Monday, August 20

Day 1 (Monday, August 20)

Lesson Objectives
Students will

Connection to Course Goals
Today's class introduces students to course goals, content, and structure, as well as their instructor and each other.

Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Introducing students to each other and to the course lays the groundwork for the Phase 1 writing assignments.

Prep
After orientation last week, you're well prepared to teach your first class (even if you feel like you're not!).  To get ready for day 1, reread the syllabus introduction, revisit the first few readings you'll assign, prepare your materials (see the list below), ask for any advice, help, etc. you need (the lecturers are here for you!), and write out your own lesson plan (do this even if you plan to follow this one 100%--the act of writing it out in your own words and in a format that makes the most sense to you will give you confidence and will help you remember what you want to do, and why).

Materials
Class roster (as up to date as possible)
20 copies of your syllabus (if Writing Studio instructions aren't on your syllabus, prepare an extra handout with those)
Yellow handouts about the CO150 drop policy
Overhead transparencies:
                  Instructions for student introductions
                  Homework
 
Lead-In
Some students may have prepared for class today by buying the textbook.  Also some may have set up Writing Studio accounts.  Today is unique because it's a fresh start.  Your students will come in with few ideas about what the class will be about, what the atmosphere will feel like, etc.  One of your primary tasks for today is to establish a classroom culture that will work for you and your students, and to give students a fair idea of what they can expect for the rest of the semester.

Activities

Before class begins, write your name, the course number, section, and title on the board.  Once all (or most) students have arrived, take a moment to introduce yourself--tell students what you would like them to call you, and consider what else you'd like them to know about you.  The formality of your introduction will help set the tone for the semester, so consider the atmosphere you want to foster.  It's much easier to become less formal as time goes on than it is to become more formal.  Make sure everyone is in the right place--have students check their schedules to be sure that they're really in your section.  Offer an "out" for anyone who is in the wrong room.

Use your roster to call names and make note of anyone who is absent.  After you have called all the names on your list, ask if there is anyone in the room whose name you didn't call.  If anyone raises his/her hand, take time to sort it out.  Possible reasons why the student isn't on your roster include (in order of likelihood):

Transition It's important to articulate a connection between each activity so that your classes feel well-planned and organized and, even more importantly, so that your students understand the purposes of the activities you ask them to do.  Over time, you'll get good at transitioning without thinking about it.  You may already be good at this; one way to ensure that you use transitions, and to help you speed to transition-use stardom, is to write them out in your lesson plan.  Over time, you can scale this back, but at first it's a really good idea to think through transitions ahead of time.  Here, you can simply say something like: now that we know who is here, let's take a look at what this class will be about. 

Spend time looking at the document with your students.  Discuss the course description, your contact information, your grading system, and key course policies.  You might not discuss every single thing in detail; if you don't (and even if you do), remind students to reread the document after class and to email you with any questions or concerns. 

Transition Here you might say, we'll be doing a lot of work together in this course so let's start to get to know each other now.

Choose one of the introduction activities below, or use another that accomplishes the goal of allowing students to make connections with each other and the goal of setting precedents about participation and community.

Option 1:
In this activity, students pair up and interview each other; then they introduce each other to the rest of the class.  Here are instructions which you can put on an overhead (be sure to enlarge the font to 16pt or larger):

Introductions

Pair up with someone seated near you (preferably someone you don't already know).

Take a few minutes to find out interesting things about your partner---you can ask the typical questions (name, major, hometown, etc.) but also try to find out something unusual, unique, silly, amazing, etc. so that we can start to learn about each other.

In a few minutes, I'll ask you to introduce your partner to the class, so be sure to jot down notes.

Option 2:
In this activity, you generate a handful of questions with the class and then go around the room and allow each student time to answer the questions.  You can start out with the obvious--write "What's your name?" on the board.  Ask the students what else they'd like to know about each other.  Give them time--if nobody suggests anything, make another suggestion.  Something like "What's your major?" works and might get them going with more suggestions.  Once you have four or five questions listed, end with one of your own---something like "what did you have for dinner last night?" or "what's your favorite food?" can help connect this activity to our question-at-issue.  Feel free to answer the questions yourself, too, if you'd like.

No matter the option you choose, keep track of time--it's easy for some students to get carried away.  You need about 5 minutes after this activity to finish up with class.  If you're running out of time, cut the activity short and finish it on Wednesday.

Transition Here you might say, now that we've met each other and learned some things about the course, we're ready to proceed with a great semester.

Put the homework on an overhead transparency, explain it, and allow students time to copy it down (as an alternative, you can make handouts; you can print 4 or 5 to a page and cut them apart to save paper and precious copies.  If you worry about running out of time, or that students may not get everything copied down correctly, handouts are a good option).

Homework for Wednesday

*These directions represent one method of making articles available to students: putting copies of them in the File Folder of your Writing Studio class page.  Students may also retrieve articles from www.michaelpollan.com or through Morgan Library databases.  See appendix for a student-ready handout with directions for retrieving articles from library databases.

Wrap up today's class and point students forward to Wednesday's class.
Be sure to always conclude class, even if you are pressed for time.  Here you might say, it was great to meet all of you today; I'm looking forward to discussing the reading with you on Wednesday.

Connection to Next Class

Today you've taken care of a lot of "business" and you've prepared students for what they can expect next time.  On Wednesday, you'll introduce students to academic inquiry and the question-at-issue.

You might take a moment to reflect on today's class, to assess what went well and what could have gone better (and go easy on yourself--you're probably way more aware of what you did or didn't say/do than your students are!), and to make notes about anything you need to remember for next time.  Be sure to check email now and then before Wednesday so that you can help students out with questions, Writing Studio issues, etc.