FINAL EXAM Monday, December 15, 8:30-11

Just a reminder.

Email as attachments all your work by December 15, 11 am.

Email me if any questions, problems, etc.

My on-line Op-Ed in The State

Latin and the SAT

FINAL EXAM

Due by 11 am on December 15, 2008:

(1) Autobiographical collage; email as ATTACHMENT

(2) 2-3 page discussion of your experiences in the course (email as an ATTACHMENT), including the following:

• Writing journal—did you maintain a journal? Good experience? No, why?

• Two books—did you read them? Yes, good experience? No, why?

• What have you learned about yourself as a writer? Your writing process?

Trouble in essay land?

Maybe this can explain some of the angst experienced with essay assignments:

The Term Paper Artist

On the Radio

I believe I will be a guest on Speaking of Schools this Monday, December 1.

Bad news for charter schools. . .

A new report shows a serious failure by charter schools in Minnesota, home of the longest running experiment with charter schools.

See this news piece.

See the report here as a PDF.

KIPP in Ohio

The KIPP school in Ohio is facing some problems.

Note this story about the school.

What do we think of this?

George Will champions a paternalistic school.

And, how did paternalistic schools treat women throughout history?

See this.

And what if a school decided that women should conform to these expectations for women, inculcating them in our schools?

The President's children

What do we see in this Op-Ed concerning DC schools and a new President choosing school for his children?

DC Schools Just Not Good Enough, Leonard Pitts Jr.

And more on DC schools.

The BIG Finale!

Two major topics remain on the agenda as we approach the end of the semester. Based on your comments in class, and other input, I believe we need to focus our remaining discussions to three things (two topics and your final autobiographical collage); the two topics:

(1) Your books—both readings for the course. What are the major ideas you gained form them? What did you like? What did you not connect with?

(2) What can schools do? Several of you are interested in how our schools are not succeeding (especially with students form poverty). You are also interested in reforms. We need to face what schools can and cannot accomplish. And why.

Please consider looking closely at the KIPP report and the article on the new paternalism.

Then compare the new paternalism piece with the essay by Alfie Kohn, "Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide," September 1993. (I also recommend that you read another piece by Kohn also, "Beyond Discipline," November 20, 1996)

A new piece by Kohn is also interesting: Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated

In a democracy, what is a school obligated to provide all students? And how should that be accomplished?

How should we respond to this?

America the Illiterate, Chris Hedges

School reform, poverty. . .what do we do?

Since we discussed the problems with poverty and school reform, some of you may want to look at a recent study concerning KIPP schools, a reform initiative. Warning: Serious research document!

Monday Dinner! Don't forget, Nov 10, 6 pm, Chicora Alley

Dinner info

Academic and Intellectual Freedom in the Classroom

How the survey played out:

1) I remain quiet in class discussions because I am concerned that my ideas and beliefs may be different than those of my teacher/professor and that such a difference will negatively impact my grade.

Never (8) Rarely (21) Occasionally (20) Often (7) Always

2) When I talk in class discussions, I express ideas and beliefs that are similar to the teacher/professor’s even though the ideas and beliefs are not necessarily my ideas and beliefs because I am concerned that my ideas and beliefs may be different than those of my teacher/professor and that such a difference will negatively impact my grade.

Never (14) Rarely (25) Occasionally (13) Often (4) Always

3) On written test/exams, I express ideas and beliefs that are similar to the teacher/professor’s even though the ideas and beliefs are not necessarily my ideas and beliefs because I am concerned that my ideas and beliefs may be different than those of my teacher/professor and that such a difference will negatively impact my grade.

Never (8) Rarely (14) Occasionally (18) Often (11) Always (5)

4) My teachers/professors are aware of their own assumptions and biases, and they make serious efforts not to allow their ideas and beliefs to impact negatively how they grade their students.

Never Rarely (7) Occasionally (19) Often (25) Always (4)

5) Most students express (orally and in writing) primarily what they believe teachers/professors want to hear/read instead of saying or writing ideas and comments that may contradict the teacher/professor because students fear differences of opinion negatively impact students’ grades.

Never Rarely (2) Occasionally (18) Often (34) Always (2)

6) I am more likely to change my views by what my peers believe or say than what my teachers/professors believe or say.

Never (4) Rarely (17) Occasionally (17) Often (16) Always (2)

Revised Final Schedule—URGENT

F 11/7: Book Club, second book discussion

M 11/10: E.3 submission DUE

W 11/12: Class discussion

F 11/14: Book Club, second book discussion

M 11/17: Class discussion

W 11/19: Book Club, second book discussion

F 11/21: GUEST lecturer(s)

M 11/24: GUEST lecturer(s); E.4 Full sub DUE

W 11/26: Thanksgiving Holiday

F 11/28: Thanksgiving Holiday

M 12/1: Autobiographical Collage drafting

W 12/3: Autobiographical Collage drafting

F 12/5: Autobiographical Collage drafting

M 12/8: Autobiographical Collage drafting

M 12/15: Exam—Final Portfolio/ Autobiographical Collage DUE (20 pp. min.)

Interesting Op-Ed

Thought many of you would find this interesting. It is well written and it addresses some of the faults with either/or thinking:

Now is the time for Christians to speak up

Politics and the cult of personality

This article may help you all put our discussion today in perspective:

Warren G. Harding

Academic freedom on university campuses?

Consider this piece from Inside Higher Ed.

Bias?

Interesting Op-Ed in The State; note the two tests you can take on-line to identify your biases:

What? Me biased?

Essay Grades

Content/organization (10)
Diction/style (5)
Conventions (5)
Total (20)

20-18 = A range
17-15 = B range
14-12 = C range
11-9 = D range
8-below = F

Good article on being a teacher in Newsweek

I Am Not A Baby Sitter, Heather Robinson

Dinner November 10, 6 pm, Chicora Alley, Downtown Greenville

Make sure you don't forget our FYW dinner!

Chicora Alley

November 10 @ 6 PM.

Academic Expectations, continued. . .

Look at this carefully:

Logical Fallacies

And if you have further questions about academic writing, go to the OWL at Purdue, and then click on the link to the right, "General Academic Writing."

And for even more information, especially about writing in an academic setting, see the Temple University Writing Center handouts. The first link on college writing has several additional links that cover the discussion we had in class about writing in college. Also, there are more links on the main page, including help with documentation, Citation Guides.

Revised Schedule! Revised Schedule! Revised Schedule!

M 10/20: APA documentation, citing sources, evaluating sources

W 10/22: Academic and Scholarly Writing—Expectations Traditional (the classroom) and Authentic (the real world); Word Choice (Diction); Avoiding "Vague"

F 10/24: NCLB, legislation and education!

M 10/27: Religion and public education; the evolution controversy; prayer, the pledge. . .

Consider this excellent Op-Ed in The Greenville News by Dr. Henderson:

School vouchers endanger religious freedom


W 10/29: Monday topics, continued. . .; E.3 drafting DUE

F 10/31: School Choice, vouchers, public and private. . .

M 11/3: Race, Gender, Affluence/Poverty and Education

W 11/5: E.3 First full sub DUE

F 11/7:

M 11/10:

W 11/12:

F 11/14:

M 11/17:

W 11/19: E.4 drafting DUE

F 11/21: [* No class Nov 21]

M 11/24: [* No class Nov 24]; E.4 First full sub DUE

W 11/26: Thanksgiving Holiday

F 11/28: Thanksgiving Holiday

M 12/1: Autobiographical Collage drafting

W 12/3: Autobiographical Collage drafting

F 12/5: Autobiographical Collage drafting

M 12/8: Autobiographical Collage drafting

Exam: Final Portfolio/ Autobiographical Collage DUE (20 pp. min.)

Who is to blame. . .?

Consider the influence of wealth/poverty when we consider health:

Family Income Impacts Children's Health

Child-health report shows wide gaps according to wealth, education

Note the study itself:

America's Health Starts With Healthy Children

A snapshot of each state is also available if you scroll down on the link above.

How market forces hurt the education of the poor

Poorest schools tend to have novice teachers, state reports

Good source for IDEAS for your writing. . .

Try reading the blogs at this Paulo Freire Project.

What is failure?

Great Op-Ed in The State.

To consider. . .

Paulo Freire (1998), Pedagogy of Freedom

“If I consider myself superior to what is different, no matter what it is, I am refusing to listen. The different becomes not an ‘other’ worthy of any respect, but a ‘this’ or ‘that’ to be despised and detested. This is oppression” (p. 108)

“It is this: If education cannot do everything, there is something fundamental that it can do. In other words, if education is not the key to social transformation, neither is it simply meant to reproduce the dominant ideology” (p. 110)

So should everyone take Latin?

A Dead Language That Is Very Much Alive

SAT. . .and schools behind bars

Flawed Assumptions Undergird SAT

Best schools behind bars? (Thanks to Rick for alerting me to this. Consider this in light of the "new" paternalism.)

Next Week!

Class Schedule Change September 29 and October 1/FYW/ Dr. Thomas

NO REQUIRED CLASS MEETINGS next week.

Meet with Dr. Thomas during your appointment time (either Monday or Tuesday per schedule).

By midnight Wednesday (October 1), submit your draft of Essay 2 and both peer-reviewed copies of that draft.

Ben and Lindsey: You must submit your draft of Essay 2 to your peer group (Ben = pink; Lindsey = green) before submitting it to Dr. Thomas. PLEASE, would someone on pink and someone on green email Ben Granger and Lindsey Appleby to confirm the groups? Also, Ben and Lindsey need to select an appointment time for next week; see the schedule and email me your choice ASAP.

Wednesday OPTION: I can hold class Wednesday as an OPTION for any who want to meet and discuss your books, your essays, or any of the topics of the class. PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT TO HAVE AN OPTIONAL CLASS WEDNESDAY.

My Op-Ed in The News today

Realism often lacking in education debate

What do you think of this?

Southwire's 12 for Life model

Or this new book, Sweating the Small Stuff.

More Tips and Hints after E.1 Drafts

Here are some things that have popped up since I responded to your E.1 drafts:

• You are always free to ABANDON an essay draft; yes, you can start an entirely new draft/essay at any point during the process of any essay. Real writers do that, and you may also (just keep in mind that we have slightly different requirements in the academic world for completing our writing "assignments").

• When you check a number on the Conventional Language web spot, note that each number has revision guidelines—edit, delete, revise, or add. Note what the number suggests!

• Consider that I responded to your drafts after ONE reading; my initial responses could be off-base. Think about my comments, but do not feel they are commandments! (I changed my mind about one student's essay today.)

Next step: Revision

Revision is an opportunity to see again. After reading your drafts to E.1, I suggest that most of you focus on a few key aspects as your revise. Using the on-line version of Conventional Language, consider the following:

• Begin your essay with something that urges the reader to continue reading. Be specific and vivid from the beginning. Narrative techniques and specific (and real) examples often work to engage the reader. Consider some of the following openings:

From Barbara Kingsolver, "Letter to My Mother" and "High Tide in Tucson"

From Amy Tan, "Mother Tongue"

• All aspects of your writing must be purposeful. A key part of your purpose is to choose your words carefully for specificity, clarity, and appropriateness (particularly tone). See (24) and (19).

• Simply writing a statement doesn't make it true. Know your topic well; this requires research in many cases. Once you are writing from an informed position, it is crucial that you show the reader the evidence supporting those claims.

• Know your focus, (41), and organize, (31), your essay in some way that best presents that focus clearly and coherently to your reader.

Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008

• Share revised Cisnerso exercise—Reading like Writers. . .

• Discuss our writing processes. . .

• Peer edit

Poverty and School Reform (NYT article)

The New York Times, September 7, 2008 (Sunday Magazine)

24/7 School Reform
By PAUL TOUGH

In an election season when Democrats find themselves unusually unified on everything from tax policy to foreign affairs, one issue still divides them: education. It is a surprising fault line, perhaps, given the party’s long dominance on the issue. Voters consistently say they trust the Democrats over the Republicans on education, by a wide margin. But the split in the party is real, deep and intense, and it shows no signs of healing any time soon.

On one side are the members of the two huge teachers’ unions and the many parents who support them. To them, the big problem in public education is No Child Left Behind, President Bush’s signature education law. Teachers have many complaints about the law: it encourages “teaching to the test” at the expense of art, music and other electives, they say; it blames teachers, especially those in inner-city schools, for the poor performance of disadvantaged children; and it demands better results without providing educators with the resources they need.

On the other side are the party’s self-defined “education reformers.” Members of this group — a loose coalition of mayors and superintendents, charter-school proponents and civil rights advocates — actually admire the accountability provisions in No Child Left Behind, although they often criticize the law’s implementation. They point instead to a bigger, more systemic crisis. These reformers describe the underperformance of the country’s schoolchildren, and especially of poor minorities, as a national crisis that demands a drastic overhaul of the way schools are run. In order to get better teachers into failing classrooms, they support performance bonuses, less protection for low-performing teachers, alternative certification programs to attract young, ambitious teachers and flexible contracts that could allow for longer school days and an extended school year. The unions see these proposals as attacks on their members’ job security — which, in many ways, they are.

As the fall campaign and a new school year begin, both the unionists and the reformers find themselves distracted by the same question: Which side is Barack Obama on? Each camp has tried to claim him as its own — and Obama, for his part, has done his best to make it easy for them. He reassures the unions by saying he will reform No Child Left Behind so teachers will no longer “be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests,” and he placates reformers by calling himself a “strong champion of charter schools.” The reformers point to his speech in July to the National Education Association, during which he was booed, briefly, for endorsing changes to teachers’ compensation structure. The unionists, in turn, emphasize his speech a week later to the American Federation of Teachers, during which he said, “I am tired of hearing you, the teachers who work so hard, blamed for our problems.” On blogs and at conferences, the two sides have continued to snipe at each other, all the while parsing Obama’s speeches and policy pronouncements, looking for new clues to his true positions.

It’s possible, though, that both camps are looking in the wrong place for answers. What is most interesting and novel about Obama’s education plans is how much they involve institutions other than schools.

The American social contract has always identified public schools as the one place where the state can and should play a role in the process of child-rearing. Outside the school’s walls (except in cases of serious abuse or neglect), society is seen to have neither a right nor a responsibility to intervene. But a new and growing movement of researchers and advocates has begun to argue that the longstanding and sharp conceptual divide between school and not-school is out of date. It ignores, they say, overwhelming evidence of the impact of family and community environments on children’s achievement. At the most basic level, it ignores the fact that poor children, on average, arrive in kindergarten far behind their middle-class peers. There is evidence that schools can do a lot to erase that divide, but the reality is that most schools do not. If we truly want to counter the effects of poverty on the achievement of children, these advocates argue, we need to start a whole lot earlier and do a whole lot more.

The three people who have done the most to propel this nascent movement are James J. Heckman, Susan B. Neuman and Geoffrey Canada — though each of them comes at the problem from a different angle, and none of them would necessarily cite the other two as close allies. Heckman, an occasional informal Obama adviser, is an economist at the University of Chicago, and in a series of recent papers and books he has developed something of a unified theory of American poverty. More than ever before, Heckman argues, the problem of persistent poverty is at its root a problem of skills — what economists often call human capital. Poor children grow into poor adults because they are never able, either at home or at school, to acquire the abilities and resources they need to compete in a high-tech service-driven economy — and Heckman emphasizes that those necessary skills are both cognitive (the ability to read and compute) and noncognitive (the ability to stick to a schedule, to delay gratification and to shake off disappointments). The good news, Heckman says, is that specific interventions in the lives of poor children can diminish that skill gap — as long as those interventions begin early (ideally in infancy) and continue throughout childhood.

What kind of interventions? Well, that’s where the work of Susan Neuman becomes relevant. In 2001, Neuman, an education scholar at the University of Michigan, was recruited to a senior position in George W. Bush’s Department of Education, helping to oversee the development and then the implementation of No Child Left Behind. She quit in 2003, disillusioned with the law, and became convinced that its central goal — to raise disadvantaged children to a high level of achievement through schools alone — was simply impossible. Her work since then can be seen as something of a vast mea culpa for her time in Washington. After leaving government, Neuman spent several years crisscrossing the nation, examining and analyzing programs intended to improve the lives of disadvantaged children. Her search has culminated in a book, “Changing the Odds for Children at Risk,” to be published in November, in which she describes nine nonschool interventions. She includes the Nurse-Family Partnership, which sends trained nurses to visit and counsel poor mothers during and after their pregnancies; Early Head Start, a federal program, considerably more ambitious than Head Start itself, that offers low-income families parental support, medical care and day-care centers during the first three years of the lives of their children; Avance, a nine-month language-enrichment program for Spanish-speaking parents, mostly immigrants from Mexico, that operates in Texas and Los Angeles; and Bright Beginnings, a pre-K program in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina that enrolls 4-year-olds who score the lowest on a screening test of cognitive ability and manages to bring most of them up to grade level by the first day of kindergarten.

Neuman’s favorite programs share certain characteristics — they start early, focus on the families that need them the most and provide intensive support. Many of the interventions work with parents to make home environments more stimulating; others work directly with children to improve their language development (a critical factor in later school success). All of them, Neuman says, demonstrate impressive results. The problem right now is that the programs are isolated and scattered across the country, and they are usually directed at only a few years of a child’s life, which means that their positive effects tend to fade once the intervention ends.

This is where Geoffrey Canada comes in. He runs the first and so far the only organization in the country that pulls together under a single umbrella integrated social and educational services for thousands of children at once. Canada’s agency, the Harlem Children’s Zone, has a $58 million budget this year, drawn mostly from private donors; it currently serves 8,000 kids in a 97-block neighborhood of Harlem. (I’ve spent the last five years reporting on his organization’s work and its implications for the country.) Canada shares many of the views of the education reformers — he runs two intensive K-12 charter schools with extended hours and no union contract — but at the same time he offers what he calls a “conveyor belt” of social programs, beginning with Baby College, a nine-week parenting program that encourages parents to choose alternatives to corporal punishment and to read and talk more with their children. As students progress through an all-day prekindergarten and then through a charter school, they have continuous access to community supports like family counseling, after-school tutoring and a health clinic, all designed to mimic the often-invisible cocoon of support and nurturance that follows middle-class and upper-middle-class kids through their childhoods. The goal, in the end, is to produce children with the abilities and the character to survive adolescence in a high-poverty neighborhood, to make it to college and to graduate.

Though the conveyor belt is still being constructed in Harlem, early results are positive. Last year, the charter schools’ inaugural kindergarten class reached third grade and took their first New York state achievement tests: 68 percent of the students passed the reading test, which beat the New York City average and came within two percentage points of the state average, and 97 percent of them passed the math test, well above both the city and state average.

Obama has embraced, directly or indirectly, all three of these new thinkers. His campaign invited Heckman to critique its education policy, and Obama has proposed large-scale expansions of two of Neuman’s chosen interventions, the Nurse-Family Partnership and Early Head Start. Most ambitiously, Obama has pledged to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in 20 cities across the country. “The philosophy behind the project is simple,” Obama said in a speech last year announcing his plan. “If poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works.”

Obama has proposed that these replication projects, which he has labeled Promise Neighborhoods, be run as private/public partnerships, with the federal government providing half the funds and the rest being raised by local governments and private philanthropies and businesses. It would cost the federal government “a few billion dollars a year,” he acknowledged in his speech. “But we will find the money to do this, because we can’t afford not to.”

It remains to be seen, of course, whether Obama will convince voters with this position, and whether, if elected, he will do the heavy lifting required to put such an ambitious national program in place. There are many potential obstacles. A lot of conservatives would oppose a new multibillion-dollar federal program as a Great Society-style giveaway to the poor. And many liberals are wary of any program that tries to change the behavior of inner-city parents; to them, teaching poor parents to behave more like middle-class parents can feel paternalistic. Union leaders will find it hard to support an effort that has nonunion charter schools at its heart. Education reformers often support Canada’s work, but his premise — that schools alone are not enough to make a difference in poor children’s lives — makes many of them anxious. And in contrast to the camps arrayed on either side of the school-reform debate, there is no natural constituency for the initiative: no union or interest group that stands to land new jobs or new contracts, no deep-pocketed philanthropy devoted to spreading the message.

The real challenge Obama faces is to convince voters that the underperformance of poor children is truly a national issue — that it should matter to anyone who isn’t poor. Heckman, especially, argues that we should address the problem not out of any mushy sense of moral obligation, but for hardheaded reasons of global competitiveness. At a moment when nations compete mostly through the skill level of their work force, he argues, we cannot afford to let that level decline.

Obama’s contention is that the traditional Democratic solution — more money for public schools — is no longer enough. In February, in an interview with the editorial board of The Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, he called for “a cultural change in education in inner-city communities and low-income communities across the country — not just inner-city, but also rural.” In many low-income communities, Obama said, “there’s this sense that education is somehow a passive activity, and you tip your head over and pour education in somebody’s ear. And that’s not how it works. So we’re going to have to work with parents.”

In the end, the kind of policies that Obama is proposing will require an even broader cultural change — not just in the way poor Americans think about education but also in the way middle-class Americans think about poverty. And that won’t be easy. No matter how persuasive the statistics Heckman is able to muster or how impressive the results that Canada is able to achieve, many Americans will continue to simply blame parents or teachers for the underperformance of poor kids. Obama’s challenge — if he decides to take it on — will be to convince voters that society as a whole has a crucial role to play in the lives of disadvantaged children, not just in the classroom but outside schools as well.

Paul Tough is an editor at the magazine. His book, “Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America,” will be published next week.

Political—and distorted—language

Read this excellent Op-Ed in The State from Leonard Pitts:

"Hypocrisy" as art in Romney-speak

This piece echoes a long-standing argument made by George Orwell about the abuse of language:

Politics and the English Language

In this FWY, we want to seek the use of language that is well crafted but always ethical.

Why do we track students still?

This book from ASCD has some free chapters on-line to consider tracking in our schools.

Education: Personal commodity or Universal good?

Jonathan Kozol, in his Letters to a Young Teacher, makes this comment in his discussion of vouchers:

"If education is perceived not as a universal good but as a personal commodity, and nothing more, to be consumed for personal advantage only—if this is all it is—then it's very hard to argue with a parent who sincerely thinks she's being double-billed" (p. 145, pb edition).

Then, what is education? "[A] personal commodity"? Or "a universal good"?

Op-Eds in The State

The SAT and private schools

Trashing schools for political gain

First essay—Now what do you do?

Let's brainstorm some ideas for the first essay:

• Respond to the article on A.P. courses and liberal arts education

• Respond to the Op-Ed in The State on merit pay

• Respond to my Op-Ed in The State

• Respond to Emerson's The American Scholar

• Respond to Jefferson's comments on education

• Consider what is teachable, and what is unteachable (Vonnegut essay)

• Pick your own topic related to education, democracy, or the relationship between the two

Regardless of your topic, be sure to make purposeful decisions about the GENRE/form of the essay and your intended audience.

What do you think?

Published Online: August 29, 2008

Published in Print: September 3, 2008

Commentary: Are Advanced Placement Courses Diminishing Liberal Arts Education?

By Paul Von Blum

At this time of year, thousands of academically accomplished students enter selective higher education institutions like mine, beginning their arduous journey toward bachelor’s degrees and beyond. They have stellar grade point averages, high SAT scores, and impressive records of community service. The vast majority also have completed Advanced Placement courses in high school, providing them with college credit and ostensibly preparing them for the rigorous academic work they will face as undergraduates.

Yet, my 40 years of undergraduate teaching in the humanities and social sciences, currently at the University of California, Los Angeles, persuade me that Advanced Placement preparation is overrated and may, ironically, diminish rather than advance the deeper objectives of a liberal arts education.

This may be a minority, even heretical, view among my faculty colleagues. Most assume that students’ AP experiences provide a modest advantage in their courses, through superior subject-matter knowledge and higher personal motivation. My experiences contradict these assumptions, however.

"AP participation, for many, is primarily an exercise in memorization and exam passing — the antithesis of genuine liberal learning."

Most of my UCLA courses make use of art, film, literature, and other forms of cultural expression and explore their linkages to major features of history, politics, and society. They cover content that high school students presumably would encounter in such AP courses as art history, U.S. government and politics, English literature, European history, world history, U.S. history, and others. Over the years, though, I have found a disconcerting lack of historical knowledge among my undergraduate students, an observation I hear regularly in conversations with colleagues.

Routinely, I pause in my classes when I discern that a majority of students have never heard of the major historical events, movements, or persons I offer for analysis. Then I must quickly supply them with the relevant information, so that we can move on to deeper educational objectives. This is not especially troubling; my job as a teacher is to provide basic material, including the facts I think my students should already know. But recently during these classroom exchanges, I have started asking how many of the students took AP courses and examinations in high school. Their numbers are staggering.

In conversations with students, moreover, I have found that most approached their AP courses as merely another tedious hurdle to be overcome in gaining admission to selective colleges and universities. Students’ candid remarks over many years have only reinforced my conclusion that AP participation, for many, is primarily an exercise in memorization and exam passing—the antithesis of genuine liberal learning.

Many students sheepishly admit that they forgot the AP material soon after the exam, a process they often repeat as undergraduates. Such comments suggest that their AP efforts were a response primarily to pressure from parents, peers, and institutions seeking high college-admission statistics.

The ironic result is to reduce or even eliminate the quest for authentic learning. By focusing almost exclusively on test-taking skills and examination results, too many students lose sight of what they are supposed to be doing in the first place. A subtle and insidious mind-set develops in which “results” trump the actual educational process. Such a perspective can, of course, lead to major, though limited, postsecondary “success.” But while students graduate with high honors, they come away with little feel for authentic learning and few critical-thinking skills. Résumé padding substitutes for durable knowledge and lifelong intellectual curiosity.Intrigued by this phenomenon, I have sought further discussions with UCLA students who had substantial AP experience in high school. What I’ve found has amplified my misgivings. At least in the humanities and social sciences, students report that their AP work consisted primarily of factual information. Often neglected were the subtleties and ambiguities of historical and artistic inquiry.

Yet there are more serious historical and cultural deficiencies among my students with extensive AP credit. For example, in my courses examining historical events from the perspective of people who challenge the existing social order, I see particular evidence of a vast lack of knowledge about the events and people associated with labor, civil rights, feminist, anti-war, gay and lesbian, environmental, and other resistance movements. Similarly, in art-related courses in which I highlight work by members of marginalized communities such as African-Americans, Latinos, women, and others, there is also little evidence of background knowledge.

In short, almost every person or movement I present seems to be entirely new to my students, a large percentage of whom have had substantial AP coursework in the humanities and social studies. I can only conclude that, like most high school courses in history, art, and social studies, AP efforts reflect a conventional bias that neglects large populations and discourages more-comprehensive treatment of dissenting political and cultural forces.

And then there is the matter of swapping high school credits for college experiences. Those who have substantial unit credit from Advanced Placement courses and examinations also run the risk of shortchanging themselves in opportunities for liberal education at the postsecondary level. Typically, undergraduates need approximately 120 semester units, or 180 quarter units, for graduation. If they begin college with 25 or 30 units gained through AP coursework, they reduce their opportunities for wider intellectual exploration. The effect is to substitute high school classes for college-level classes, even though the latter often provide greater intellectual breadth and depth.

With less time on college campuses, fewer students will select courses on global warming, African-American art, women’s literature, biomedical ethics, and hundreds of other subjects that might encourage them to explore new knowledge in intellectually exciting directions.

Perhaps the most provocative argument against AP courses, though, is that, with rare exceptions, the teachers teaching them are not qualified or knowledgeable enough to offer college-level instruction. The inescapable reality is that high school teachers are not at the forefront of research and intellectual discovery. Indeed, their very workloads often preclude them from even keeping up with major developments in most academic fields. The best among them do perform exceptional work in transmitting knowledge, however. Improvement at that level should therefore be the primary high school objective, rather than entering domains beyond the genuine competence of existing teaching personnel.

Finally, critics of Advanced Placement have observed that affluent school districts hold major advantages in offering such opportunities. This is a compelling view. Schools in lower-income communities, especially those with substantial ethnic- and racial-minority populations, clearly deserve higher funding and superior opportunities for their students. But simply adding more AP courses to their curricula scarcely addresses the structural inequalities and injustices. Replicating a dubious system of AP credit arrangements fundamentally misses the point.

It is unrealistic to advocate the abolition of Advanced Placement courses in high schools. AP opportunities will flourish as long as powerful institutional forces combine with the increasingly frantic efforts of privileged parents to secure high-status college and university slots for their children. Students themselves, caught up in the admissions frenzy, also demand mechanisms to set themselves apart from their peers. Accordingly, college and university admissions officials should exert more critical leadership, perhaps even declining to grant college credit or even preferential treatment to applicants with AP courses on their high school transcripts.

Above all, college and university faculty members concerned with serious liberal learning should reassert their authority as educators. They should avoid complicity in institutional schemes that process undergraduates as rapidly as possible, neglecting the basic principles of active and sustained higher education.

The challenges of the 21st century demand an educated populace with intellectual breadth and depth and the ability for critical thought and active public citizenship. Transitory mastery of Advanced Placement examinations falls tragically short of these compelling public needs.

Paul Von Blum is a senior lecturer at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a member of UCLA’s department of communication studies.

Vol. 28, Issue 02, Pages 26-27

September 5—Meet in Library

We will meet SEPTEMBER 5 in Room 041 on the ground floor of the library for an information fluency session.

Friday

Read the "Course Rationale" (see link in the left menu).

And read this:

http://www.thestate.com/editorial-columns/story/498361.html

And what do you think about merit pay for teachers?

And read this:

Teaching The Unteachable

---

By KURT VONNEGUT Jr.

ou can't teach people to write well. Writing well is something God lets you do or declines to let you do. Most bright people know that, but writers' conferences continue to multiply in the good old American summertime. Sixty-eight of them are listed in last April's issue of The Writer. Next year there will be more. They are harmless. They are shmoos.

I saw one horn five years ago--The Cape Cod Writers' conference in Craigville, Mass. It was more or less prayed into existence by three sweet preachers' wives. They were in middle life. They invited some Cape writers and English teachers to a meeting one winter night, and their spokeswoman said this: "We thought it would be nice if there were a writers' conference on Cape Cod next summer."

I remember another thing she said: "We thought established writers would probably enjoy helping beginners like us to break into the field."

And it came to pass. Isaac Asimov is the star this year. Stars of the past include Richard Kim and Jacques Barzun. Twenty-six students came the first year, forty-three the next, sixty-three the next, eighty-two the next, and nearly one hundred are expected this year-- in August. Most of the students are women. Several of them are preachers' wives in middle life.

So it goes.

I congratulated one of the founders recently, and she replied, "Well, it's been an awful lot of fun for all of us. Writers lead such lonely lives, you know, so they really enjoy getting together once a year to discuss matters of common interest."

That's the most delightful part of the game, of course: the pretense that everybody who comes to a writers' conference is a writer. Other forms of innocent summer recreation immediately suggest themselves: a doctors' conference, where everybody gets to pretend to be a doctor; a lawyer' conference, where everybody gets to pretend to be a lawyer; and so on--and maybe even a Kennedy conference, where everybody pretends to be somehow associated with the Kennedys.

"Who comes to writers' conferences?" you ask. A random sample of twenty students will contain six recent divorcees, three preachers' wives in middle life, five schoolteachers of no particular age or sex, two foxy grandmas, one sweet old widower with true tales to tell about railroading in Idaho, one real writer, one not merely angry but absolutely furious young man, and one physician with forty years' worth of privileged information that he wants to sell to the movies for a blue million.

"How much sex is there at writers' conferences?" you ask. The staff members, at any rate, don't come for sex. They hate conferences. They come for money. They are zombies. They want to collect their paychecks and go home. There are exceptions, who only prove the rule.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

I saw another writers' conference born only this past June 18. I pick that date, since that was when the Student-Faculty Get-Acquainted Party was held. It was The West-Central Writers' Conference, sponsored by Western Illinois University, which is in Macomb, Ill. The party was held in the TraveLodge Motel in Macomb, in between the Coin-A-Wash and the A&W Rootbeer stand, because there was booze. There is a rule against booze on campus.

The founder and director wasn't a preacher's wife. He was a cigar-eating young English instructor named E. W. Johnson. In the conference brochure he claimed to have been a secondhand clothing salesman, a construction worker and a professional gambler. He is also a novelist and a writer of textbooks, and the only teacher at Western Illinois who has published a book. Johnson was sad at the party because he had sent out thousands of brochures and had advertised lavishly in Writer's Digest and Saturday Review and so on, and yet only 19 students had come. They were sitting around the room, rolling their eyes moonily, waiting for new friendships to begin.

"I can't understand it," he said above the Muzak and the sounds of drag races out on Route 136. "We have as good a staff as any conference in the country."

And the staff really was at least fair to middling. There was myself, described in the brochure as "the foremost black humorist in American fiction"; and there was Richard Yates, "perhaps the greatest living short story writer in America;" and there was John Clellon Holmes "the official biographer of the Beat Generation, who has recently completed a novel entitled ëPerfect Fools,' which is written from a ëwhite humor' point of view"; and there was Frederic Will, "one of the most versatile writers in America, having published extensively (eighteen books) in the fields of poetry, non-fiction and translation."

Johnson confessed that it had appeared for a while that only five students were coming, and he confessed too, that he had never been to a writers' conference before.

I asked him how he had come to found such a thing, and he said that he sure wasn't doing it for money. All he was getting as director was his regular instructor's pay. He honestly wanted to help writers.

The party died at midnight. Everybody had gone home by then except Johnson and a couple of staff members and a girl who had been recently divorced--from an Arab, she said. We were sitting around the swimming pool, breathing chlorine and carbon monoxide.

"You know why more people didn't come?" said the girl.

"Nope," said Jonson.

"Because ëMacomb, Illinois' sounds like such a hell-hole, and because "Western Illinois University' sounds like such a jerkwater school," she explained.

The Town isn't all that bad, I guess, and the University is handsome and booming. But there isn't any water there, and there aren't any mountains there, and there is no grand hotel. If you don't have water or mountains, and you want to fond a writer's conference, you had better have a grand hotel. Bloomington, Ind., is a hell-hole, God knows, but the Indiana University Writers' Conference takes place in the student union, which contains four restaurants, a pool hall, a barber shop, a bowling alley and a bookstore, and grown- ups can drink booze in their rooms.

I taught at Indiana's conference one summer. They're starring Jerome Weidman and Gerold Frank this year. The most touching thing that happened to me there was when Harry Mark Petrakis and I admitted to each other that we had never been published in The New Yorker, and probably never would be because we lacked that certain something. We thought it might be an ethnic thing, that they didn't like Greeks and Germans.

We have been brothers ever since.

We fours stars at Macomb had all taught at one time or another in the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. E. W. Johnson got his Master of Fine Arts degree there. I've quit after two years--not angrily, but feeling waterlogged. All the Workshop staffers were professional writers. Vance Bourjailly was the only one who ever got much writing done, probably because Iowa was his home. The rest of us were gypsies.

And one problem at Iowa, no problem at Macomb, was that the students were all very able writers. They were not committed to a silly week or two in the summertime. They were engaged in a two-year graduate program which was to end, ideally, with the completion of a novel of a short-story collection, or sometimes a play. They deserved help from their teachers, and there was time in which to give it to them.

"How did you help?" you ask.

Nothing is known about helping real writers to write better. I have discovered almost nothing about it during the past two years. I now make to my successor at Iowa a gift of the one rule that seemed to work for me: Leave real writers alone.

I haven't mentioned the poets in the Writers' Workshop because I don't know much about them. The poets talk all the time, like musicians, and this drives prose writers nuts. The poets are always between jobs, so to speak, and the prose writers are hung up on projects requiring months or years to complete.

The idea of a conference for prose writes is an absurdity. They don't confer, can't confer. It's all they can do to drag themselves past one another like great, wounded bears.

One thing I'm glad about: I got to see academic critics at Iowa. I had never seen academic critics before. They are felt to be tremendously creative people, and are paid like movie stars. I found that instructive.

When I saw my first academic critic, I said to a student, "Great God! Who was that?"

The student told me. Since I was so shaken, he asked me who I had thought the man was.

"The reincarnation of Beethoven," I said.

To return to the Macomb experiment one last time: I hope they get more people next year than came this year. If the conferences dies, it will be the first one that ever did. What they need to make things merrier is a sort of master of the revels, a graduate of some really great hotel school like Cornell University.

And they must stop telling staff members that they have to sign loyalty oaths or they won't get paid. Poor E. W. Johnson was humiliated when that happened in spite of all he tried to do to prevent it. A little touch like a loyalty oath can lead a visiting writer to suspect, rightly or wrongly, that his is employed by hicks.

Mr. Vonnegut is working on a new novel, "Slaughterhouse 5." A musical version of "Cat's Cradle," an earlier novel, will open on Broadway this year.

Academic Integrity

FU link on academic integrity.

Academic Integrity

• Academic integrity at Furman is governed by the university's academic integrity policy (121.5). Students have the ultimate responsibility for understanding and adhering to university policy. They should therefore familiarize themselves thoroughly with the information on this web site, as well as with other university materials on this topic.
• Understanding what constitutes academic misconduct is essential for avoiding it. This is especially true of plagiarism. Check out the definitions of academic misconduct and tips for avoiding plagiarism on this web site. Ask for clarification from your instructor(s) if necessary. Do not automatically assume that what applies in one course applies in another. (Of course, some behaviors are always wrong, such as plagiarizing an assignment, fabricating data, or cheating on a test or quiz.)
• Furman students are not required to report suspected violations of academic integrity, but they are encouraged and empowered to do so by the policy.
• Disputed allegations of academic integrity are adjudicated by the Academic Discipline Committee (see 190.6). This committee consists of five faculty members and two students.
• The professor has the authority to determine the grade penalty for violations of academic integrity. The Academic Discipline Committee (ADC) has the authority to impose penalties for violations beyond the grade in the course, such as revocation of pass-fail status, suspension, and/or expulsion from the university. In addition, students can appeal a grade penalty to the ADC, which may choose to recommend a different penalty to the professor. The course instructor retains authority over the grade, however.

In short, Furman students should:

• Inform themselves about Furman policy and expectations through this web site and other available means;
• Abide by the university's academic integrity policies and encourage others to do the same;
• Ask for clarification from professors if necessary;
• Learn how to cite sources appropriately;
• Report suspected violations of the policy.

Course Rationale

Rationale: Courses Taught by P. L. Thomas—
Welcome to the Occupation

Paulo Freire (1993) establishes early in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness” (pp. 28-29).

The course before you, your course, will be guided by some essential principles, beliefs, and research concerning the nature of learning and teaching along with the commitments I have to the dignity of each person’s humanity and to the sacredness of intellectual freedom within a democracy. The practices and expectations of this course are informed by many educators, writers, and researchers—many of whom are referenced at the end. But the guiding philosophies and theories of this course can be fairly represented as critical pedagogy, critical constructivism, and authentic assessment.

Now that I am in my third decade as a teacher, my classroom practices and expectations for students are all highly purposeful—although most of my practices and expectations are non-traditional and may create the perception that they are “informal.” For you, the student, this will be somewhat disorienting (a valuable state for learning) and some times frustrating. Since I recognize the unusual nature of my classes, I will offer here some clarity and some commitments as the teacher in this course.

In all of my courses, I practice “critical pedagogy.” This educational philosophy asks students to question and identify the balance of power in all situations—an act necessary to raise a your awareness of social justice. I also emphasize “critical constructivist” learning theory. Constructivism challenges students (with the guidance of the teacher) to forge their own understanding of various concepts by formulating and testing hypotheses, and by utilizing inductive, not just deductive, reasoning. A constructivist stance asks students to recognize and build upon their prior knowledge while facing their own assumptions and expectations as an avenue to deeper and more meaningful learning. My practices avoid traditional forms of assessment (selected-response tests), strive to ask students to create authentic representations of their learning, and require revision of that student work.

Some of the primary structures of this course include the following:

• I delay traditional grades on student work to encourage you to focus on learning instead of seeking an “A” and to discourage you from being “finishers” instead of engaged in assignments. At any point in the course, you can receive oral identification of on-going grades if you arrange an individual conference concerning your work. However, this course functions under the expectation that no student work is complete until the last day of the course; therefore, technically all students have no formal grade until the submission of the final portfolio. One of the primary goals of this course is to encourage you to move away from thinking and acting as a student and toward thinking and acting in authentic ways that manifest themselves in the world outside of school.

• I include individual conferences for all students at mid-term (and any time one is requested), based on a self-evaluation, a mid-course evaluation, and an identification of student concerns for the remainder of the course. You will receive a significant amount of oral feedback (“feedback” and “grades” are not the same, and I consider “grades” much less useful than feedback), but much of my feedback comes in the form of probing questions that require you to make informed decisions instead of seeking to fulfill a requirement established by me or some other authority. Your learning experience is not a game of “got you”; thus, you have no reason to distrust the process. I value and support student experimentation, along with the necessity of error and mistakes during those experiments. My classroom is not a place where you need to mask misunderstandings and mistakes. I do not equate learning with a student fulfilling clearly defined performances (see Freire’s commentary on prescription above), but I do equate learning with students creating their own parameters for their work and then presenting their work in sincere and faithful ways.

• I include portfolio assessment in my courses, requiring students to draft work throughout the course, to seek peer and professor feedback through conferences, and to compile at the end all of their assignments in a course with a reflection on that work; my final assessments are weighted for students and guided by expectations for those assignments, but those weights and expectations are tentative and offered for negotiation with each student. Ultimately, the final grade is calculated holistically and based on that cumulative portfolio. All major assignments in this course must be drafted in order to be eligible for a final grade of “A.” The drafting process must include at least two weeks of dedication to the assignment, student-solicited feedback from the professor, and peer feedback. Assignments must be submitted in final forms in the culminating portfolio, but documentation of the drafting process must also be submitted with the final products. Any major assignments that do not fulfill the expectation of drafting will not receive a grade higher than a “B.” Revision is a necessary aspect of completing academic work.

Welcome to the occupation. This is your class, a series of moments of your life—where you make your decisions and act in ways you choose. Freedom and choice, actually, are frightening things because with them come responsibility. We are often unaccustomed to freedom, choice, and responsibility, especially in the years we spend in school. So if you are nervous about being given the freedom to speak and the responsibility for making your own choices, that is to be expected. But I am here to help—not prescribe, not to judge. That too will make you a bit nervous. I am glad to have this opportunity in your life, and I will not take it lightly. I will be honoured if you choose not to take it lightly either.

References
Ayres, W. (2001). To teach: The journey of a teacher. New York: Teachers College Press.
Brooks, J. G., & Brooks, M. G. (1999). In search of understanding: The case for constructivist classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Dewey, J. (1938/1997). Experience and education. New York: Free Press.
Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Gardner, H. (1999). The disciplined mind: What all students should understand. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools should teach. New York: Basic Books.
Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
hooks, b. (1999). remembered rapture: the writer at work. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
———. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
Kincheloe, J. L. (2005a). Critical constructivism primer. New York: Peter Lang.
Kincheloe, J. L. (2005b). Critical pedagogy primer. New York: Peter Lang.
Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct. New York: Harper Perennial.
———. (1999). Words and rules: The ingredients of language. New York: Basic Books.
Popham, W. J. (2001). The Truth about testing: An educator’s call to action. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Popham, W. J. (2003). Test better, teach better: The instructional role of assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (2005). Best Practice: Today’s standards for teaching and learning in America’s schools (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Syllabus

FYW EDU 01

Democracy and Public Education: Confronting the Text, Confronting the World (Fall 2008)

Instructor: Dr. P. L. Thomas
Phone: 294-3386 (office); 590-5458 (cell)
Class time: M, W, F 9:30-10:20
Room: HH
Office hours: by appointment, 101F Hipp Hall
Email: paul.thomas@furman.edu
Course Blog: http://democracyandeducation.blogspot.com/
Academic Integrity: http://www.furman.edu/integrity/InformationforStudents.htm


"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates

REQUIRED TEXTS

Students must select one each of the following:

[ ] One major scholarly work on education. (See “Virtual Bookshelf: Scholarly Considerations” on course blog.)

[ ] One novel with education as central element. (See “Virtual Bookshelf: Education in Fiction” on course blog.)

And read as assigned:

[ ] All supplemental texts distributed in class or through course blog.

Students will need a reference source for writing assignments. You will be provided an electronic version of the following text:

Thomas, P. L. (unpublished). Conventional language: Academic and scholarly writing.

As referenced in the text above, students will find the online writing lab at Purdue University very helpful as a resource—The OWL at Purdue:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

COURSE DESCRIPTION

From the letters and public writings of Thomas Jefferson to the debates among Governors, Presidents, and Superintendents of Education, public discourse in the United Stated never strays too far from, “Why universal public education in a democracy?” This course will explore the history and arguments about universal public education in the U.S. We will read and debate major works directly addressing education along with novels that dramatize the complexity of being a teacher. Some of the leading thinkers about education to be read include Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Dewey, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and Maxine Greene.

FYW GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

• Enthusiasm for learning and reflection.

Students will read, write, discuss, reflect during class and throughout the semester—both as a fulfillment of the course requirements and by choice outside of class. The semester will be an opportunity to explore the nature of democracy and education along with how the two have and do interact in the U. S. and internationally.

• Critical consideration of established knowledge.

Student will read and research key schools of thought about education; further, they will focus on major works about education in order to share these important areas of the field of education with the class.

• Critical evaluation of preconceptions and assumptions.

Students will identify their own preconceptions about education and democracy. They will also begin to outline the assumptions that drive ideological tensions about education and democracy within the historical and contemporary debates about education.

• Understanding available and emerging sources of information and appreciating the importance of independent work and appropriate citation.

• Appreciation of the research process and of the creative expansion of information and understanding.

Students will draft and complete original essays and a final autobiographical collage. This original writing will reflect the students’ scholarship, including their skills at selecting and interpreting sources along with their ability to craft original written scholarship that conforms to the conventions of the genre (including appropriate documentation).

• Proficiency in expository and argumentative writing.

Students will draft original academic and scholarly compositions within a workshop format that requires multiple drafts and conferencing with peers and the professor.

ASSIGNMENTS

[ ] Students are expected t0 attend all class sessions, read all assigned texts, participate fully in class discussions, and contribute during writing workshop activities.

[ ] Students should begin and maintain a journal throughout the course. The writing journal can be either a hard-copy journal (purchased or created) or an electronic journal maintained on a computer. Entries should include dates. Students should establish and consider throughout the course their writing process and research process as part of the journal.

[ ] Students will complete a number of writing exercises throughout the course; they may be completed directly in the writing journal or added to the journal when submitted at the end of the course.

[ ] Students will compose and submit four original essays throughout the course (see Course Schedule); then, students will craft an autobiographical collage from those essays to submit as a culminating assignment (minimum 20 pages). Guidelines for essays/collage:

• Topics and genres are the choice of the writer, but students are expected to remain within the parameters of academic and scholarly writing and to consider questions, ideas, and topics related to the relationship between public education and democracy.

• Essays/collage must be drafted during workshop sessions, including sharing drafts with peers and the professor. All drafts must be collected and maintained throughout course to be submitted with all writing evidence at the end of the course.

• A minimum of two of the four essays (and the collage) must include primary and secondary sources referenced fully and appropriately in the original text. Students must comply with the requirements of MLA documentation.

[ ] Students submit all work in a final portfolio, including all work throughout the course.

Academic Integrity

• Academic integrity at Furman is governed by the university's academic integrity policy (121.5). Students have the ultimate responsibility for understanding and adhering to university policy. They should therefore familiarize themselves thoroughly with the information on this web site, as well as with other university materials on this topic.
• Understanding what constitutes academic misconduct is essential for avoiding it. This is especially true of plagiarism. Check out the definitions of academic misconduct and tips for avoiding plagiarism on this web site. Ask for clarification from your instructor(s) if necessary. Do not automatically assume that what applies in one course applies in another. (Of course, some behaviors are always wrong, such as plagiarizing an assignment, fabricating data, or cheating on a test or quiz.)
• Furman students are not required to report suspected violations of academic integrity, but they are encouraged and empowered to do so by the policy.
• Disputed allegations of academic integrity are adjudicated by the Academic Discipline Committee (see 190.6). This committee consists of five faculty members and two students.
• The professor has the authority to determine the grade penalty for violations of academic integrity. The Academic Discipline Committee (ADC) has the authority to impose penalties for violations beyond the grade in the course, such as revocation of pass-fail status, suspension, and/or expulsion from the university. In addition, students can appeal a grade penalty to the ADC, which may choose to recommend a different penalty to the professor. The course instructor retains authority over the grade, however.

In short, Furman students should:

• Inform themselves about Furman policy and expectations through this web site and other available means;
• Abide by the university's academic integrity policies and encourage others to do the same;
• Ask for clarification from professors if necessary;
• Learn how to cite sources appropriately;
• Report suspected violations of the policy.

Schedule FYW-EDU-01

Fall 2008 MWF Schedule

W
8/27
• “A House of My Own,” “Eleven,” Sandra Cisneros
• Book introductions (novels and scholarly choices)

F
8/29
• What is good writing? (with student samples)

M
9/1
Labor Day Holiday

W
9/3
• Academic and Scholarly writing
• Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, Mill

F
9/5
• LIBR—Sept 5—Information fluency

M
9/8
• Thomas Jefferson on Education and “The
American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Workshop

W
9/10
E.1 drafting DUE
• Workshop

F
9/12
Book Club

M
9/15
• Workshop

W
9/17
E.1 First full sub DUE
• Workshop

F
9/19
Book Club

M
9/22
• Workshop

W
9/24
• LIBR—Sept 24—Information fluency

F
9/26
Book Club

M
9/29
• Workshop

W
10/1
E.2 drafting DUE
• Workshop

F
10/3
Fall Break Holiday

M
10/6
• Workshop

W
10/8
• Workshop

F
10/10
Book Club

M
10/13
• Workshop

W
10/15
E.2 First full sub DUE
• Workshop

F
10/17
Midterm
Book Club

M
10/20
• Workshop

W
10/22
• Workshop

F
10/24
Book Club

M
10/27
• Workshop

W
10/29
E.3 drafting DUE
• Workshop

F
10/31
Book Club

M
11/3
• Workshop

W
11/5
E.3 First full sub DUE
• Workshop

F
11/7
Book Club

M
11/10
• Workshop

W
11/12
• Workshop

F
11/14
Book Club

M
11/17
• Workshop

W
11/19
E.4 drafting DUE

F
11/21
[* No class Nov 21]

M
11/24
[* No class Nov 24]
E.4 First full sub DUE

W
11/26
Thanksgiving Holiday

F
11/28
Thanksgiving Holiday

M
12/1
Autobiographical Collage drafting

W
12/3
Autobiographical Collage drafting

F
12/5
Autobiographical Collage drafting

M
12/8
Autobiographical Collage drafting

Exam
Final Portfolio/ Autobiographical Collage
DUE (20 pp. min.)