Course Design/Research Proposal

Application Guidelines and Coversheet

Name: Heather Marcelle Crickenberger

Number of years or semesters teaching FYW at UNCC: 7.5 years

Title of Proposal:  “Process Documentary and Innovation in Writing Courses and their Development”

Preferred semester for course release   ___x___ Spring 2015   __x__ Fall 2016

In addition, please attach your response to the following

In no more than three pages, please explain

1. Your rationale for the re-design (e.g., why this course, what do you hope to add/accomplish/rethink)

Why This Course?:

I would like to redesign UWRT1102 or UWRT1103 because these classes have specific program requirements (i.e. a semester-long inquiry project, an eportfolio, a multimodal component, adherence to our program’s Student Learning Outcomes, etc.) that I plan to use as my starting point for designing an inquiry project that will shadow the one I assign my students. Through this project, I plan to explore design thinking and practices as a means of encouraging innovation in writing courses as well as in their development. I’m hoping that this paralleling of my own research, writing and process work with the work I ask of my students will help me better understand my own approach to teaching so that I might discover ways to make improvements. I expect this project to inform itself in a transitive and “ruminatory” manner—one that propels itself forward through approximation, recursion, adjustment, and adaptation.   

Objectives:

Following is a list of objectives for the course redesign:

1. To highlight multimodal composition in the course, to deepen engagement with the eportfolio, and to render visible the course attributes that fulfill our assessment criteria and SLOs

1. To implement, question, and inform my own pedagogical values and practices by researching and documenting the development of a new approach to teaching writing and to share this experience with the UWP community

1. To use scholarly and artistic research, reflective writing, and design thinking in order to better inform and situate the work I do within Writing Studies and design-based disciplines as well as to improve student transfer to the design-based tasks they will undertake in future courses.

Rationale:

I would like to approach the course redesign process in a way that parallels the work I ask my students to do when we approach writing and inquiry as design in my classes. To me, design is “creativity within constraints” and it can never be separated from its own process.  For more than a decade, I have taught writing as design with only the slightest emphasis on process and I would like to change that by examining my own process as a designer of writing classes in the context of the task I place before my students, as well as within current conversations about design thinking and pedagogy.  In this redesign opportunity, I would like to bring process to the forefront of my class, opening up much more space for reflection and discussion than I have had previously. In doing so, I hope to transfer not only a method or strategy students might use when composing, but also a designer’s mindset, an approach to problem solving that highlights the role of creativity and innovation in the design process.

1. If not already explained in #1 above, the pedagogical framework you will use to deliver this course

In this class, we will approach multimodal composition and inquiry as a design process. Students will use the entire semester to develop a multimodal inquiry project which will be presented in an eportfolio that contextualizes the work they did all semester in terms of our programs SLOs. A large component of this undertaking will be comprised of design-based problem solving exercises and writing prompts as well as associated exploratory writing, research, and process-related activities.

What is Process Documentation?

When I use this phrase, I am referring to the act of documenting or recording one’s compositional process. This involves everything from keeping track of random notes, brainstorming sessions, notes from class, collections of artifacts or bibliographic citations and annotations, descriptions of conditions surrounding the inquiry and compositional process, background notes, videos of design processes in action, reflective work, exploratory writing, experiments with remediation, visual planning and storyboarding, critiques received from others, feedback from the professor, drafts, etc., etc., etc. This collection of “thought objects” becomes, at the end of the semester, a resource to draw on for the Final Project and surrounding materials (Reflective Essays, Introductory Materials, Cover Letters, etc.) Teachers of writing do versions of this every day. In our program we have called it “writing about writing” and “metacognition”, “reflection” and many other names.  By calling it “process documentation” and assigning it value in my class, I hope to engage the SLOs as well as to emphasize process.  By the end of the course, students will be expected to understand that their writing process extends far beyond what happens in the classroom or on Moodle or what they include in their final portfolio and that ideas emerge from rumination, often in the least likely places. I hope to cultivate an approach or mindset toward writing and inquiry that will freely transfer to disciplines throughout academia because it is a mindset prepared to solve problems, develop projects, and engage their work actively and intellectually.

1. What research activities you will need to engage in order to complete the redesign, along with an approximate calendar for doing so.

Just as I will ask my students to do, I will develop my own inquiry project by extending my questions to outside sources of information and by engaging the writing prompts assigned in my class. I expect this to include academic research in design-based fields like Writing Studies, Digital Rhetorics, Architecture, Engineering, etc., but my research may also include other types of sources—like references to pop culture, current events, performances, artifacts, processes, media, experimentation, artistic exploration, etc. If I were to have the course release in the spring, I would begin my research at the moment I began to design my Spring classes.  Throughout the semester, I would be collecting research and assimilating it into my process documentary.  Over the summer, I would reflect on my own process and look for ways of incorporating what I learned in my plans for the Fall semester, when I would redesign the course based on continued research and reflection.  I imagine this process is familiar to many teachers as they aim to improve their classes; the course release will simply provide me with more time to take the process further. 

In the field of Rhetoric, this approach is one of itineration—a “nomadic” (Deleuze-Guatarri, A Thousand Plateaus), improvisational approach to research and writing. It does not anticipate the results of an investigation before it begins, but instead moves in a more transitive manner through the information that emerges. It is also a media-centered approach to teaching writing that treats the task as an occasion for design.  While the anticipated final product in this case is a new way of teaching writing and a means of disseminating it to others, there are the many extra goals teachers of writing share that will also play into what takes place in the class: helping students gain confidence, find their voice, see writing as a socially situated act, develop critical thinking skills, etc. etc., etc.  

1. Explain how you will disseminate this information to faculty.

I will document the process of designing the class and then curate a reflective composition which I will make available in an eportfolio similar in structure to that which I am asking my students to do.  I could also give a brief overview of my experience at a brown bag workshop or faculty meeting if the program so desires.