Theorizing Pedagogy: Articulating and Enacting Our Stories
112 Williams
Thursday, 5:30-8:20
Jim Kalmbach
Spring 2009
421H Stevenson
438-7648
kalmbach@ilstu.edu, http://www.ilstu.edu/~kalmbach
Class website: http://www.english.ilstu.edu/kalmbach/510
Class blog: http://blogs.english.ilstu.edu/eng510
Office Hours: MW 11-12 and by appointment. I can meet with students after class but probably not before.
The Seminar in the English Studies Pedagogies looks critically at pedagogy as a professional activity in the disciplines of English Studies. The course is designed to help prepare doctoral students at Illinois State University for the pedagogical components of their degree. We will work on a series of projects that will help you to theorize pedagogy and pedagogical research within your specific area of English Studies as you prepare to take your pedagogy comprehensive and propose your teaching internship. In addition, we will look critically at the claim (made mainly by me) that theorizing pedagogy is an essential component of successful English Studies programs.
Texts
(Click on a picture to order the book from Amazon.)
Gee, James. (2004). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Website: James Gee I have often called this book a magnificent failure because people have been so infatuated with the gaming dimension of the book, that they do not look at the theory of learning Gee enacts through his experiences with video games. As a result, I use this book with caution, but you can't think about pedagogy without talking about how people learn, and Gee's theory of learning is the most exciting that I have encountered.
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Hickey, Dona & Reiss, Donna. (Eds.). (2000). Learning Literature in an Era of Change: innovations in Teaching. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Websites: Dona Hickey & Donna Reiss I wanted a book that explored digital issues in English Studies and one that looked at teaching literature. Hickey and Reiss seems to do both. Note that two graduates of our program have essays in the book. |
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Kutz, Eleanor & Roskelly, Hephzibah. (1991). An Unquiet Pedagogy. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman. Websites: Eleanor Kutz & Hephzibah Roskelly Though this book is oriented towards k-12 teachers, it explores the idea of classroom research in English Studies better than any book I have read. |
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McComiskey, Bruce. (Ed.). (2006). English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Urbana, IL: NCTE. Website: Bruce McComiskey We will start with this book to integrate what is English Studies. Fir warning: the essays are a little uneven. McComiskey's intro is my favorite. Anther ISU grad, see http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2316 |
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Major Projects
- The Pedagogical Research project. For this project, you will prepare an IRB proposal, observe a classroom in your particular area of study, write up your observations, and present them to the class. Time frame: Weeks 2-6
- The SOTL/Comprehensives project. This project has two parts: (1) you will research a journal that specializes in publishing pedagogical essays. The journal is ideally in your field but does not have to be. You will analyze the approach the journal takes, what sort of articles it is looking for and you will write a paragraph outline of a paper that you might write for this journal, explaining how you would target the paper to this journal. (2) You will prepare an annotated bibliography of pedagogy articles that could form the basis of your pedagogy comprehensive and draft a synthesis based on that bibliography. Time Frame: Weeks 4-11
- Group Class Project: As a class, you will prepare materials about pedagogy and English Studies for use by your fellow graduate students. Last year our project was a prototype outline of the teaching internship proposal. This semester, the class will be to collect information about the 100 and 200 level courses that people have used for their teaching internships. Some of the courses may be obvious, (such as 249 for tech writing students or 170 for Children's Lit), but other classes, particularly general education classes, can be deeply mysterious to graduate students trying to plan teaching internships. Time frame: Weeks 10-13
- The Teaching Internship project. Our final project will focus on the intellectual work involved in preparing a teaching internship. In the first part of this project, you will do a rhetorical analysis of an internship proposal by an ISU English doctoral student (current or past) in your field. Ideally, you will be able to compare the internship proposal to the person's completed dissertation to see to how their pedagogical research is reflected in the diss. You will then draft a teaching internship proposal, including a draft IRB proposal and syllabus. Note that if you are at a point in your career where writing a teaching internship proposal is not the best way to move you closer to graduation, we will negotiate an alternative topic for this project. Time frame: Week 11-17
Other Requirements
Blogging
I would like you to blog a response to each of the assigned readings in the class. For a once a week class, I find such blogging to be a really useful way of staying in touch. I also want you to to comment on each other’s response, but I will not make it a requirement as I have found responding requirements quick devolve into busy work.
Lead a Class Discussion of a Reading
You will team up with someone in the class and lead our class of a reading. I would like you to find a creative way to engage us in the text, usually involving a series of activities, some hands one, some reflective, rather than a single discussion.
Teaching Stories
Each of you will contribute a teaching story at the beginning of class at least once during the semester.
Policies
I have only one policy in this class and that is that we treat each other as professionals entering the field. As professions we need to communicate with each other and negotiate when we have problems.
You should also know that I am a very improvisational teacher, and my plans usually change over the course of a semester in response to student work.
