Guidelines for Developmental English Labs

In the Developmental English courses, 1 of every 4 hours of class time--that is one hour of class time each week in a regular 16 week semester--will be dedicated to lab. You will use the lab assignments on this website for this course requirement. Please read the following section to orient yourself to the options, requirements, and understandings that are the basis of the Developmental English Lab Program.

The department has determined that lab assignments will account for 20% of a student's grade in all developmental classes: ENGL 0304, 0305, 0306, and 0307. You will need to clarify this in your syllabus. You will want to plan to have a lab assignment for each week (or 1 of every 4 hours of class), totaling approximately 16 hours of lab assignments for the semester.

Please note that I have anticipated some lab assignments taking more than the allotted hour of class, meaning that these assignments might count for 2 labs instead of one. For example, Annotating for the Main Idea & Annotating to Interpret for 0305 is quite an involved lab with multiple processes. Depending on how students do, you might assign this lab over the course of two weeks instead of one week. Thus, this lab could count for 2 hours of lab out of the total 16 hours. Notice I indicate this option for quite a few lab assignments, and I do so in the bullets beneath the lab assignment titles on the Lab Assignment Table of Content page.

General Labs

The general labs--a separate section above the course-specific sections--are designed to accommodate more than one level; these assignments contain questions particularly relevant to beginning, middle, and end-of-semester time frames. For example, the Introduction to Labs for Reading Classes 0304 and 0305 is an introduction to reading lab assignments.  The First Self-Assessment could be a great "diagnostic," or first look at a student's writing. Please take a look at this section on the Lab Assignment Table of Content page.

Course Specific Labs

As you move down the Lab Assignment Table of Contents page, you will see there are labs specifically designed for each of the four Developmental Courses. So there is a section titled "Labs for Developmental Writing II, ENGL 0307," and so on for each Developmental English course (ENGL 0307, 0306, 0305, and 0304).

Though these course specific sections are important, and we have split the Developmental English classes into reading and writing components to highlight certain "skills," we know that we cannot truly separate reading from writing.  Since reading and writing are different sides of the same coin, it should be useful to use a few reading assignments for your writing class and vice versa. For example, for my ENGL 0307 course, I often use the annotating lab (in the ENGL 0305 section) to refresh students. Most often students in a writing course are not previously introduced to annotating and thus lose much of what they read, in turn, affecting their writing.

You may use any combination of labs throughout the semester. However, we do need to keep in mind that there may be students who are taking both writing and reading classes at the same time and, thus, may be repeating certain assignments in your class. From my experience, there are fewer of these students than there are of students NOT taking reading and writing classes together. It would be sad to avoid an assignment that may benefit the whole group due to a fear of repetition for a minority of students.

For students who may have already done an assignment you are requiring, it may be wise to inform them that they do not have to be repetitive--that is up to them. The questions in lab assignments are designed to prompt the critical thinking necessary for success in reading and writing. You might ask these students to dig deep for another set of answers or details, if they have already seen a particular assignment. As we all know, our ideas and understandings are constantly in flux if we are learning. Taking a second look at questions already answered can do much for a students' learning . . . even if there is repetition--too, a tool we know to be effective!

The Choices You Have

Please note that these lab assignments are alphabetized (on the previous page) for your convenience. There is no required order for these lab assignments. When you use which lab assignment is up to you. This is done purposely so that you can correlate your class content with the lab content.

Also note that several options will be available to you in many of the labs themselves. For example, you have the option of how to present the lab assignment; it can be connected to an essay your class is working on or presented as a separate exercise—one that students can repeatedly refer to for drafting, revision, editing, etc. These options will be clarified in the assignment handout so that you can decide the best avenue for your students.

As the pool of lab assignments grows, so will your choices. Please check back frequently to see what has been added to the website throughout the semester. I will indicate which assignments are brand new to the site with the following label: "New--Spring 2006."

Best Practice Theory

As Developmental English teachers, we face the challenges of preparing under-prepared students for college-level courses. Yet, at the same time we prepare these students for credit-level English, we need to encourage in them the habits that make them successful learners in the long-term. We are not merely faced with teaching students skills they have not learned elsewhere. We are also bound to encouraging the strong positive understandings of the integral roles of reading, writing, thinking, and learning, as well as providing incentives for further learning through reading and writing that promote real student success—long-term student success.

To be successful, a student needs to learn how to be an independent learner. As teachers, we know this due to our experiences with life-long learning. Independent learners can assess their own strengths and weaknesses, can set realistic goals, and have a productive attitude towards learning; dependent students, on the other hand, are trapped in a never-ending cycle of the-teacher-knows-best-how-I-learn attitude which renders students incapable of creating their own education. The closer we come to providing the processes, strategies, and real-world understandings of reading and writing, the closer we come to cultivating more independent learners—learners who have the strategies necessary for success in all classes and future endeavors.

We can start the process of developing independent learners by assuring our students are a part of the learning process—a part of their own learning processes. Encouraging students to reflect on their own strengths, weaknesses, and processes is a necessary first step to giving students the opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. By realizing what they already do well, they know they can build upon these strengths, simultaneously confronting their weaknesses. By calling into question what processes already work for them as writers and readers, students create for themselves a context for learning new strategies—ones that can make writing and reading more manageable for them in the future.  

Each lab assignment will include a reflection section which asks students to reflect in some way on what they did in the assignment, why, and/or how. This section is designed to lead students to the essential personal understandings and applications of independent learners. Throughout my research on best practice, one of the most agreed upon methodologies is self-assessment, or self-reflection (also referred to as metacognition). By reflecting on their own work, students find purpose in active learning; they can develop their own understandings of each strategy introduced in the lab program, using the very inquiry we know as educators is essential to our own life-long learning and development.

You may want to introduce students to the concept of self-reflection, or metacognition, and identify its importance. The introductory labs, under the General Labs section, call attention to self-reflection and ask students to consider its importance in writing. These are good labs with which to begin the semester. Understanding why we do what we do is a powerful motivator!

Have fun with this site, and please let me know how I can help.

Thank you! Alicia

alicia.j.bankston@nhmccd.edu

 936-273-7257