Friday, October 31, 2008

Current Projects

I have had an incredibly busy Fall.

The Morehead Writing Project has been challenging:
~ Learning about my role and duties
~ Working with MSU, KWP, KDE, NWP to administrate grants
~ Conferences and meetings hither and yon
~ Traveling to schools all over Eastern Kentucky to visit Fellows in their classrooms
~ Planning new programs

My classes have been great although I am still working to smooth out the kinks in my redesigned Writing I and II. Technical Composition this Fall is an improvement on what I taught in the Spring (which was pretty good). Maybe by the third time I teach it the class will be perfect. The students indicate they are pleased.

My TTU classes have also kept me busy. Of course, I'm taking two classes so that is a challenge. So far I'm surviving. We'll see how I feel at the end of the semester.

In Research Methods I have focused my projects on freshman composition at MSU -- conducting a study of the types of writing assignments students are expected to write in Writing I.

In Argumentation I have focused on the intersection (praxis?) of audience and argument in composition.

Just to add a bit of spice to my life, I joined the General Education Writing Committee for my department. We don't have a writing program administrator although the chair of the GEWC could be considered to hold that position. In fact, the committee does much of the work that a WPA would do. We have a number of initiatives underway to address concerns raised with our undergoing program audit and General Education reform.

Plus, I've got two more things in the hopper but I don't want to post them here for fear of jinxing them.