Workshop Schedule

June 12, 2000--10 am to 2 pm: Standards and Expectations for Writing of Beginning Skidmore College Students

Expository Writing is a Foundation Requirement of the Skidmore curriculum. But beyond the writing seminars and writing-intensive courses, what are the standards and expectations we hold in 100- and 200- level courses. How do we help students meet those expectations? How do we respond to student writing that is clearly below these expectations?

The session will include an examination of papers from first-year students from Liberal Studies 1 and writing seminars along with papers that received awards from the English Department.

Draft of Expectations for first-year writing developed during the workshop.

June 13, 2000--10 am to 2 PM: Standards and Expectations for Discipline-based Writing

Building upon the articulation of basic college literacy from Day 1, we'll shift our attention to the standards and expectations for writing students do in their discipline-based courses. By examining sample student papers from discipline-based courses, professional style manuals, and writing guides, participants will begin to develop a list of expectations for students writing in their discipline.

The session will examine the relationship between disciplinary expectations for writing and standards and expectations for basic college literacy. In addition, participants will examine the similarities and differences among the standards and expectations of the disciplines represented in the workshop and will discuss what faculty can do to help students understand and navigate these distinctions.

June 14--10 am to noon: Publishing your Writing Guidelines on the Web

Several departments at Skidmore have already already created web pages for their own writing guidelines. Dan Curley, Classics, and Michael Clapper and Amelia Rauser, Art History, will join the workshop to discuss what led them to create such a resource, how they determined what information to include--and exclude--in their guidelines, and how they chose to design their guidelines for the electronic environment. Most importantly, they will discuss strategies for integrating the writing guidelines published on the web into courses.

1 PM to 3 PM: Designing Websites

Phylise Banner, Training and Documentation Coordinator for CITS, leads a two part workshop on creating web pages. The first half of the session will discuss principles of web page design. The second half of the session is designed for faculty participants who have little or no experience in creating web pages. Phylise will introduce participants to the fundamentals of html scripting and how to use Dreamweaver 2.0 to design web pages.

Contact the Helpdesk to have Dreamweaver 2.0 installed on your office computer.

June 15, 2000: Individual Work

This day is set aside for participants to gather research and resources on writing in their discipline, meet with other faculty members in their department, draft web pages, and consult with the workshop leaders.

June 16, 2000--9 am to noon: Presentations of Plans for Web Pages

Each participant in the Workshop will make a report on the contents and design of his/her web page, focusing on specific issues they are facing in developing writing standards for their discipline and in designing their web pages.

 

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

August Meeting, TBA

Workshop participants will reconvene in August for a half-day meeting to present their completed web page and discuss and critique the products among themselves.

September

During September, workshop participants will share their web pages with members of their departments to gain suggestions for revision and, ultimately, the department's endorsement of the information presented in the web pages.

October 27, 2000, 3:30-5:00: Pedagogy Session-"Standards for Writing in the Disciplines."

Based on the work of the Standards and Expectations/ Writing in the Disciplines Workshop, workshop leaders and participants will lead the October pedagogy session to open up the discussion of standards and expectation in writing to the larger Skidmore community.