This was my first time running the English Dept. meeting this round of comp coordinatorship, so I didn’t take good notes. Here’s a run-down of what we talked about, though.
Note: If anyone who was there remembers something else that should be in this report, please let me know and I’ll update the entry. And if anyone has any questions, let me know that, too, and I’ll try to find answers.
Announcements
- College Information Day is Oct. 3. I reserved us a table. I’ll send out a request for people to help me run the table, as well as for ideas to make the table interesting. One thought that comes to me now: it might be fun to put out work that our faculty have had published.
- The Composition Coordinator “Memorandum of Agreement” has things on it that we don’t really do (for example, supporting the WLDC in supporting the Writing Lab [which I don’t think exists any more]). It should be updated. I just wanted people to know that this was on my to-do list.
- Carrie would like us to consider adding ENGL 38 (Youth Lit) into our rotation. When we develop our program maps–a Guided Pathways thing–we can work on incorporating the class into a student-friendly rotation.
- Program Review is due Oct. 15. Ugh.
AB 705
- We agreed to discontinue ENGL 105, effective next semester (Spring 2019), for the reasons I explained in the previous blog post.
- We agreed that we’d like to develop a 1-unit co-requisite for some sections of ENGL 1A. There are still a lot of details to iron out–should we require this co-requisite for students who place lower, and which ones? (AB 705 has some ugly demands for validating co-reqs if we require them.) Should we offer both credit and non-credit versions as options for students? Can we request/demand a lower cap for sections that have the co-req? The AB 705 workgroup will continue to work on developing a full recommendation.
- We agreed, more or less, to keep some version of one-below-college-level in place for now. There are a lot of variables here, too: do we keep both ENGL 56 and 51, or do we just have one (likely ENGL 56)? Do we keep this in place for one year or two, while we gather the data to validate (by state standards) that we are increasing the likelihood of students getting through ENGL 1A within one year?
- We know that we need to figure out support systems, both for the students (the co-req model, but possibly embedded tutors or other strategies) and for faculty (professional development opportunities for acceleration, both 1A and 56). We especially need to figure out how to financially support part-time faculty for participation in such professional development.
There are two looming deadlines that make some of this work more urgent than we’d like. First, the co-req would need to go through the curriculum committee, and to get it done in time for the legal deadline, that would need to be completed in October. Second, as I mentioned above, Program Review is due in October, and any requests we want to make (money for embedded tutors, etc.) need to be included in PR.
So keep your eyes open for emails from me. I may have an occasional question that needs your input, whether that is an open-ended reply to the email, or a survey for simpler questions.