Just before Thanksgiving Break, Kyle sent an email to Dr. Tony Silva in an attempt to get ENGL 106i instructors involved in the project. In turn, Dr. Silva forwarded our email to 106i instructors.

We're hoping to finalize project team members before winter break and schedule a meeting before classes end in order to plan out and divide the labor for Phase 1, which includes:

• transcribing the rest of the materials we'll need for the project
• composing a narrative that describes Berlin's syllabus, assignment sequence, assignments, and 
  
• assigning responsibilities for contacting Berlin's former mentees with questions about our transcriptions and the narrative described above
  
• planning and writing the proposal for CWPA in June
• coordinating ENGL 106 and 106i schedules for the project in the spring semester
  
• crafting and submitting our proposal to IRB
• drafting a statement explaining the project to students (with permission forms)
• scheduling a face-to-face meeting for early January
• finalizing the Berlin's materials that we'll use to inform our work
• creating and distributing a short reading list that a theoretical background for our project writ large and for incorporating the "Berlin assignment" into our classes (This reading list should also include readings dealing with cultural studies approaches critiqued/enacted in L2 contexts.)
• creating an additional reading list for participants
• discussing the CFPs applicable to our project
  

We'd like to cap the project at 7 or 8 (at most) participant/researchers because we'd like everyone who is interested to play a role in writing and editing the articles (2) and developing/presenting at CWPA should we get accepted. At present, we envision two articles: a traditional text published in a flagship journal and a webtext that includes information we aren't able to reproduce in a journal article, such as entries from teaching journals, examples of student work, images of Berlin's documents, etc. As far as particular CFPs go, McComiskey's call for Microhistories of Composition looks promising for a print publication (though I'm not sure if folks would want to go with an edited collection or a journal). In terms of the webtext, Kairos or Enculturation may be good options. I am less familiar with SLA/SLS journals, but I am sure there are those we should consider as well.

- Don




 

Pat wasn't very surprised that we couldn't find assignment sheets. She said that Shirley played a role in establishing them as a norm aimed toward assessment. We may need to piece things together in order to move forward. She thought it was a good idea to contact former mentees. She suggested Libby Miles because she said Libby keeps everything and would have her papers, but I am almost positive that Libby was not one of his mentees.

Pat seemed to think we really should find 106i instructors to get involved. Based on the materials we looked at, Purdue seemed so vastly different then. We should ask the woman who's doing PW as a secondary area if she's teaching 106i next semester. Also, we should talk to Tony Silva about a few things: (1) who he would recommend contacting/thinks may be interested, and (2) to see if he has info or knows where to get info about the history of international students at Purdue. Alongside reconstructing Berlin's assignments via documents and conversations with former mentees, we might need to do a bit of historical work about the school itself. Along with this we will to get some idea what 101/102 were like and how and when they became 106. Also, at some point Purdue had a prep class for fyc (not everyone went directly to 106). This may have been 101. I'm not sure. This info is probably more important for an article, but might also help inform the changes we make to an assignment, readings, etc.

I found the Purdue newsreels, which give some info. It looks like 1987 (Berlin's first year?) was a big year for beginning steps toward getting more international students, particularly from China. It's mentioned in this newsreel video.

- Don

Did Berlin and mentees use assignment sheets?

Can we find more specific information about readings, particularly which essays,
chapters, etc Berlin used?

What did the grammar lessons look like?

Did Berlin/mentees teach genre? More specifically, where did discussions about
essay or research papers come in to the classroom as they are only superficially
mentioned on the syllabi and not mentioned in the weekly breakdown for the
course?

The syllabi mentions things in the weekly breakdown like, "Revise the first draft
after group discussion. Read the second draft in editorial groups. Revise and submit
the final draft." What did this process of drafting, critiquing, peer editing, and
revising look like?

"Final Exam Week": did it include a final exam?

Did Berlin use grading rubrics? What did they look like?

We found a mix of popular sources from magazines like Utne Reader and Time as
well as academic journal articles? What was the balance like in ENGL 101/102
reading?

Here's the list of stuff that I asked Michael Mahune to put aside for us for the first go round with the archive:

Series 2: Teaching Materials, 1980-1994
    Subseries 1: Prior to Purdue University, 1981-1987
        English 103, University of Cincinnati, Summer 1987
 
Box 3
Series 2: Teaching Materials, 1980-1994
    Subseries 2: Purdue University, 1987-1993
        Mentoring materials, 1987-1993
            English 102, 1988
            English 102CS, 1992-1993
        Cultural Studies readings, 1990-1992
 
Box 7
Series 2: Teaching Materials, 1980-1994
    Subseries 2: Purdue University, 1982-1994            
        Berlin’s teaching materials assembled and used by other professors after his death, 1982-1994
            Teaching materials—other cultural studies pedagogy, undated
            Mentoring, 1987-1991
                Sample student papers
                Teacher commentary
                Course calendars
                Syllabi
                Handouts and readings
                English 102 and English 101, 1994
                Berlin’s sample materials for mentor group

Evidently, archives don't quite work that way, so we received all of Boxes 2, 3, and 7.