CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, BAKERSFIELD

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

“CARING AND REFLECTIVE PROFESSIONALS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY”

EDSE 505 SPECIAL SECONDARY METHODS, ENGLISH

       Spring, 2010   

       JUNE pIXTON gAEDE

PH:393-2726    e-mail: jgaede@csub.edu   website: http://www.csub.edu/~jgaede

        Office Hours:  Monday 3:00-4:15

        Office:  134. Ed. Bldg.

Syllabus

EDSE 505: Special Methods for Teaching English

This 5 unit course is required of any candidate for a Single Subject Credential in English instruction.  The course is designed to make candidates conversant with current practices in the field of English language arts in the secondary and middle school classroom.

School of Education Philosophy

The philosophy of the School of Education has as its basis confluent education which perceives learning as the merging of cognitive, affective, social, and psychomotor domains.  This belief underscores the premise that education nurtures and promotes intellectual growth and the emotional, social, and physical well-being of all students with a special emphasis on diversity and equity.

Policy on Academic Honesty at CSUB

ACADEMIC HONESTY

The principles of truth and honesty are recognized as fundamental to a community of teachers and scholars.  The University expects that both faculty and students will honor these principles and in so doing will protect the integrity of all academic work and student grades.  Students are expected to do all work assigned to them without unauthorized assistance and not to give unauthorized assistance.  Faculty have the responsibility of exercising care in the planning and supervision of academic work so that honest effort will be positively encouraged.

Academic Dishonesty (cheating)

This is a broad category of actions that use fraud and deception to improve a grade or obtain course credit.  Academic dishonesty (cheating) is not limited to examination situations alone, but arises whenever students attempt to gain an unearned academic advantage. PLAGIARISM is the misuse of published or unpublished works of another by claiming them as one’s own.  It may consist of handing in someone else’s work, copying or purchasing a composition, using ideas, paragraphs, sentences, or phrases written by another, or by using data and/or statistics compiled by another without giving citation.  Another example of academic dishonesty (cheating) is the Submission of the same or essentially the same paper or other assignment for credit in two different courses without gaining prior approval.

 When a faculty member discovers a violation of the community’s principles, the faculty member is required to give a failing grade to the student for the course.  In addition to assigning the final grade, the faculty member also notifies in writing the Dean of Students and the relevant school dean that an act of academic dishonesty has occurred and a grade of F has been assigned. The student receives a copy of this letter which becomes a part of the student’s permanent file.  If a second act of dishonesty occurs, the student is administratively dismissed from CSUB.

Under the Student Academic Grievance Procedures, a student may appeal any sanction employed by faculty or the University based on an allegation of academic dishonesty.  The initiation of the grievance must occur within fifteen (15) school days after notification of the grade is mailed or personally given to the student Copies of these procedures are available in the Dean of Student’s Office

ACCOMMODATIONS FOR SPECIAL NEEDS

To request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) as soon as possible. Their office is located in SA 140, and they may be reached at 661-654-3360 (voice), or 661-654-6288 (TDD). If you have an accommodations letter from the SSD Office documenting that you have a disability, please present the letter to me during my office hours as soon as possible so we can discuss the specific accommodations that you might need in this class.

Course Objectives

In order to make explicit how this course attempts to address the education of the whole person, the following objectives are coded to which domains they pertain:  C=cognitive; A=affective; S=social; and p=psychomotor. This course also meets the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, a copy of which is appended to this syllabus.

With specific attention to the English Language Arts Framework and the listed standards, participants in EDSE 405 will develop not only understanding of the folowing topics, but the ability to plan for and deliver effective instruction to their students content in the following areas:

Appreciation of literary genres and principles of literary criticism (C,A)
Philosophical approaches to mechanics, grammar, and syntax of English (C,A,)
Development of writing skills (C,A,)
Techniques for expanding vocabulary acquisition (C,A,S)
Strategies for mastery of spelling principles (C,A,S,P)
Approaches to teaching listening, note-taking, and study skills (C,A,S,P)
Approaches to teaching the use of the media (C,A,S)
Approaches to speech activities (C,A,S,P)
Practices in developing collateral readings (C.A)
Adaptive strategies for students who: (C,A,S,P)
            Have limited English proficiency
            Have limited reading skills
            Have special cultural instructional needs.
Devising rubrics, evaluating student work and handling the paper flow (C,A,S)
Philosophical problems of censorship, abridging, simplifying materials (C,A,S)
Devising technology to enrich and enhance classroom presentations (C,A,S,P)

The above objects are specific to the content of this course.  However, inherent in the course are Secondary Education vision themes.  The graduates of the CSUB Secondary will be

• Reflective, decision-making professionals who are student centered

• Understanding of, sensitive to, and effective with students from diverse backgrounds

• Capable of evaluating and applying current research and pedagogy

• Committed to their continuous personal and professional development

• Exhibit the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for engaging in inquiry

• Promote the ideals of confluent education

• Provide effective service within a changing society

This also includes a global perspective since the American education system is viewed and operates in the realm of international interdependence

COURSE CONTENT

The course will consider the following topics:

Philosophical bases of organizing curricular offerings in literature
                Thematic
                Generic
                Chronological
Approaches to teaching literary genres
                Poetry
                Drama
                Fiction
                Non-fiction
Philosophical bases for teaching language
               Grammar
               Syntax
               Mechanics
Approaches to teaching vocabulary
Approaches to teaching spelling
Collateral reading and “book reports”
Approaches to teaching research techniques
Approaches to speech activities
Adaptive strategies for students who
                Have limited English proficiency
                Have limited reading skills
                Have special cultural instructional needs
Introduction to teaching Shakespeare and his plays
Approaches to teaching listening, note-taking, and study skills 
Approaches to the use of the media 
                Television
                Film
                Newspaper  
Service-based learning
Nuts and Bolts
Grading Papers
Record Keeping
Controlling the paper flow
Malaysian tiger-pits  
                Care and handling of parents who object about curriculum or presentation matters
                Censoring  
                Abridging/simplifying  

Course Requirements and Materials 

Thumb Drive: If you wish to copy materials I will make available, you will need a thumb drive with a great deal of memory.  These materials will cover strategies, lessons. tests, sponges, and various other materials for your resources.

CD's or DVD's:  In order to cut the costs of paper reproduction and to save the trees, we will  use CD's or DVD's for the copies of the unit which you will need to make for your classmates.

READING

Students are to complete relevant collateral readings prior to the class meetings. These will primarily be drawn from the following sources:

• Burke, Jim. The English Teacher’s Companion. Heinemann, Boynton/Cook, Westport,   Connecticut,1999. (available in CSUB bookstore)    

• Relevant materials you have chosen  

• Various web-sites

• Materials distributed in class.

• California Language Arts Framework and Standards k-12 (1999)CDE

HANDOUTS

You are required to bring with you to each class meeting, enough handouts of a bibliography, a glossary, a strategy, a technique, a special website (with a sample)  for each member of the class.  You should keep the copies you receive and place them in the appropriate folders in your resource box. Your criteria for choice for sharing should be of interest to other teachers in the class. They should not be specific to the unit you are constructing.

• applicability to the secondary English classroom

• useful in teacher planning/classroom management

• helpful websites for others to know about

RESOURCE BOX: This box , although not submitted for grade, will be exceedingly valuable in your future career. Start a systematic file system now.  You will be amazed at how materials begin to proliferate.  If you do not work out a system immediately for capturing and retrieving information quickly, all of the good materials in your collection might as well not be there.  Start the good habit now.  I suggest you begin with one of the paper boxes that copy paper comes in. (You can get one from the reproduction center at the school you are working in.  Then set up your files from the get go. ) I suggest you file by the subject of the material.  If you don't do it now, you probably never will.

The minimum materials in each section might include

TEACHING UNIT: You are required to design a teaching unit for a class to which you are assigned for the field experience.  You are required to teach two of the lessons from this unit to your assigned school class; you are to present the  unit to your classmates in this course. In order to validate the fact that you taught the classes, you must include a validation form for each class you taught. You must submit to me a hard copy of this unit at the final class meeting. (In addition, you must prepare CD copies of the entire unit for distribution to each member of the class at the 10th week when you present your unit to the class.  ) 

Utilizing the course of study/subject implementation for an English class you are assigned to for field experience, you are to do the following:

• Choose one major unit of work being presented at your field experience school during the current term.
• Although your unit will cover the same material that the teacher is teaching during a given segment of class time, you will teach only 2 of the lessons. Your unit should generally follow the time frame of the teacher's unit, but you are not to teach that whole unit; nor are you to use that teacher's unit for more than ideas. ( The only places they are conjoined is at the time of teaching the required  lessons.) If this is not entirely clear to you at the outset of the course, please bring it up for discussion immediately.

The unit you will create for submission for grade will include a complete calendar (graphic organizer for the unit you will be teaching.  Each entry should contain a brief notation of the content and a special note as to which specific class assignment  given that it fulfills.

Although you will certainly have more than one of some of these lesson strategies, you are to include  a minimum of one each of the following:  

•              Introductory lesson
•             A short writing assignment (journal entry or reflection.)
•             A multi-paragraph essay assignment, including a prompt and a rubric
•             One reading or lecture formative assessment (include an adapted version for a   special needs student).
•             Summative assessment (each with rationale and key/rubric)
•                             a traditional assessment
•                             an adapted assessment for special needs student.
•                             an alternative assessment (film. research, multimedia presentation, etc.)
•             One Cooperative Learning Group (It may be utilized as anticipatory set, a presentation, or application )
•               Sample adaptive strategy and accompanying rationale (one each)  for students                                
                            who have limited English proficiency
                            who have limited reading skills
                            who have special instructional needs
•              A lesson on the same theme as the core work you are teaching, but from another genre (a speech, a poem,  an art work, a film, a television production, a musical number.

Grading and Attendance Policies

 Regular attendance  AND PARTICIPATION will certainly have an impact on your grade for the course:

• Just as you expect your students to be on time, I ask you to plan to be in class on time.  If necessary, make arrangements with your school site administration to leave immediately after school so that you can be in class promptly. (Obviously there may be an exception, considering parking problems, but you should be able to be in your seat within 15 minutes of the beginning of class.) (5 PERCENT)

• Participation includes interaction with class activities and the distribution of  handouts to the class.  (See course requirements.) (20 PERCENT)

• FIELD EXPERIENCE includes teaching the above required lessons to your class.

• UNIT  will be due at the beginning of WEEK 10. The grade will be discounted for late submission. (75 percent)

                    The grading rubric for your unit will include: