on your teaching and students’ progress; unstructured writing evaluations from students; honors for teaching; one’s own writing—conference presentations, poetry, fiction, web pages, etc.
Informal Discussion About Teaching. After reading the teaching portfolio, a member of the Composition Committee will set up a time to meet with the author to discuss it. The discussion should highlight the faculty member’s goals for teaching, how they fit in with overall program goals, and plans for future instructional development. The report of this discussion will be primarily descriptive and will serve as a way of not only evaluating performance but also encouraging long-term faculty development and assessing overall program needs. A copy of the teaching report will be given to both the faculty member and the Director of Writing. In addition to the above-mentioned requirements, graduate aides must maintain a 3.0/4.0 GPA in their graduate courses. Their reappointment recommendations are made jointly by the Director of Graduate Studies and the Director of Writing.
The Director of writing is responsible for articulating and, with appropriate help, carrying‑out a vision of the IPFW writing program. This includes extensive responsibilities for administration, program development, development of associate faculty and graduate aides, teaching, service, and scholarship. The director administers the undergraduate writing program and oversees, on a daily basis, 50‑60 associate faculty and graduate aides who teach some 150 sections of 100‑ and 200‑level writing courses each semester. The director advises, is accountable to, and reports directly to the chair of the English department.
In addition to teaching the equivalent of three writing classes per year, the Director of Writing is responsible for:
The
Director of Writing
·
Does theoretical and
practical program research in order to articulate and implement both a long‑term
and a short‑term vision of the writing program and to make informed
decisions in the course of the daily administration of the program;
· With input from the Composition Committee, determines and implements objectives and standards of the undergraduate writing program;
· With input from the Composition Committee, determines and implements policies and procedures for the effective administration and pedagogical development of the program;
· With the help of the Composition Committee, regularly reviews the effectiveness of the program and designs long-range plans for program development.
In addition to the professional activities necessary to lead, develop, and assess the program, as listed above, the Director of Writing also administers the writing program as follows:
· Recruits, interviews and screens, hires, evaluates, and makes reappointment decisions about associate faculty and graduate aides;
· After appropriate consultation, makes recommend- ations to the chair (and dean and vice chancellor for academic affairs, if requested by the chair) pertaining to appointments, reappointments, and salary increments;
· Works with the University Writing Center director to determine effective writing consultation across the curriculum;
· Staffs all 100 and 200-level courses taught by graduate aides or associate faculty;
· Works with Continuing Studies to staff off‑campus and online writing courses;
· Evaluates portfolios and other data submitted by students requesting transfer credits or alternative placements.
· Consults regularly with the Associate Director about the writing program;
· Meets with textbook representatives and makes information about new textbooks available to writing faculty;
· Reviews, revises, and edits the IPFW Writing Program Handbook
In addition to the program development and administrative duties outlined above, the Director of Writing is responsible for development of faculty teaching 100‑ and 200‑level required courses:
· With the help of the Composition Committee, reads the teaching portfolios each spring and meets with faculty to discuss them;
· For part-time faculty, makes reappointment and salary recommendations to the chair;
· With assistance from the Associate Director of Writing, supervises new associate faculty and GA’s, observes classes of associate faculty and GA’s, writes descriptive reports of observations, and provides day‑to‑day mentoring of associate faculty and GA’s;
· With help from the Associate Director of Writing, designs, organizes, and implements a pre-semester fall workshop.
· Presents at writing program roundtables.
The Director of Writing:
· Serves as a liaison with the English department chair (and through the chair, with the dean of arts and sciences and the vice chancellor of academic affairs), the Associate Faculty Council, the Composition Committee, directors of: the IPFW Writing Center, the ESL program, Multi‑Cultural Services, CASA, CELT, Services for Students with Disabilities, and Academic Counseling & Career Services as well as faculty in any discipline seeking writing consultation;
· Represents and reports on the credibility of the writing program to the rest of the university by preparing various reports and providing data about the writing program for the department, school, and university.
The Director of Writing:
· Hears student complaints and provides informed advice and academic counseling;
· Answers student questions concerning placement, course equivalency, course exemption, grading, and other issues associated with required composition courses.
· Whenever practicable, helps students find suitable classes or make unusual schedule changes.
The Director Writing serves as a liaison with community, business, public and private schools, and institutions of higher education locally, regionally, and nationally. Provides information about the writing program to local teachers through meetings and workshops and collaborates with them to work towards achieving a seamless transition between high school and college writing.
Within the Department of English
& Linguistics, the Director of Writing serves as a standing member of the
Composition Committee. The director assumes a leadership role on, but does not
chair, this committee while also relying on and responding to the Committee's
advice and decisions.
The director also serves on School and University committees such as the Developmental Studies Committee and the Campus‑Wide Assessment Committee.
The Associate Director of Writing, in conjunction with the Composition Committee, is generally charged with instructional improvement and with developing procedures for the supervision and review of the associate faculty and graduate aides, as well as with assisting generally in running the writing program. These duties are explained more specifically below:
The Associate Director:
· Organizes writing roundtables during the academic year for a variety of instructional purposes (e.g., calibrating grading standards or introducing new classroom techniques);
· Assists in advising students with questions or complaints about composition courses taught by associate faculty or associate instructors;
· Assists in developing new composition courses.
Along with the Director of Writing, the Associate Director:
· Organizes, develops, and leads the pre-fall-semester workshop to acquaint the associate faculty, GA’s, and new full-time faculty with the program or with changes in the program, including new texts and advances in composition research, theory, and pedagogy.
· Supervises and reviews the classroom performance of associate faculty and GA’s;
· Helps with the day-to-day mentoring of GA’s and associate faculty;
The university and department policies and procedures in this section are those that associate faculty, graduate aides (GA's) and, in many instances, all department writing teachers need to know to enhance their credibility with students and to assure a successful and smooth-running year for themselves, the department, and the university. Full-time faculty can find the additional policies and procedures applicable to their appointment in the Enchiridion of the Department of English and Linguistics and the Academic Handbook of Indiana University. The policies and procedures included here are arranged in the time periods that faculty need to be aware of them: before the semester begins, through the crucial first week, and then for the remainder of the semester.
The following policies and procedures apply when preparing for a new semester.
In hiring and evaluating associate faculty and GA's, the department adheres closely to the following document, passed in August 1997 by the Composition Committee.
· Submit a letter of application and resume. The letter should explain why the applicant believes he/she is qualified to teach college-level writing.
· Fill out a university personnel application form.
· Arrange to have three letters of recommendation (from professional sources) and all college transcripts sent to the department.
· Submit three samples of writings, preferably academic.
· Write a reflective response to the Writing Program Handbook.
· Interview with the Director of Writing (after all the above has been completed).
Applications will be reviewed by the Director of Writing, who will determine provisional status and recommend appointments to the chair.
6.1.1.2 Qualifications for Associate Faculty
Applicants:
1. Must possess a master's or doctoral degree in a relevant discipline.
2. Must demonstrate writing competence.
3. Should have completed graduate-level course work or equivalent formal training in rhetoric and/or composition instruction.
4. Should have two years' college-teaching experience.
Applicants who do not meet criteria 3 and/or 4 may be hired provisionally for up to two semesters. Prior to their first semester of teaching, they must: (1) successfully complete with an A or B grade C505, Teaching Composition: Issues and Approaches (see section 5.1.2); (2) have their classroom teaching evaluated as satisfactory or better by the Director of Writing, the Associate Director, or their designee; and (3) submit to the Composition Committee in February a satisfactory Teacher Portfolio.
Provisional instructors who do not meet the above requirements will not be considered for further appointments.
6.1.1.3 Evaluation and Reappointment of Associate Faculty The responsibilities of associate faculty members are listed in detail in Section 5 of the handbook. All associate faculty members are expected to:
1. Attend pre-semester workshops.
2. Submit an annual Teacher Portfolio documenting and reflecting on professional accomplishments for the year. A format for this portfolio is provided by the department. (See Section 5.1.4 of the Handbook for required portfolio components.)
3. Attend faculty development roundtable sessions.
Teacher portfolios will be reviewed annually by the Composition Committee which will report the results of its review to the Director of Writing, who will make recommendations to the Chair. Faculty will receive a formative response to their portfolios.
The Director of writing will recognize exceptional teaching by recommending merit increments.
Graduate aides are graduate students enrolled in the master's programs in English who teach one or two courses per term as part of their contract.
They submit the same materials as associate faculty applicants. (They need not submit a resume or duplicate materials already in their graduate file.) The Director of Writing and the Director of Graduate Studies will jointly review the credentials of applicants and recommend appointments to the Chair.
All first-year appointments are provisional. GA’s must follow the same evaluation procedures as associate faculty. In addition, they must maintain a 3.0 GPA in graduate work and earn an A or B grade in C505. Reappointment recommendations will be made jointly by the Director of Graduate Studies and the Director of Writing.
Textbook Selection: Lower level writing course teachers select their textbooks from an approved list, adopted each year by the Composition Committee. The committee carefully examines the year's new text books and reevaluates the ones currently used to find those best fitting our program as described in Sections I, 2, and 3 of this handbook. The list usually offers a choice of rhetorics and a standard handbook for each course. Examination copies of all textbooks on the list are available in the English office; faculty may check them out when making their selections.
So that class members will have similar frames of reference, the Director or Associate Director of Writing selects a W130 or W131 rhetoric for C505 students to teach from their first semester. After completing their first semester, associate faculty and GA's may choose from the other options on the list, dependent on approval of the Director of Writing.
Textbook Ordering. Soon after associate faculty and GA's receive their course and section assignments, the English office will send them textbook order forms for the bookstore. Instructors should indicate on the form if they need copies of texts or teachers' manuals for their own use. Often the office already has copies on hand; if not, the secretaries will order them.
Textbook Availability. Since instructors, students, and sections are sometimes shuffled at the beginning of the semester, the bookstore has signs advising students not to buy writing textbooks until after they attend the first class session. Thus, students will often not have textbooks the first class meeting. Teachers should consider this when planning the first few days of the semester. Occasionally the bookstore runs out of books before all students have them, especially if new writing sections are added at the last minute. If that happens, instructors should notify the Director of Writing immediately so the department can order additional books and, if necessary, put copies on Reserves Express in the library.
Writing faculty should:
· Distribute syllabi or have students download them the first day of class.
· Make certain file copies of all syllabi are in the English office and then update the file with any revisions throughout the semester (See section 5.1.1).
The Director and the Associate Director of Writing will provide help in syllabus construction and give out samples of model syllabi to faculty seeking guidance. Faculty should check the Schedule of Classes (available in the English office) for vacation dates and the final exam schedule before constructing syllabuses. See section 5.1.1 and Appendix A for detailed syllabus guidelines.
Time Schedule. If given adequate lead time, the English office secretaries will run off transparencies for overhead projectors, and expedite to the university printing services classroom materials, syllabi, and tests. Although the secretaries will make an occasional exception in an emergency, faculty should observe the time schedule below:
24 hours for typed material sent to Printing Services and for making transparencies.
Requesting Service. To arrange for typing or duplicating service, day faculty should:
1. Fill out the clerical service request form (available in the English office), and attach it to the material to be typed or duplicated.
2. Put the material in the box designated Incoming Clerical Requests on the English office front counter.
Faculty who teach after the office closes at 6 p.m. should:
1. Put their materials with the request form attached in the drop box in CM 143, the associate faculty office.
2. Pick up the completed materials from their CM 143 mailbox.
Copier Restrictions and Instructions. Because of the department's limited supply budget, faculty are to use the Arts and Sciences copier in CM 157 only when they need six or fewer copies. Beyond that number use Printing Services because it is much cheaper. To use the copier, faculty should sign out the departmental copying card in the English office and, upon returning it, write down the number of copies made. Instructions or trouble shooting are provided by the secretaries in CM 154.
Receiving Mail. Mail is delivered twice daily. Associate faculty mailboxes are in CM 143, the associate faculty office and GA mailboxes are in the English office. Associate faculty and GA's should check their mailboxes each time they are on campus as the department communicates important information to them through their mailboxes, and students leave assignments and messages.
After hours, students may drop off their assignments in the slotted drop box in the English office (CM 145) door. However, faculty need to caution students to put their teacher's name on their papers or they may go unclaimed.
Sending Mail. Outgoing mail is picked up twice daily from the box so marked on the English office counter. To mail job-related materials without stamps, fill out a postage form (available in the English office) and clip it to the mail. Night teachers should put outgoing mail in the drop box in CM 143.
Email. New faculty must apply for email accounts in the English office. Email is an official form of communication in the writing program and much information is exchanged thereon. In addition, IPFW accounts are necessary for access to computers on campus as well as to WebCT and other educational necessities. Those who wish to use an off-campus email address for official communication should notify the Director of Writing.
WebCT. The writing program maintains a WebCT site in which all Associate Faculty and GA’s are enrolled. You can access it with your IPFW email account username and password. The site affords space to post announcements and papers, carry on discussions and exchange email.
OASIS. Student information including class rosters is available to faculty members through OASIS. To access it, faculty must have their OASIS passwords available from the Registrar upon display of a picture ID. Semester grades must be posted on OASIS as well.
To make long distance calls for university purposes, associate faculty must go to the English office and make arrangements with a secretary. GA's may make such calls from CM 124 and they should fill out the pink form for long-distance calls located by the telephone and return it to the head secretary after each call. The department is also charged for directory assistance calls; therefore, faculty needing to call students should get their numbers on OASIS or by calling the registrar's office.
Faculty do not need to fill out forms for calls made on the State Universities Voice Network (SUVON), which links the telephone systems of 75 college or university campuses and learning centers throughout Indiana as well as the cities in which they are located. Instructions for using SUVON appear in the campus phone book.
Supplies available include gradebooks, tablets, file folders, staples, paper clips, scotch tape, pens, pencils, bluebooks for exams, floppy disks, etc. Associate faculty and GA's should ask the office secretaries for what they need..
Typically, associate faculty share the office and desks in CM 143 (481-6762) and NF 385 (481-4157) while GA's share CM 124 (481-6773). However, each faculty member has an individual voicemail number. Each occupant is entitled to one file or desk drawer which should be labeled with the instructor's name.
To get keys for CM 124 and CM 143, new faculty should take a note from the head secretary to the Physical Plant office, located northwest of the CM Building.
A permits, available only to faculty and staff, are for the parking places close to the buildings and on the first floors of the garages. Associate faculty and GA's may purchase A permits through pre-tax payroll deduction. At certain hours A parking spaces by some buildings are at a premium; therefore, teachers need to plan their arrival time accordingly.
Faculty and staff may also park free, without permits in B lots and above the ground floor in the garages.
Obtaining Permits. Before the first week of school, faculty should arrange for permits and their payment by payroll deduction at the Police and Safety office, located in the Physical Plant, northwest of the CM Building. Permits are valid from the start of the fall semester until August 30 of the next year.
The following information applies to the first week of any given semester.
A faculty schedule form is placed in everyone’s box at the beginning of the semester. The department requests that all instructors fill it out giving address and phone information, class times, room numbers, and office hours, and turn it in by the end of the first week of the semester. These forms are used for responding to student inquiries, locating faculty quickly in case of emergencies, and posting cancellations or delays on classroom doors. Faculty may indicate with an R (restricted) if they do not wish their home phone number to be given to students.
Class rosters available on OASIS are updated as students drop and add during the semester. In addition one copy of the rosters is placed in mailboxes before the first day of class. Title IV rosters with an accompanying explanation are placed in boxes early in the semester. Everyone is expected to respond appropriately and in a timely manner.
Auditing Procedures. If students are identified on the roster as auditing the class, faculty are not to assign, collect, or grade any papers from them.
The department strictly enforces prerequisites and placement levels for writing courses. To do so, the English office secretaries check the records of students enrolled in writing classes to make sure they do not get into courses for which they are not qualified. As a result, when teachers receive their rosters the first day of class, they may find attached to them a list of "flagged" students whose places in the class need further verification.
Procedures. At the beginning of the period, faculty should have the flagged students fill out the questionnaires attached to the list and immediately send the students to the English office (CM 145). Teachers must not allow flagged students back into the classroom without a signed note from the English office.
To accommodate night students, the office remains open until 8 p.m. the first two nights of each semester. After the first two nights, faculty with 6:00 or 7:30 p.m. classes should have students fill out the questionnaires, collect them, check them very carefully for completeness while the students are present, and then put them in the drop box in CM 143 or in the slot on the English office door. Since the office will not be open, Saturday teachers and 9 p.m. teachers should follow this procedure from their first class session.
Some of the students on the list will receive signed permission and return to class; often the problem is that they have changed their names or the English office has not yet been notified of their transfer credit from another university. Others will not return because they have never taken the placement test, were incorrectly advised, or were trying to beat the placement system. Faculty should not tell students that they believe they can do the work or that they are willing to let them in.
Procedures for Late-Enrolling Students. Many times late-arrivals, transfers from other sections, late registrations, drop-adds, etc. will enter classes after the first day. If these students were not on the original roster checked by the secretaries, it is important that teachers do not let them join the class without verifying their placement or prerequisites with the English office. In addition, any new names appearing on the roster on OASIS must be checked for eligibility with the English office. Most placement errors occur with these late arrivals who slip through the cracks because the office is not aware of them. The pink fee statement that these students often show has nothing to do with placement. Day teachers can check with the secretaries before or after class, while night teachers should leave the student's name, identification number, phone number, and the course number in the outgoing mailbox in CM 143 or in the slot in the English office door.
Procedures: As explained in Section 3.1, students begin in W130, W131 plus P131, or W131 on the basis of a placement test administered in Academic Counseling and Career Services, sometimes months before they take a writing course. Occasionally, early in the semester an instructor may think a student was incorrectly placed. In such a case, bring examples of the student’s writing to the Director of Writing. Together, the teacher and the Director will reach a decision based on the papers, the computer placement test, and when necessary additional papers.
Night and weekend teachers should contact the Director of Writing by phone or email about any student believed wrongly placed and leave the papers with the full name of the student in the department office. The Director will then consult with you by phone, email or an evening/weekend appointment.
Difficult Replacement Decisions: Teachers sometimes identify students who have already earned credit with a grade of C or better in W130 as being wrongly placed in W131. These students cannot be moved. To find out if students have previous credit in W130, faculty can ask the office secretaries to check the computer records. Checking ahead of time often saves embarrassing the student and the previous teacher.
Time Schedule for Replacement Decisions: The department prefers to do all switching within the first week of the semester while students can easily adjust to another syllabus and get full refunds; however, occasionally special circumstances merit later changes.
For Closed Classes. The departmental policy is that associate faculty and GA's should NOT sign add forms which permit students to enter a closed class. ( Class sizes are too large already.) Instructors should tell students to keep checking OASIS in case a student drops and a vacancy occurs. Sometimes teachers mistakenly sign for a student because they know of students who are dropping or who have not yet attended. However, because the registrar's office may again fill the class to the limit and then also add any students instructors have signed for, these teachers may still end up with more than the maximum number. Each additional student can mean hours of extra grading time and less individual attention in class for the students.
For Students Joining Late. Students often switch classes a great deal the first week and new students may appear in class as late as Monday of the second week. Those who join a class late should show the instructor a fee statement and, of course, should be checked for correct placement with the office as explained in Section 4.2.3 above. Teachers should take this situation into account when planning for classes and filling out gradebooks. Students are responsible for making up all work missed.
For Students Seeking to Join after the First Week. Students cannot join a writing class after the first week because of late registration or drop/add changes without the written permission of the Director of Writing. Typically, the Director will not allow adds after the first week, for the students are already at least a week behind, and thus teaching and learning are adversely affected. Students transferred because of replacement decisions are exceptions.
The following policies and procedures are in effect throughout the year.
6.3.2.1 Exceptions to Class Meetings. Writing faculty are expected to meet their classes on the days and times and in the rooms announced in the Schedule of Classes. There are legitimate exceptions:
· A class session or sessions may be used for individual conferences on drafts of papers in the instructor's office or another suitable venue. The time given for such conferences should normally include the hours of the class meeting plus the additional time needed to meet with each student in the course.
· A class session with the instructor present may be used for a structured learning session regarding search strategies and information literacy either in the library or a computer lab.
To achieve our writing goals, students must have the opportunity to learn in every scheduled class meeting. All scheduling exceptions should be reported to the head secretary so that students who have been absent can find the class and the university can locate any student at a given time.
6.3.2.2 Procedures for Absences Known in Advance. The university does not have paid substitute teachers as do public schools; therefore, writing faculty should:
· Try to arrange for substitute instructors by asking other faculty members, on a reciprocal or fee basis, to cover their classes. Substitutes should be members of our faculty.
· If necessary, ask the Director or the Associate Director, or in their absence, the Chair to help locate substitutes.
· Notify in writing the Director of Writing of their upcoming absence and of their plans for covering their classes.
6.3.2.3 Procedures for Emergency Situations. If an illness or emergency situation is too sudden to allow for a substitute, faculty should:
1. Call the head secretary in the English office who will notify the Director of Writing and post a notice on the classroom door that class is canceled. (Activities planned for that class should still be covered in other classes or as homework, rather than just omitted.)
2. Have the secretary specify on the posted notice exactly what the assignment for the next session is and what students should do with any papers due at the missed session.
If an emergency situation occurs after the English office closes at 6 p.m., faculty should try the associate faculty offices (481-6762, 481-4157) or the GA office (481-6773) to see if someone is available to post a notice. If no one answers, faculty can try calling Police and Safety (6827) to see if an officer will inform students. Students get especially disturbed when they find no notice at all.
If faculty find they are unexpectedly going to be late for class, they should call the English office during the day, or one of the offices above after 6 p.m. so that their students can be told to wait.
6.3.2.4 Procedures for Weather Emergencies. Until the university officially closes classes due to extreme weather conditions, the university policy is that faculty cannot dismiss their classes, even if very few students are in attendance. Sometimes the students who make it to class have come long distances under treacherous conditions; to offer them nothing is indefensible. However, faculty can tell students to feel free to make their own decisions about coming to campus in extreme weather conditions; attendance penalties should not be imposed on such days.
6.3.2.5 Limits of Secretarial Assistance for Absences. The limits of secretarial assistance for faculty absence or tardiness are covered by departmental policy. Secretaries can only:
· Announce the cancellation of a class or the tardiness of the instructor and provide the class with any information the instructor may request to have announced.
· Distribute handouts of prepared assignments and collect class papers at the beginning of the period.
Following a schedule available in the department office, Purdue University pays Associate Faculty and GA's five times a semester. Paychecks are deposited in the account designated by the recipient. Associate faculty and GA's not planning to return for the next semester should be aware that the university will hold final paychecks until all keys and library books are returned and parking tickets paid.
Students are expected to submit course work directly to their instructor—either during class or during faculty office hours. Though students who are prevented from meeting deadlines due to illness or emergency may place work in their teacher's mailbox or the departmental drop box, they should be informed that doing so always involves some degree of risk (e.g., students sometimes put work in the wrong mailbox and it gets thrown away or misplaced). It is secretarial policy not to accept students’ papers and place them in instructors' mailboxes. Secretaries also are not available to write dates and times on students' papers, so teachers will know that they were submitted on time.
From the beginning (the syllabus is a good place), students should be reminded that if they withdraw from a class they must do so formally on OASIS or through their academic advisers by the end of the ninth week of class or they will receive an F at the end of the semester. The procedure IPFW follows for withdrawals appears below:
Before the End of the First Nine Weeks. Instructors have no part in the withdrawal process. Official withdrawals are posted on the OASIS rosters.
After the First Nine Weeks. After the end of the ninth week (the specific deadline appears in each Schedule of Classes), student requests for withdrawal will be considered only for urgent non-academic reasons which are clearly beyond the student's control. These could consist of critical or persistent health problems, unforeseen changes in employment conditions (e.g., transfers, shift changes, or increased work hours), or similar circumstances. Documentation of the reason must be attached to the Petition for Late Withdrawal from Classes form.
Course instructors can not approve or disapprove a withdrawal. All they do is sign at the appropriate place on the student’s completed petition and enter the student's current grade in the course. If approval is granted by the student's unit or the Registrar, someone other than the instructor will sign the drop/add form.
Faculty Member's Responsibility. Each year writing faculty face problems with plagiarism or cheating and seek guidance on handling it. The university has very detailed guidelines to follow. The Academic Handbook of Indiana University states:
The faculty member has a responsibility to foster intellectual honesty as well as the intellectual development of students. He or she should carefully scrutinize methods of teaching and assignments in order to be sure that they encourage students to be honest. If necessary the faculty member should explain clearly the meaning of cheating and plagiarism as they apply to the course . . . . Should the faculty member detect signs of plagiarism or cheating, it is his or her most serious obligation to investigate these thoroughly, to take appropriate action with respect to the grades of students . . . . The necessity to report every case of cheating, whether or not further action is desirable, arises particularly because of the possibility that this is not the student's first offense, or that other offenses may follow.
Many faculty in our department have found problems with plagiarism lessen if they (1) give examples of what plagiarism is, (2) provide practice in avoiding it, and (3) then tailor assignments to minimize the opportunity for plagiarism. Requiring, for example, that a researched paper be based on an issue or a research question and that it contain both primary and secondary (library) research offers less opportunity for plagiarism than would assigning a topic-oriented paper requiring only secondary sources. Looking at drafts of the paper as it evolves and not permitting last-minute topic changes also help. (See Syllabus Guidelines in Appendix A, #15, for further suggestions for avoiding plagiarism.)
To avoid any kind of grade appeal or legal problems later, writing faculty should follow the steps below, seeking counsel from the Director or Associate Director of Writing as needed. Although one may suggest diplomatically that there are documentation problems, faculty should never accuse a student of plagiarism without substantial proof. “The IPFW Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct,” Part III, found in the Student Handbook lists the specific steps to follow in handling a case of academic misconduct.
A. 1. a. An instructor who has information that a student enrolled in a course being conducted by the instructor has committed an act of academic misconduct related to that course is required to hold an informal conference with the student concerning the matter within 10 class days of discovering the alleged misconduct. The faculty member must advise the student of the alleged act of misconduct and the information upon which the allegation is based.
b.If the instructor concludes that the student did commit the act of misconduct as alleged, the instructor is authorized to impose an appropriate academic sanction related to the particular course involved. An appropriate academic sanction for such misconduct may include, but is not limited to, any of the following:
(1)The student may be given a lower grade than the student would otherwise have received or a failing grade for any assignment, course work, examination, or paper involved in the act of misconduct.
(2)The student may be required to repeat the assignment, complete some additional assignment, or resubmit any assignment, course work, examination, or paper involved in the act of misconduct.
(3)The student maybe given a lower grade than the student would otherwise have received, or a failing grade for the course.
c. After imposing an academic sanction, the instructor is required to report the matter and the action taken within 10 class days in writing to the student, the chair of the student's department, the dean or director of the student’s school or division, and the dean of students.
d. If the student's course grade is affected by the sanction, the student has the right to appeal the academic sanction imposed by an instructor through the IPFW grade appeals system.
Additional Department Requirements. Associate faculty and GA's are asked to give the Director of Writing a copy of the report sent and the evidence collected for the department's files. If the matter cannot be fully resolved before course grades are due at the end of the semester, the instructor should assign a grade of incomplete until the matter can be resolved.
In this litigious age, writing faculty need to be aware of some of the constraints they operate under as well as seemingly innocent actions which may lead to lawsuits or university appeals. The Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the governing legislation in most cases. A tutorial on FERPA is available at http://www.ipfw.edu/registrar/ferpa_tutor.htm The following activities have the potential for problems if not handled using university or department guidelines.
6.3.7.1 Posting Grades and Passing Out Graded Papers. Faculty cannot post students' grades in such a way that they can be identified by others. Faculty, therefore, should never post grades by names or Social Security numbers (the students' identification numbers in most instances) even if the order is scrambled. An acceptable way to post grades is to assign students random numbers or pseudonyms known only by the student and the instructor, and then arrange these assigned numbers or pseudonyms so that the students are listed in a random (non-alphabetical) order.
Similarly, on papers being returned in class, grades must be positioned so that no one but the owner may see them. Faculty should return papers during classes or at specified times in their classrooms or offices. One or two papers (with grades hidden from the view of others) may be left for pickup in an instructor’s mailbox .
In the case of final papers or projects:
· Meet with students at a specified time in classrooms or offices OR
· Ask students to provide a self-addressed, stamped envelope for return of papers by mail.
Faculty must not leave stacks or boxes of papers inside or outside their offices or in the department office for students to look through in their absence. This allows students to look at everyone else’s grades, a clear violation of FERPA.
6.3.7.2 Handling Restricted Information. Information about students' attendance patterns or grades is privileged information Faculty cannot give out this information to anyone from the outside such as an employer or even a parent. If parents call for such information, faculty should tell them that if they are the sole support of their child, they may go in person to the registrar's office, fill out a form to that effect, and then obtain the privileged information they seek.
Faculty and others who need student addresses or phone numbers may get this public information on OASIS.
6.3.7.3 Student Withdrawals. Faculty should make sure that students receive enough graded papers (or, in the case of portfolio assessment, enough detailed feedback) by the final nine-week withdrawal date to make an informed decision. If a student requests a tentative grade, faculty should be ready to provide it. If it is clear by the withdrawal date that a student will have difficulty passing a course, faculty might mention withdrawal as an option for students to consider seriously. However, the decision to withdraw must be the student's, not the instructor's.
6.3.7.4 Using Student Papers. It is common practice for teachers to hold whole-class discussions or "workshops," focusing on drafts and revisions completed for the course. It's a good idea to let students know that the point of such activities is to help them develop their reading, evaluation, and revision skills-and that all work will be treated respectfully. Faculty should get permission, preferably in writing, from students to use their papers as examples. Such permission can only be given after the paper is written. See Appendix C for a model of a blanket permission form. Such a form can be used only at the end of the semester, not before papers have been written. Students must sign voluntarily.
6.3.7.5 Researching Human Subjects. Faculty assigning primary (field) research, especially on the W233 level, should check that their students' projects do not violate the guidelines of the University Committee on the Use of Human Research Subjects, which state that the committee must approve the procedures to be followed in research involving human subjects. Especially vulnerable to question are primary research involving people under 18, prisoners, the mentally disabled, and other groups whose ability to give voluntary informed consent may be in question and research involving potential physical, psychological, social, or legal risks. If the research is approved, the committee can provide model consent forms for subjects to sign.
Faculty with questions about proposed student-generated primary research projects should discuss them with the Director of Writing who will put them in touch with the chair of the Committee on the Use of Human Research Subjects for further information and copies of the complete guidelines.
6.3.7.6 Dealing with Sensitive and Confidential Information. Faculty who have students do primary research in companies or organizations must encourage these students to use good judgment and to be aware of the potential risks they face in disseminating any confidential or sensitive information they might uncover Such information if it proved damaging to the company, institution, or organization or to its employees or members, might have the potential for later lawsuits.
Associate faculty members and GA's should have their students fill out the department's student evaluation forms (see sample on pages 35?37) near the end of the semester; generally the week before finals. The English office will send out a form in advance requesting the number needed and the date wanted. Detailed instructions for administering the evaluation instrument will accompany the packet which faculty will get in their mailboxes on the day designated.
Faculty should carefully observe procedures designed to guarantee students' anonymity. They should appoint a student monitor to collect the forms and deliver them to the English office. Instructors should also leave the room while the students fill them out.
After the results are compiled on the computer, associate faculty and GA's will receive the following:
· A computer printout for each section giving the percentage and number of student responses for each question
· The evaluation forms on which the students wrote their comments
· A summary of results for all associate faculty members and GA's.
First-year writing students are notoriously tough evaluators; therefore, when faculty review their evaluations, they should remember the limitations of anonymous reactions and responses written by people whose expertise is limited and who may believe their writing was better than the instructor did. Faculty should look for insights into their weaknesses as well as confirmation of their strengths but be prepared to let any plain unkindnesses roll off.
Both official policies and supplementary recommendations apply to writing courses.
Official Final-Exam Policies. The university has the following set policies regarding final exams that it expects all faculty to observe:
Week before Finals. No instructor may schedule an examination—comprehensive or non-comprehensive—during the week preceding the last week of a fall or spring semester.
Final Week. Each class will meet for a two-hour session during the last week of each fall or spring semester. (See the back of the Schedule of Classes for exact times.) The two-hour session is to be used for (1) a final examination, (2) a last, non-comprehensive examination, or (3) a regular class meeting.
Conflicts. All students are governed by the following regulation regarding exam conflicts: Any student who is scheduled to take more than two examinations in one day or who has a conflict of exams may contact one of the course instructors and ask that a final exam be rescheduled.
Absences. In the event of an emergency, any student who finds it necessary to miss a final exam should contact the instructor prior to or immediately after the time of the exam.
Weather Disruptions. If severe weather conditions cause a change in the schedule for final exams, the disruption will be announced on area radio stations and in other media. Students should call campus information (481-6100) for instructions for making up of any exams that may be delayed.
Writing Course Final-Session Options. To satisfy the university requirement that teachers meet with students during the final exam period, some teachers assign an essay exam or an in-class paper. Other options include exit conferences or an informal written reflection on the course (what the student learned, how he/she met personal goals, goals for future, etc.). If required, final exams (and midterms too) should assess students' (1) knowledge about rhetorical principles and textbook content, (2) ability to produce an in-class aims-oriented paper, and (3) attitudes toward writing.
Because of the possibility of a grade appeal, faculty should retain their gradebooks and final exams at least a full semester. Faculty who leave the employ of the university should return their gradebooks to the office secretaries so the books can be kept in their permanent file.
Final Grades. IPFW uses the letter grades A, B, C, D, and F with no pluses or minuses and I (incomplete). Final grades must be posted on OASIS by 5 p.m. on the Monday following exam week. If grades are not in by then, all students in the class receive incompletes on their grade cards, and teachers face confrontations with irate students and the time-consuming job of filling out individual forms to remove each incomplete.
Incompletes. An incomplete is generally justified only for: a serious illness or accident, especially if hospitalization is required; a death in the immediate family; or a job transfer and then only if these instances happen toward the very end of the semester and make it impossible for the student to complete the course. Students must be passing the course when an incomplete is granted. Associate faculty and graduate aides considering assigning an incomplete should follow these procedures:
1. Discuss with the Director of Writing the circumstances of the incomplete to see that one is warranted and that all necessary paperwork is underway.
2. Get the proper form for assigning an incomplete from the English office. (Assigning an incomplete on the grade sheet alone is not enough.)
3. Specify on the form the reasons for the incomplete, the student's current grade in the course, the percentage of the total course grade it comprises, the assignments to be completed, and the percentage of the total grade each represents.
4. State the exact date by which they want the work completed. If not stated, the student has up to a year to complete it. A deadline of no longer than one month is recommended.
5. Have the student sign the form, if possible, and give or mail the pink copy to him or her. Then see that the white and yellow copies are turned in with the final grades to the registrar's office.
6. When the student makes up the incomplete or the specified date passes, record the grade earned on the form for removal of an incomplete (available in the English office) or change the incomplete to an F if it was not made up on time. After one year, the grade automatically reverts to an F.
The document presented in Appendix D governs grade appeals in the Department of English and Linguistics. To be prepared in case students bring a formal grade appeal against them, faculty should:
· Explain their grading procedure and the weighting of each major grade carefully in their syllabuses and then stick to the plan as written when figuring final grades.
· Retain their gradebooks and final exams until the possibility of a grade appeal has long passed (at least a full semester).
· Follow the plagiarism policy in Section 6.3.6 explicitly and save copies of the evidence until all possibility of a case has long expired.
Section 6 lists services available to IPFW writing students and faculty.
IPFW offers several academic support services and programs especially beneficial to our writing program and its students. This is a list of them, their locations, and procedures for student referral.
The IPFW Writing Center (Kettler
234, 481-5740), open at varying times during fall and spring semesters, offers
all writers free one-to-one and small-group help writing papers for any
discipline. Students are encouraged to come during all phases of the writing
process: understanding assignments; discovering, arranging, and developing
ideas; revising; working on style; and learning how to edit and proofread final
drafts. Writing consultants share
academic expectations with student writers and help them analyze their ideas and
drafts for particular purposes and audiences. (Consultants neither write nor
proofread for students.) The Writing Center’s mottos are: “For excellence, the
presence of others is required” (Hannah Arendt), and “Every writer needs a
reader.”
Students sign up for 25- or 50-minute appointments on the bulletin board outside Kettler 234. Drop-ins are welcome, but appointments receive priority. Writers should bring the written assignment, handouts and notes relevant to the assignment, a draft if they have one, and their questions. At the end of each writing conference in Kettler 234, students and consultants collaboratively write summaries of their work together; students may request copies of these summaries to share with their teachers. Students may also contact the Center for online consulting through the Writing Center’s Web page at www.ipfw.edu/engl/wchome.htm.
Additionally, the Writing Center offers a library of writing resources; free handouts on writing strategies; special computer resources for students with disabilities; and class orientations and writing workshops for students and faculty held in the Center. Faculty may email the director to arrange for assistance on their own university-related writing projects.
Services for Students with Disabilities, located in Walb 113 (481-6657), offers assistance to students with physical and psychological disabilities in its monitored resource center. The services useful to writing students and their teachers include test and in-class writing assignment proctoring; note-taking assistance for those unable to write; audio/text book resources; print enlargement equipment for the learning disabled and visually impaired; and computers for word processing writing projects for registered SSD students.
Faculty should contact Services for Students with Disabilities to refer students with disabilities who are unaware of its services or to arrange for proctoring of tests or in-class writing assignments.
Multicultural Services (Walb 118,
481-6608) offers academic and personal counseling to students of color,
including African-American, Hispanic, and Native American students, as well as
at-risk students. It also sponsors
student clubs such as Black Collegian Caucus, Hispanos Unidos, and
International Student Organization.
In addition, it actively recruits domestic and international students
with programs such as Summer Bridge and Twenty First Century Scholars. Faculty
will receive information each semester on the Students in Danger (SID) program
and will be requested to refer to the office of Multicultural Services students
who have been targeted as SID students, or who are having academic, personal,
or financial difficulties, so that these students may receive early counseling
and assistance.
IT Services provides computing support to IPFW faculty, staff, and students, and maintains a large network computers. All IPFW students have e-mail accounts which allow them access to computer labs and thus the Internet. A listing of student-access computing facilities is available at the IT web address, http://www.its.ipfw.edu/students/oacf.html These labs are open to all students and faculty for university-related purposes. Many have scanners which can be used by students or faculty. Some schools and departments provide students access to additional specialized labs.
Faculty interested in incorporating technology into their writing classes are invited to talk with Debra Sewards, A & S Instructional Technology Coordinator, X6654.
Library resources include electronic links with all libraries in the Indiana University system (through IUCAT), more than 300,000 book and serial volumes, a variety of computer indexes to academic journals and newspapers, and numerous databases. The library’s homepage provides access to library electronic services. Through the document delivery system (DDS), faculty and students can request books and articles not owned by Helmke Library. This free service normally takes one to three weeks, but students should be cautioned to allow three weeks.
Many library resources (e.g., online catalog, indexes, databases, document delivery, and ReservesExpress) can be accessed on the Web. The library’s Web address is http://www.lib.ipfw.edu. By inserting your email address in the DDS form, you will receive an email message directing you to a Web address where your article will appear. Most of the library databases are available through the Web at home, but some are restricted to campus use. A username and password to the campus network are required.
Helmke’s ReservesExpress makes it possible for students to access course materials electronically. Faculty submit reserve materials to a Service Desk librarian; the materials are then scanned into the computer system. Students locate the materials through the library’s Web site.
The Learning Resource Center (LRC) in Helmke Library B37 (481-6519) will produce slides, overhead transparencies, and other graphic and photographic materials if they are for university-related purposes. It will also videotape classes or teaching-related activities such as peer critique demonstrations.
With at least 24 hours notice, both students and faculty may reserve audio-visual equipment, including overhead projectors, opaque projectors, televisions with VCRs, computers with projectors, movie projectors, CD and DVD players, and slide projectors by submitting an electronic request to LRCScheduling. If a piece of equipment, such as an overhead projector, is used regularly, instructors may arrange for it to be in the classroom during their class hour for the entire semester.
Academic Counseling and Career Services (481-6595) offers advising to Guided Studies students, teaches the Freshman Success courses, and offers students a full range of career services including job fairs and employment files.
Associate faculty and graduate aides have many of the same privileges and “perks” that full-time faculty have.
In addition to having access to the university’s computerized databases, associate faculty have a 365-day check-out period for library books, the same as full-time faculty.
Faculty should apply in Walb Union for a university services card. Check-out periods are 120 days for graduate students and 60 days for undergraduates. Other services include a faculty listserv, library user aids on the Web, and certification for composition faculty who want to use the library’s computerized training room with their students (call Amy Wilson at 481-6514 for room reservations).
The IPFW Child Care Center, located at 4133 Hobson Road (485-4187), provides high-quality care for children 2-12. This service is available at very reasonable rates for both students and faculty.
The Center for Women and Returning Adults in Walb G25 (481-6029) offers short-term counseling for returning adults on career choices, women’s issues, and child care concerns; information about cultural events and exhibits, financial aid, and community services; and referrals. It also provides a pleasant atmosphere for students with similar concerns to have coffee and share ideas.
Follett’s Bookstore (basement of Kettler Hall, 483-6100), offers a 10 percent discount to both full- and part-time faculty. In addition, certain software is available to faculty at huge discounts (e. g. Microsoft Office XP for $20). Also, once a year, on a day close to Christmas, it offers a 20 percent faculty reduction. To get these discounts, faculty should identify themselves, bring their faculty ID, and sign their names and departments on a special list kept at the cash registers.
Associate faculty and their families may join the Fitness Center in the Gates Athletic Center, featuring an indoor track, Nautilus equipment, free-weight equipment, and racquet ball. Individual and family memberships may be paid for in the Athletic Center office.
Associate faculty and graduate aides may join the full-service university credit union, located in Kettler 198F (481-6819) and have direct deposit of their paychecks if they wish. Another service members enjoy is free travelers’ checks. Loans are available from the loan office, located in Walb Union 125 (481-6273).
Associate faculty may participate in the Supplementary
Annuity Program 403B, a retirement plan, but the university does not contribute
or match contributions. Further
information about the plan can be obtained from Pat Hudson in Human Resources.