English Department Committees

We confirmed the 6 English department committees for the year: Literature, Writing, Assessment, Developmental, Professional Development and Placement Testing. If you are interested in serving on one of these committees, and have not yet signed up, please visit the jsrccenglishfaculty.weebly.com site and fill out the form indicating your interest.

Additionally, as you form cadres for the year, please submit this information to Steve Brandon. Let him know if you'd like him to create a cadre page for your group on the weebly site. Cadre groups will have three responsibilities: 1) participation in group discussions throughout the year, 2) review of one syllabi, and 3) one classroom observation. Please keep cadre groups to 8 members or less, for more effective participation.

Animoto tool

Karen Pallay shares a recent and VERY cool animation tool she's using in her ENG 111 classes:


Thanks to my friends at the English Companion Ning, I have found a truly cool Web-based tool called Animoto. This find coincided with my foray into the teaching of a new subject: ENG 01. When I first saw an Animoto demo, I saw a tool for introducing my new audience to the Natural Human Learning Process and a major premise conveyed in the textbook I am using based on that process: students who expend time and effort can learn because humans are born to learn.

How you might incorporate Animoto seems limitless. On the English Companion Ning, teachers reported using it to teach abstract course concepts, to convey basic class policy information, and to provide high-level overviews of--just about anything.

Here's a view of the process involved in Animoto-ing:

• Find a concept you want to teach or information you want to convey.
• Pick a template/theme.
• Add images and text.
• Choose some music
• Let Animoto's magical engine mash it all together.

You'll find Animoto is pretty adept at creating interesting and moving transitions. If the initial result doesn't quite work for you, you can rearrange and add content, and perhaps select a few effects, and then put Animoto to work once again on compiling a result; (hopefully, ultimately) a multimedia experience that delivers the meaning you want to convey.

Educators will want to sign up for an educator's account, which is free and has the features discussed here.

To learn more about Animoto, try this link.

Here is a sample Animoto creation by Karen: http://animoto.com/play/14pN3TC1zT9X5gKc5Lx30g

New Faculty Profile

Congratulations to Jason Lira, our newest full time faculty member! Many of you know Jason from his time as an adjunct instructor here are JSRCC. Jason sat down with me to talk a little bit about teaching, transitioning from part time to full time, and starring in horror movies....

1) Tell us a little about your background and teaching experience, as well as your personal teaching philosophy.

I've taught adjunct for VCU, Richard Bland, John Tyler, and for a couple of for-profit private institutions before gravitating towards JSR. I'm not sure that I developed a philosophy during that time, but I've developed a few guiding principles. I make it a point to treat young students like adults in terms of carrying their responsibilities -- because how else are they going to learn to bear a burden? I act as though all my students are interested in becoming scholars and writers, even when I suspect they are not. I try to teach lessons that are just barely over their heads, because a thing you have to work to master is more stimulating than a thing you succeed at effortlessly. I guess among English professors, it's not too pretentious to quote Browning. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?"

2) Obviously you've been at Reynolds as an adjunct for several years--tell us what drew you here and what you like about the Reynolds community.

I liked the amount of support and advice the full-timers at JSRCC were always willing to offer. I like the diversity of our student body, in terms of age, life experience, and nationality.

3) How is the transition from adjunct to full time progressing? Any major differences that you've noticed thus far? What advice would you have for adjuncts on the lookout for a full time teaching job?

This semester, over the course of the weekend before school started, I went from teaching 12 to teaching 18 credits. This is my first semester doing LCs and my first semester teaching SDV courses and I'm doing 3 of each of those. It's a challenging semester and that's even before I get involved with committees, etc -- but that's not a complaint. To adjuncts seeking full-time employment, I recommend that you get involved with out-of-class activities. Join committees. Attend department meetings. Present a paper at the faculty Research Symposium. Let people get to know your name and face. If someone asks you if you're an expert on graphic novels, say, "I can become one by the time I have to give a presentation".

4)What are your professional interests as far as pedagogy, discipline-specific info, genres, time periods etc.? How are you able to pull some of those interests into your classroom? What do you look forward to contributing to our English Department?

As far as pedagogy, I think my love of freewriting and peer reviews makes me an Elbownian with regard to my writing classes. In English 112, I'm focused on applying classical rhetoric and critical reading to modern media by way of advertising and political discourse. Literarily, I'm most interested in myth and medival lit (I want to develop a Special Topics course in this area). I usually jam a unit on the Pulp writers, along with a question of "What is High and Low Art?" into my 242 classes.

5) Give our readers one interesting fact about yourself--outside of the realm of school.

I try to get my fingers into a lot of artistic pies: theatre, film (screenwriting and acting), short stories, and am just starting to cut my teeth on scripting a graphic novel (based on Indian mythology). I recently played a screenwriter/serial killer in the local indy/horror flick _Lights, Camera, Dead_(The title was not my idea).

English Committees

Here is the link to the description of English Department committees. Please take a look at the list and descriptions and think about what committees you might be interested in serving on.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFphYXZ3QVhrNVBHMDFnZkVZYzBYc3c6MQ

Weekly Discussion 9/1

Integrating Portfolios... Portfolios are viewed more and more as productive pedagogical tools that allow students to consider and reflect upon their writing goals, their progress, and the materials they're produced. Many are excited about the prospect of creating a record--something tangible that they can carry beyond the classroom--to demonstrate their skills and to serve as a model for creating other portfolios in other disciplines or for the workplace. FOCUS wants to know, how have you successfully integrated portfolios into your composition classes? How do portfolios work in your classes? What kinds of assignment do students include? What have been the benefits and limitations of this approach? What recommendations do you have for others considering adding a portfolio component?