Golden Gate Bridge Campus

English Department

English, Speech,

Humanities, Classics

School of Liberal Arts

OFFICE Batmale 556

PHONE (415) 239-3406

FAX (415) 239-3995

City College of San Francisco

50 Phelan Avenue, Box L161

San Francisco, California 94112

English Dept. Home Page

The Lab Page

City Currents

Newsletter Archives:

59.2, 59.3, 59.4, 59.5, 59.6

Please send electronically formatted contributions to ckleinma@ccsf.edu.

Please submit newsletter ideas, photos, poems, teaching tips, recipes, gossip, propaganda. . . .

Remember,

we now have 3 listservs:

english@ccsf.edu

cyberia@ccsf.edu

writingreadinglabs@ccsf.edu

If you have not been made a subscriber, contact ckleinma@ccsf.edu.

Ignatius J. Reilly's Recommendations for

CCSF's Reading Program

"Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age," Ignatius said solemnly. "Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.... I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman."

WALK!

There are fliers for the Arthritis walk in the English Department. The San Francisco Arthritis Walk is May 21, 2005 at 9:00 AM at Crissy Field. This is an annual nationwide event that raises awareness and funds to fight arthritis, the nation’s leading cause of disability. The Arthritis Walk is held at more than 200 different sites from coast to coast each May during National Arthritis Month. At the Event…

Choose from a three-mile or one-mile walk route
Wear a blue "hero" hat if you have arthritis
Enjoy the fun, festivities and free health information

Register online today! Once you register, you can set up your own personal Web page and begin fund raising. Raise $100 or more and earn an official Arthritis WalkSM T-shirt. Questions? Contact Cynthia Dewar.

Cyberia Lab Assistant

of the Month

RANDY

Randy, pictured above, keeps Cyberia alive. Congratulations!

Summer Labs

The English labs will be open to students from 6/8-7/14. Here are the summer session hours:

Writing Lab

Mon and Thurs 10-3

Tues and Wed 10-6

Reading Lab

Mon and Thurs 9-3

Tues and Wed 9-6

Cyberia

Wed and Fri 1-3

Thurs 1-5

Are you and your students using

The Lab Page ?

"Summertime"

George and Ira Gershwin, 1935

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky

But till that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry
DOES THIS SOUND LIKE SUMMER SESSION TO YOU?

If your answer is yes, listen to Nina Simone.

If your answer is no, listen to Janis Joplin.

The City College

of San Francisco

English Department

Newsletter

Spring 2005

May 59.7

Peer Tutors Needed

The Writing Lab is, as usual, looking for new peer tutors for the Fall 2005 semester. Please discuss the possibility of tutoring with your responsible, personable, strong 1A, 1B, or 40 students. They can pick up an application packet from Alisa and Alex in R220--preferably by the end of this semester, but also over the summer, or at the start of the Fall. We'll also have our Tutor Needed flyers in the English Department soon if you would like to hand them out to potentially interested students.

Mickey Harris, author of the Prentice Hall Reference Guide, embraces Ricky, a Writing Lab peer tutor, after meeting with faculty and tutors about lab and handbook strategies. Thanks to Monica Bosson for arranging this visit.

This issue of the English Department Newsletter has been sponsored by the good people of

Bring your students to Cyberia in Art Ext 265. Jump to more about Cyberia. Prepare to be amazed when you see the new Cyberia lab activity sheet! This could change the way you teach and use lab technology. Be amazed.

Cyberia: It's Cool.

Congratulations

to Karen and Jeff Cox

on the birth of Madeline, born Wednesday, May 4!

Cyberia

Orientations and Workshops

Julie Young and Craig Kleinman will be conducting structured orientations to using Cyberia as a teaching space, from 2-4 PM Wednesday, May 25, and from 10 AM - 12 PM, Thursday, May 26. They will also provide you with some simple inductive activities for your first sessions teaching in Cyberia.

Whether you will be using Cyberia this summer or in the fall, these trainings will be a great opportunity for you to learn the Cyberia basics and explore some new teaching and lab activity ideas.

Please feel free to set up a time with Julie for a brief tour and orientation if you cannot join one of these sessions. Email jcyoung@ccsf.edu

For more summer lab info and general lab information and resources, jump to

The Lab Page.

Several members of our department, including Linda Legaspi and Cynthia Dewar, have loved ones in or on the way to Iraq. We all hope for their safe and speedy return.

English Department Party

at the Basque Cultural Center on Friday, 5/20! RSVP to Bill McGuire--like yesterday: 452-7257. Our retirees, Joan Wilson and Joyce Taylor, shall be honored, as they are by us every day. Basque dancing, anyone?

Congratulations to Shari Dinkins on accepting a position as associate professor at the University of Southern Indiana. She will be finishing up the summer at City College of San Francisco and then relocating to Indiana for Fall 2005.

Christine McMahon served as Guest Editor for Critical Thinking: Unfinished Business, a volume in the New Directions for Community Colleges series coordinated through UCLA and published by Jossey-Bass. It will be published this summer. Some of you may recognize Christine's work from her collaboration with John Chaffee on Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing.

Daniel Curzon (Daniel R. Brown) has received published copies of his one-act play A Fool's Audition from Baker's Plays, the foremost publisher of plays for schools. It could be used in City College courses (hint, hint).

This summer we'll be increasing the classroom use of Cyberia. Please review your Cyberia teaching assignment at The Lab Page. If you're sharing an assigned time with a colleague, work out how you'll share the room. All hail Cyberia.

CCSF English Department

Goes High Tech!

Thanks to a generous grant from IBM, all students taking basic skills English classes at CCSF will be provided with their own mainframe computer. The IBM 705 was one of the most powerful data processing systems available in the mid-1950s. Operating according to detailed instructions called a program, the 705's electronic circuits

performed a series of record-keeping, arithmetic and logical operations automatically and at speeds which made it capable of 240,000 "decisions" in 60 seconds, and of multiplying numbers as large as 1 million at the rate of over 400 per second. "This is exactly the kind of technology our basic skills students need to compete in the new millenium," states John Batty-Sylvan, Chair, English Department. "Imagine how empowered our students will feel riding to school on the 43 Muni with their own IBM 705. True, some take BART, but there will be plenty of envious Cal students eyeing the 705's powerful data processing systems! This is what it means to be pro-active." At the start of each processing procedure, the program is read into "memory" from tape or punched cards. Then the machine carries out the entire processing job without human intervention, checking itself for accuracy as it works. Don't worry--the CCSF bookstore has been made aware of our IBM 705 grant and will stock plenty of magnetic tape, the usual means of input of data to the 705, but since entry can also be effected by a punched card "reader," plenty of punch cards will fill the store's shelves. Buy in bulk and save!

Cyberia Reconfigured

When many of you return from summer holiday you may not recognize Cyberia. The reconfiguration plans--see publicity image of individualized student workstation to the left--have been approved by the CCSF College Board, and all of the hardware, generously provided by IBM, will be installed right after summer session.

Julie Young, the English Department's Title III coordinator, is very excited about Cyberia's future1410 Data Processing Tape System, first introduced in 1960. "Of course I'm excited! The 1410 uses IBM 729 or 7330 Magnetic Tape Units to provide increased data input and output speeds. This should be great for basic skills and transfer-level students!" Title III funds will also be used to pay the Cyberia Hostesses (publicity image to the right). You can't stop progress, especially at CCSF.

Speech Team Sizzles in Spring 2005

The Forensics Speech and Debate Team has been traveling throughout the country to showcase its CCSF talent. Director Michelle Gorthy and Coach Ivan Oplanic, brought team members Nadia Conrad, Skryr Ambrose, Mark Schnapp and Shady Alzayat to San Diego in March to challenge the Southern California league in Lincoln Douglas and Team Parliamentary debate and in Poetry, Impromptu and Extemporaneous events. Nadia Conrad enthusiastically stepped in as an alternate in Parliamentary Team to partner with Skryr Ambrose despite being a novice speaker. Skryr and Nadia missed a bronze medal by 2 speaker points which is equivalent to missing third in the 100 yard dash by a tenth of a second. Skryr Ambrose rose to the occasion when he was awarded the silver medal in debate now ranking second in the State in his event.

In April Judy Chea and William Dwiggins joined the State team and flew to Philadelphia, PA to compete at the National level. Members must show a history of competitive success and team maturity to be selected to perform at this level. Retired Director, Cynthia Dewar joined Michelle Gorthy to coach the National Team. Skryr Ambrose came away from Nationals with a bronze medal ranking him third in the Nation in Impromptu Speaking, and still managed to turn his Physics assignments in on time. Other members should also be acknowledged for their countless hours spent in practice and for the support and grace they demonstrated throughout the tournament.

Novices Marte’ Hoskins and Scott Luan rounded out the speech season at the April Spring Fling. Marte’ took third in Persuasion at his first competition.

All competitive members will make a repeat performance at Speech Slam and Speech Night on May 17^th. Speech Slam is free and will be held in Science 100. Speech Night will showcase the senior speech team members from 5-7pm in Statler 14 (below Pierre Coste) and the $5 donation will support further Speech Team efforts. If you are interested in joining the Speech Team please contact Michelle Gorthy at 239-3146 for details on Speech 37 and 38 classes.

Thank you to all the faculty and administrators that have believed in the Forensics Team and shown their endless support throughout the year.

Please convey the following to your students by incorporating this lab information into your syllabus or by appropriating it into a separate handout of your own. As always, students in English 90, 92, and 9 need to complete various tasks during open lab time in order to meet course requirements. During the summer, the minimum amount of lab time a student must document should be twelve (12) hours, an average of two hours per week. Here is how and where those lab hours may be earned.

Summer 2005 Open Lab Hours

Writing Lab in R207 (6/8 till 7/14; closed on 7/4): one-on-one tutoring at any step in the writing process, sessions are limited to 30 minutes per session per day, no more than twice a week; students must bring essay assignments and texts to their tutorial; thirty minutes of lab credit per session, plus an optional 30 minutes if student does independent study in conjunction with tutorial session

Monday and Thursda, : 10-3

Tuesday and Wednesday: 10-6

There will be no Friday or Saturday Writing Lab hours this summer.

Cyberia in Art Ext 265 (6/8 till 7/14; closed on 7/1): computer-based and self-directed writing and reading enhancement; brief faculty assessment and coaching of student writing provided; earn up to two hours of lab credit per day for computer-based work; individual teachers must determine if pure word-processing (i.e., done without Cyberia’s composition software and web applications) shall receive lab credit

Wednesday and Friday: 1-3

Thursday: 1-5 (except 6/30, which will be 1-6)

During most mornings and evenings Cyberia will be used as a computerized classroom. Students in need of extended one-on one essay tutoring should always use the Writing Lab; Cyberia is for computer-based writing improvement and segmental faculty coaching.

Reading Lab in R207 (For now, Monday & Thursday 9-3; Tuesday & Wednesday 9-6): various reading based activities; critical response exercises; computer and audio-based reading improvement tasks; reading comprehension practice; vocabulary enhancement activities

Academic Computing Lab in R207 (Monday-Thursday 8-6:30; Friday 8-3:30): Students using the Lab Page’s Internet composition activities or typing essays for lab credit must let the ACL staff know this when checking in.

Media Center in R403 (Monday-Thursday 9-6:45; Friday 9-3:45): a range of video and audio lessons designed to help students improve their punctuation, grammar, reading, composition skills.

Internet Alternatives (anywhere)

Due to our slightly constrained open lab schedule and our students’ traditionally hectic schedules, students may want the chance to earn some--say 20-30%--of their twelve hours of lab credit by using the activities linked to the English Department’s Lab Page (http://fog.ccsf.edu/~ckleinma/labpage.htm). For credit work completed off-campus, students must use English sites that require a log in and maintain a record of work done. E.g., at the Lab Page’s “Grammar and Mechanics” link, you’ll see Anker’s Diagnostic Test, a great assessment tool for the start of the semester (takes an hour); each student’s Test Report contains links to recommended sections of Bedford/St. Martin’s Exercise Central, also found at our “Grammar and Mechanics” link. Once teachers set up a faculty account, they are able to access students’ records on Bedford’s server. Several reading and composition teachers have also been grateful for our Lab Page’s “Reading and Vocabulary” link to the online reading exercises at Townsend Press. On the Lab Page’s Cyberia Activity Form you will see a range of links arranged by skill needs--use it!

Such free Internet alternatives could make for a more pleasant summer session. Look closely at your text’s companion web site and make the most of it for your students. And if you are using a Longman text, take advantage of the free access codes for My Skills Lab bundled with your book. The Reading Roadtrip could provide a fun way to travel and learn this summer. Plus, My Skills Lab includes several easy-to-learn course management tools that enable teachers to oversee students’ work.