Personal and Vocational English
Purpose and Objectives
This course provides a space for students to practice a variety of composing and literacy tasks. Students will engage with composing and reading as multi-modal and alphabetic activities helpful to their engagement as citizens and their career. In pursuit of this I have student engage with everyday texts. I use the term to stand-in for the product of what will be a negotiation with students to find the kinds of texts, constructed as broadly as possible, they read and write, with those terms as representing both the usual definitions and as stand-ins for more appropriate terms for texts understood broadly.
- To explore genres of composing found in career/job contexts.
- To develop strategies for composing in everyday contexts
- To critically engage with everyday texts
- To develop the reading, composing, and research skills needed for active, critically engaged citizenship
- To identify writer’s use of rhetorical strategies
- To develop the use of rhetorical strategies in the production of vocational composition
- To develop transferable skills within the areas of reading, composing, and research
- To engage with literacy and composition within students’ vocational area
Required Texts and Materials
- Bullock, Richard and Francine Weinberg. The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Handbook. 3rd NY: Norton, 2013. Print. ISBN: 978-0-393-93977-4
- Notebook for literacy and composition journal
- Access to filesharing service (Google Drive if none available through the school) for student and instructor provided texts
A statement concerning the Norton Field Guide: Its primary purpose on this class is to provide a common basis for discussion of other texts and stepping stone/launch point for students from their previous academic experiences.
Assignment Overview
More information on assignments will be provided in the form of assignment sheets and rubrics that will be developed through negotiation between student and instructor in order to keep assignments and assessment relevant to student needs for their development.
- Literacy and composition journal: As a way to answer questions such as “I’m here to be a welder, what do I need an English class for?” students will keep literacy and composition journals wherein they will record and reflect on texts both read and created by themselves throughout their daily lives. Texts will be broadly constructed to include visual and audio as well as alphabetic and any other composing or reading students do. This journal is a space for reflection on what students create and, lacking a better word, consume that carries meaning. Students will explore their literacy and composition practices in various media and genres. Some texts you might consider include job applications, letters, television shows, music, paintings, photographs, and recipes however this is in no way a comprehensive list and the more variety in texts that students have under consideration, the more interesting and useful the course will be. We will add more questions throughout the course as we explore English, but questions to get you started on reflecting are, for texts you read, “What did I do to understand the text?” and, for texts you produce, “What did I do to produce the text?” paying attention to the reading and writing strategies you are already aware of. You might also reflect on why you read/wrote the text, remembering that read, write, and text are to be constructed broadly, and what the text meant to/for you. I look at the journal as a practice space for your composing in terms of assessment and look at it as a space to say yes to what students want to try.
- Texts for the course: It is impossible to cover every type of reading and writing expected in every job or situation. Making use of student provided texts helps mitigate this lack of completeness while also allowing students to explore and engage with texts that they have selected as meaningful. To these ends, you will be expected to upload material to the filesharing service on a weekly basis, beginning with the third week. We will use this material to explore and engage rhetorical strategies both within everyday texts and your chosen vocational area. I use material here to cover as broad a variety of options as possible because students are expected to upload based on media they have encountered authentically when there are no specific instructions concerning what to find. This portion of the course will also help develop research skills because students will sometimes be tasked with uploading specific genres of document (one example of this is that students will provide links to guides to producing résumés). Keeping in mind the various uses that providing texts for the course will be used for including practice space for research and generative space for everyday texts considered by the course, details concerning how to go about fulfilling this assignment will be made in conjunction with students involving a discussion on the second day of class and time for students to make me aware of concerns they have regarding what is negotiated in that discussion that they do not wish to make the entire class aware of.
- Résumé and application letter/statement of interest: Students will produce a resume as a composition. The purpose of the resume is to demonstrate the writer’s skills within a small amount of space and in an easy to read format. Students will research methods of producing resumes, the class will discuss these and other methods and students will write a resume for themselves. Students will also write a cover letter for a job application. The purpose of this letter is to make a convincing case for hiring the applicant, again in a small amount of space. The letter is meant to highlight aspects of the résumé and provide context for the résumé while demonstrating the applicant’s suitability to the job being applied for. Specific jobs may call for other work to be done by the applicant. To help keep this assignment relevant, you will create these materials based on a job actually being advertised within your field. You will need to turn-in what the employer has provided in instructions for applying for the job because part of my work in assessing this assignment is evaluating how well you have met the potential employers requirements. Should you find that your chosen career field does not make use of the materials mentioned here, we will work to restructure this assignment to be useful to you.
- Reflection on vocational area: Student will research and reflect on the history of their chosen vocational area as well as their personal involvement with it. They will explain how their field came into being as well as how they came to choose to participate in it. This assignment allows space for students to think through common job interview questions as well as consider genre.
- Analysis of text: Students will examine the rhetorical strategies used in a text to make meaning for readers. In this examination, students will demonstrate their ability to critically engage with a text as well as identify strategies used by a writer to make meaning within a text.
Grade Breakdown
Category |
Percentage |
Participation |
10 |
Journals/Text Selection |
15 |
Reflection on vocational area |
25 |
Résumé and application letter/statement of interest |
25 |
Analysis of text |
25 |
Statement Concerning Course Participation and Attendance Policy
Your participation as a student in the course is necessary both to your own and other’s learning. You will need to come to class prepared, participate actively in class, and behave respectfully towards your fellow students and instructor. Since your participation is a key element of your and other student’s learning experience, your attendance is expected. Further, not attending class will almost certainly mean that you will not develop the skills and understanding of theories well enough to successfully complete the coursework.
Late Work Policy
I reserve the right to not accept late work. In cases of emergency, please contact me as soon as possible so that I can work with you to develop a strategy for turning in all your coursework.
Technology Policy
Laptops, tablets, phones, and so on are acceptable for class purposes. Non-class use will result in reductions to your course grade.
E-mail Policy and Etiquette
I check e-mail regularly during normal working hours: weekdays, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Please allow 24 hours for a response.
You should also use course e-mail as a time to practice professional communication. Use your official school e-mail; I will not respond to other e-mail addresses. Include a subject that identifies the course and what the e-mail will be about. Include a salutation, a message, and a closing to all e-mail.
Accommodation of Special Needs
I seek to create a safe, productive space for all students to learn. To further this goal, if you need accommodations, I urge you to work with the appropriate office to verify the disability so that accommodations can occur.
Academic Integrity
I take academic integrity very seriously and will pursue plagiarism cases to the fullest extent within the institution’s policies. Part of the coursework of the course will be avoiding violating standards of academic integrity.
Schedule
Since this is a proposed course for me, I would, if possible, provide the course schedule unit by unit so that I could more easily modify the schedule to meet student needs as I found them within the instruction.
Unit 1: Course introduction, the rhetorical situation, introduction to genre, the writing process
Unit 2: Reflection on vocational area, reflective writing, peer review
Unit 3: Résumé and application letter/statement of interest, application of the rhetorical situation
Unit 4: Analysis of text