This page lists teaching materials, ideas, exercises, and strategies by and for the English Department of the UW Colleges.  If you would like to share an idea, exercise, or strategy with your colleagues, please email it to the department's webmistress at Nancy.Chick@uwc.edu.

Resources

• Subscribe to Tomorrow's Professor distribution list for excerpts from a variety of articles, books, stories, etc., relevant to what we do.
• Distance Education Online Support Librarian (ols@uwc.edu or 1-877-861-6203)
• Service Learning Resources from Fall 2008
• Get your photorosters (Click "Click here for additional resources for Faculty and Staff only")
• UWC Instructional Technology Resources: All sorts of helpful information!  (how to access your My Documents folder online, purchase information for computer hardware and software, the Helpdesk; through "additional resources for Faculty and Staff," anti-spam protection, getting your photorosters, request form for making an electronic survey, D2L site request form, etc)
• Academic Misconduct: If you suspect that a student has committed some sort of academic misconduct, there are specific policies and procedures in the UW Colleges for how you should proceed.  Students have access to the definitions, policies, and procedures for academic misconduct in their Student Rights & Regulations booklet (http://www.uwc.edu/students/uwc-student-rights-regulations-booklet.pdf), but you may want to review them with students, particularly which kinds of academic misconduct are most relevant to your assignments.  Look under 14.03 on page 4.  Also, attached here is a form letter developed by Linda Tollefsrud (Psychology, UW-BC) that may help you follow these policies.

Materials & Ideas for the Classroom

• Sample Statements for Syllabi from Nancy Chick (UW Barron)
• Challenging Students in the First Six Weeks by Greg Ahrenhoerster
• Students Setting Their Own Writing Goals by Laura Apfelbeck
• Grading Contract by Elizabeth Zanichkowsky
• Literature Essay Assignments:  Connections, Criticism, & Close Reading by Scott Emmert
• Rubric for Literature Essay by Nancy Chick, with great help from Jennifer Flatt, & one-page version as grading sheet
• Reading Logs by Elizabeth Zanichkowsky
• Scholarly Journal Search Assignment by Holly Hassel
• Variations on "This Is Just To Say" from This American Life from Nancy Chick: Go to this archive (http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1239), and click "Full Episode" (the second little, orange, square icon below the photograph). You'll need to wait for the rotating green-and-white bar to fill, indicating that the whole show has loaded, since this section is the end of the episode.  When it's finished loading (it took me about 3 minutes), fast-forward to 51 minutes into the show. Enjoy, and share with your students.
• Rubric for Annotated Works Cited by Nancy Chick

• Digital Library for Freshman Composition:  Chuck Rybak (UW-Washington), Holly Hassel (UW-Marathon), Nancy Chick (UW-Barron), and Sara Moellendorf (UW-Waukesha and OWL) collaborated with UW-Stevens Point Academic Librarian Nerissa Nelson and UW-SP English colleague Chris Williams to create this digital library, a repository of activities, exercises, assessments, tutorials, and other resources appropriate to freshman composition courses across the UW System.  Download the brochure here to find details about what’s available and how to access the materials.  On the D2L site, you’ll find instructions for how to download all resources.

• Citation Bootcamp Powerpoint Presentation by Katie Kalish

• Plagiarism Prevention Strategies from Marnie Dresser

• Avoiding Plagiarism Narrated Powerpoint Lecture by Marnie Dresser (view it in Slide Show format to get the narration, not just the individual slides): Here's how Marnie explained it to encourage her campus colleagues to share it with their students: My personal favorite moments in the lecture (which students typically enjoy when I do this lecture live):
  • Explaining that with intellectual property, you can use it/borrow it, and all you have to do is acknowledge it.  If you take my car, however, it won’t help you if you say to the police officer, “But I acknowledge this is Marnie’s car."
  • Making the analogy that at some point it doesn’t matter whether or not you meant to plagiarize; that if you ran over someone’s dog, they’re not really going to feel better if you say “But it’s o.k., right, because I didn’t mean to run over your dog.” The dog’s still dead.  (I do acknowledge that the analogy is not really apt, but I’m hoping it sticks in their minds.)

  • Topics I covered:

    • The torpedo analogy—plagiarism can sink your academic ship

    • Definitions

    • Examples

    • Why Do Students Plagiarize?

    • How Students Get Caught

    • Consequences

    • Process

    • Academic Values (why professors care so much)

    • What not to do/What to do