[Englecturers] Workload Committee

[englecturers at lists.ucr.edu]

Stephanie,

In my original (and I thought Cynthia's original) suggestion, I did not mean 
for the VC to grade the 69 sample papers; if the papers were already marked up 
with our comments, then submitting the papers as part of your narrative would 
help show and tell the VC what we do on a regular basis. Just carrying them 
around as part of the report might be burdensome enough. I think any "grading" 
at this level is both problematic and irrational as it does not address what 
the VC wants from the report.

Sorry I didn't make this clear in my previous posting.


Devon

>===== Original Message From englecturers at lists.ucr.edu =====
>Stephanie, If the VC is asking for a "purely descriptive" report, I'm 
wondering if a sort of "day in the life" would be doable? In particular, could 
we ask the VC to look at and comment on some student work? Get into the real 
nitty gritty of what we do every day, and see how much time and attention we 
have to bring to our tasks?
>
>Maybe three papers, one very weak, the student needing help to bring it to a 
minimally satisfactory level. Let the VC take some time to figure out how you 
tell a student her examples don't support her point when she's not sure what 
an example is not to mention what her point is; that her organization is 
incoherent when she doesn't know what coherence is; that her sentence is 
ungrammatical when she doesn't know etc....... And then how you get her from 
that point to something acceptable.
>
>Second paper, a middling one, a low "C" maybe. How do you get this student to 
say something more interesting; to work himself out of a muddled paragraph, an 
obscure sentence, a structure lacking clear purpose; how do you build his 
vocabulary not just of words but of concepts and logics?
>
>Third paper, a good one, but not an excellent one. What do you say to this 
student to get her to see the possibilities in her own ideas?  Etc.
>
>And multiply that by twenty. Plus preparing lesson plans, and so on and so 
on.
>
>Perhaps the VC would find this effort tiresome.... Maybe he/she wouldn't even 
try.... I get discouraged myself.  I am so grateful to you, Ben, and Linda for 
taking this on and fighting for us and our students.
>
>Cynthia Tuell
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