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Curriculum Projects
Since my "retirement" in 2002, I have been devoting much of my time to curriculum projects, the most significant of which are discussed here.
AVID College Readiness: Working the Sources. AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is an organization founded in San Diego more than 25 years ago to encourage secondary students, most of whose parents did not attend college or university, to enroll in four-year post-secondary institutions. The program is offered in a number of states and now begins with students as young as 10 and continues, with elective classes, college visits---and much more---throughout the students' high school and first years of college. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/ps/avidgen.asp.
My contribution to the AVID students' preparation is a three-semester college readiness curriculum, initially offered to students during their junior and senior years but now part of AVID elective and other curricula from seventh grade to university. In the introduction, I argue that we cannot predict the exact reading and writing assignments that students will be given in their post-secondary classes. What we can predict are the skills, abilities, and strategies that will be required. Thus, this curriculum is devoted to acquiring "essential four skills" (ASFI): analyzing a prompt or academic task, selective and purpose-driven reading, focused note-taking, and integrating sources into written texts. In addition to writing the curriculum and the training materials for the AVID Summer Institutes, I lead summer institute strands and provide other training support for the organization.
English 131: A Foundation Program for College Freshman. During my six-week senior Fulbright consultancy at the University of Limpopo (UL), South Africa (Spring, 2007), I developed for the English Department a new reading/writing program, to be offered to freshmen across the curriculum. After conducting needs assessments, interviewing students and faculty, observing classes, and collecting materials, I attempted to create lessons that are motivating, relevant, accessible---and useful to students in any major. The curriculum has been classroom tested, and in the coming years, faculty from the university will be revising it. My colleague and head of the UL English Department, Leketi Makalela, and I have written a paper about this venture, published in New directions in English for Specific Purposes research (University of Michigan Press, 2011), co-edited by Diane Belcher, Brian Paltridge, and myself.
Freshman Literacy Program: Sabanci University (Turkey). In the fall 2006 and again in 2007, I worked with the English Department at Sabanci University (Istanbul) on their cross-curricular writing program, based upon research by the faculty and work by Dan Horowitz (1986). The faculty have developed an extensive, and interesting curriculum---and A guide for instructors.
English Language Courses, University of Antonine, Lebanon. On a second senior Fulbright (Summer, 2009), I worked with Cynthia Eid, the Director of the Center for Languages and Resouces (CLER), to produce what has been published as A teachers' guide to English language courses (2011-15), a 323 page document that includes curricula, evaluation materials, and guidance for teachers who provide the English language instruction for students across the curriculum, in majors as varied as engineering, dental prosthetics, advertising and media. Because my grant was very short (two weeks), the American Embassy sponsored Dr. Eid's travel to the United States in December, 2009; and for another two weeks, we worked intensively upon the project. Attached is a copy of Dr. Eid's report on the project.
RWS 92A/B curriculum reform. In 2010 and later, San Diego State University's Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies has been revising its developmental curriculum. As one of the first instructors in this project (1985), I have again been called on to update the classes.
Consulting with local secondary and colleges. Other work has included consulting with local (San Diego) schools and colleges about their academic literacy projects, assisting them to set goals, make decisions, and create assessments.