Resources for CSU, Chico’s “jumbo” first-year composition course.
Link to course site: English 130P
Link to recent article: “Epic Learning in a ‘Jumbo’ Writing Course”
Thank you to the editors of this special issue of Composition Studies–Drs. Dawn Shepherd, Samantha Sturman, and Heidi Estrem–for a wonderful issue focused on corequisite writing courses. Bonus: working with my colleagues Laura Sparks and Chris Fosen to share the jumbo writing course. Many people have asked about the jumbo course design; grateful to be able to point folks to this issue.
Epic Learning: Ignite Talk
Goals for Redesign
- Develop Practices for Responding to Writing for Future Teachers—a central component to this redesign was an emphasis on development of future teachers and TAs by providing experience in working with student writing. Interns, who work as mentors in the course, collaborate with faculty in responding to student work. We meet weekly as a team to discuss student writing and writing pedagogy.
- Focused Professional Development for Faculty—this course allows faculty to rethink the role of the writing instructor and the use of technology in writing pedagogy.
- Develop Assessment Practices and Research Agenda in the Academic Writing Program—another major component of this redesign was to develop undergraduate, graduate, and faculty opportunities for research in the program that could be shared with the campus, and more broadly, the field of writing studies.
- Proactively Address the Raise in Caps—in this configuration, faculty can take a proactive stance towards the raise in caps for English 130. In this jumbo model, the instructor is not as central to revision work. The course follows a “community of practice” (Wenger) model by creating small learning communities, embedding mentor support, and developing 130 students into capable peer responders to writing.
“Epic Learning: Large Class as Intentional Design” article for DMLCentral.
Reich, Justin. “Making Writing Classes Larger and Other Heresies of Connected Courses.” EdTech Researcher. Nov 2016.
“Epic Composition” talk given by Kim Jaxon & Tom Fox at CCCC in Houston, TX, April 2016.
“Not Your Grandmother’s Comp Class.” Chris Fosen and I discuss the jumbo design with Tom Fox on NWP radio.
Participation structures and roles.
Slides from talk given at American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
The Chronicle of Higher Education article about our course: “Bigger Classes Encourage Experiments in Teaching”