AED 308: Grammar & the Writing Process

AED 309: Participant-Observation: The Writing Process

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SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, SUNY CORTLAND
308: Mondays & Wednesdays, Old Main, Room G-17, 3:00 4:15 pm
309: Mondays, Old Main, Room G-16, 1:50 2:40pm
Professor Sarah R. Hobson
sarah.hobson@cortland.edu
Office Phone: 607-753-2230
Office Hours: Old Main: 115C
Mondays
10:30 1:00 pm, 4:20-5:30pm
Tuesdays, 2-4pm
Wednesdays, 4:20-5pm
by appointment, or other days, by appointment

Course Design
Adolescents, Adolescent Literacies, and Adolescent Literacy
Education
The world adolescents occupy is dynamic, multimodal, and diverse. In
their many places of learning - at home, on line, in schools, and out of schools youth navigate and construct their participation in multiple cultures and
communities. Constantly expanding technologies provide a plethora of tools
through which adolescents design and advance their purposes and identities in
these contexts. Furthermore, in addition to their own local multicultural lives,
the result of the information age in which we currently live is access to more
countries and cultures. Similar to all people, adolescent social practices are
increasingly intertwined with globalized social practices and patterns of
communication.
In response to these twenty-first century shifts in technologies, and the
dynamic, interchange of diverse cultural and communicative practices, scholars
have continued to expand their conceptions of literacy, of adolescents, and of
identity development. In fact, increasing discussion of the term literacy itself
signals a shift from traditional notions of reading, writing, English Education or
the English language arts as print centered, neutral, transmitted skills, from
teacher to student. In addition, the interest in adolescent literacies signals a shift
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in attention to adolescents themselves and how they construct knowledge and

their identities, as opposed to traditional emphases on the appropriate level of
schooling.
All of this attention to adolescents, their literacies, and adolescent literacy
education surfaces three of the organizing questions of this course:

! What do we know and need to know about adolescents and adolescent

language and literacy acquisition and identity development, to try to improve

access to rich, meaningful writing and learning opportunities for all youth in
middle and secondary schools?

" How do we make senseindividually and collectively--of what is currently

going on in middle and secondary literacy classrooms and the lives of adolescents
outside of school?
How do we read and interpret perspectives in the current literature,
written by researchers, teacher researchers, and students themselves?
How do we read and understand the classrooms, schools and
communities that adolescents navigate daily? What can we learn from
observing and participating in a variety of settings?
What stories do adolescents use of the internet and other digital
technologies tell?

# How do we learn to teach in ways that support the learning of all students,
incorporating and building upon the language and learning differences and other
experiences, identities, and cultural frameworks that they bring to school?
Critical Collaborative Inquiry
To explore these three overarching questions, I have designed this course
as a critical collaborative inquiry. Rather than examine and master a
predetermined body of knowledge, together, we will investigate the dynamic
concepts of language acquisition, literacy, adolescent literacy, culture, and
identity en route to improving learning and teaching in writing and grammar
instruction.
We will use our prior experiences with literacy, language acquisition,
grammar and writing, our in class experiences with literacy, language acquisition,
grammar and writing, course visual, digital, and print readings and writing, each
of our field observations and interactions with teachers and students, and in and
outside class discussions, to challenge and transform our assumptions about
these concepts. Essential to this course is our engagement with youth, in various
sociocultural contexts and for a range of purposes, as we try to make sense of how
adolescents negotiate their worlds through language and literacy, in school and
out. In conversation with adolescents and with each other, we will inquire into,
design, and at times implement writing instruction that intersects meaningfully
with adolescents languages, literacies, and identities.

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To guide our collaborative inquiry, I have structured the course so that we

consistently consider: What happens when we turn this course into a space for
investigating our own understandings of language acquisition, literacy, identity,
writing, vocabulary, and grammar pedagogy and curriculum and at the same time
work towards transforming schools with what we learn (and un-learn)? How can
our classroom experiences in this course be adapted for use in middle and
secondary schools? Along the way, we will pose, investigate, and refine questions
to guide our inquiries and to support us in constructing frameworks, and in
designing units and lessons for writing instruction.

Who is this course designed for and why?

This course is designed for undergraduate and graduate students who
intend to enter the field of adolescent education. In the Adolescence English
Education program, we see teachers and other educational practitioners as
deliberative intellectuals who have theoretical and conceptual frameworks that
guide their practice and who are always in the process of developing and revising
their theories of practice, constantly learning from their local sites of practice and
generating deep knowledge of their practice. Thus, we see it as a project of this
class to help undergraduate students, who are future practitioners in the field, to
identify, articulate, and develop their theories of practice and think about how
they might provide leadership in the field. We believe that teachers and other
practitioners' commitment to learning from practice, as part of their practice, is
critical to reshaping our schools and to improving education for all students.
NCTE-CAEP 2012 Standards This Course Meets
II. Candidates demonstrate knowledge of English language arts
subject matter content that specifically includes language and writing
as well as knowledge of adolescents as language users.

Element 1: Candidates can compose a range of formal and informal texts taking
into consideration the interrelationships among form, audience, context, and
purpose; candidates understand that writing is a recursive process; candidates
can use contemporary technologies and/or digital media to compose multimodal
discourse.
Element 2: Candidates know the conventions of English language as
they relate to various rhetorical situations (grammar, usage, and
mechanics); they understand the concept of dialect and are familiar with
relevant grammar systems (e.g., descriptive and prescriptive); they
understand principles of language acquisition; they recognize the
influence of English language history on ELA content; and they understand
the impact of language on society.

Content Pedagogy: Planning Composition Instruction in ELA

IV. Candidates plan instruction and design assessments for
composing texts (i.e., oral, written, and visual) to promote learning
for all students.

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Element 1: Candidates use their knowledge of theory, research, and practice in

English Language Arts to plan standards-based, coherent and relevant
composing experiences that utilize individual and collaborative approaches and
contemporary technologies and reflect an understanding of writing processes and
strategies in different genres for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Element 2: Candidates design a range of assessments for students that promote
their development as writers, are appropriate to the writing task, and are
consistent with current research and theory. Candidates are able to respond to
student writing in process and to finished texts in ways that engage students
ideas and encourage their growth as writers over time.
Element 3: Candidates design instruction related to the strategic use of language
conventions (grammar, usage, and mechanics) in the context of students writing
for different audiences, purposes, and modalities.
Element 4: Candidates design instruction that incorporates students home and
community languages to enable skillful control over their rhetorical choices and
language practices for a variety of audiences and purposes.

Professional Knowledge and Skills

VI. Candidates demonstrate knowledge of how theories and research
about social justice, diversity, equity, student identities, and schools
as institutions can enhance students opportunities to learn in English
Language Arts.

Element 1: Candidates plan and implement English language arts and literacy
instruction that promotes social justice and critical engagement with complex
issues related to maintaining a diverse, inclusive, equitable society.
Element 2: Candidates use knowledge of theories and research to plan instruction
responsive to students local, national and international histories, individual
identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender expression, age, appearance, ability,
spiritual belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and community
environment), and languages/dialects as they affect students opportunities to
learn in ELA.

Course components

Course Goals
1. To become not just teachers but educational leaders.
2. To be able to understand the sources for other peoples conceptions of
literacy, what you want for your students, and how you will build bridges
between your literacy goals and other peoples literacy goals.
3. To be able to interpret the ways that literacy policies and cultural practices
in schools are impacting teachers and kids and their identity construction.
4. To observe, take field notes, analyze, and explore how adolescents are

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acquiring and using language to construct their identities in actual

classrooms and in course readings.
5. To explore what kinds of experiences with reading, writing, and literacy
influence adolescent language acquisition and their identity construction.
6. To construct guidelines/frameworks for identity, language, literacy,
writing, and grammar that will inform your teaching.
7. To learn how to write effective unit plans and lesson plans for teaching
writing, vocabulary, and grammar.
8. To use autobiographical writing, course readings, and reflection to explore
how we have constructed our identities and what encounters with literacy
have influenced our identities.
9. To use multimodal, analytical, and autobiographical writing and reflection
to challenge our assumptions about literacy and language and to construct
frameworks/guidelines and practices for teaching writing, vocabulary, and
grammar.
Structure of Course
Frameworks/Definitions/Guidelines/Principles
1. Developing frameworks/principles/guidelines/concepts/definitions of
terms for reading, writing, language, literacy, grammar, writing, and
identity.
Researching Literacy and Literacy Policy
2. Researching the field of literacy education and how different people think
about literacy and where their literacy definitions come from. We start
with literacy because how you define literacy will directly influence the
way you teach reading and writing and grammar.
3. Researching government, state, and local policies for literacy.
Using Ethnography to Observe, Participate, Interview Teachers and
Students, Collect Artifacts to Design a Case Study of your School and
School District
4. For 309, learning how to use ethnography to design our own case studies
focused on the literacy policies, frameworks, and practices administrators
and teachers are implementing.
5. For 309, learning how to use ethnography in conjunction with course
readings to study the identities students are constructing within their
classrooms and how the literacy policies/frameworks/practices of schools
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and teachers are influencing the kinds of identities students can construct.
6. For 309, learning how to use ethnography in conjunction with course
readings to study the identities students are constructing within their
classrooms and how they are using and acquiring language as they read,
write, and research, listen, speak, and talk within specific literacy events.
7. For 309, learning how to use ethnography in conjunction with course
readings to locate students multiple literacies, cultures, languages, and
identities and to theorize how teachers could build on student languages,
cultures, and identities to teach grammar and writing.
Inquiries
8. For 308, learning about the design of argumentative texts, learning about
argumentative writing, what it does for us and for adolescents.
9. Reflecting on our different kinds of writing processes when pursuing
argumentative writing.
10. Creating unit plans for argumentative writing.
11. Learning the basics of grammar, how the forms of words, phrases, and
clauses function for the specific purposes and identities of writers.
12. Learning the basics of morphology and the structures of words as they
relate to the kinds of meanings words have in specific contexts.

V. Course Inquiries
INQUIRIES INTO LITERACY AS A CRITICAL SOCIAL PRACTICE
INQUIRY #
DESCRIPTION
DUE DATE
Inquiry
I

Literacy Autobiography Due

Due
Sept. 16, Sept.
30, Sept. 24

For Inquiry I, using course readings on literacy and critical literacy, you will explore your own
experiences with literacy frameworks, with literacy practices in and out of school when you were
an adolescent. You will reflect on your assumptions about literacy as an adolescent based on how
you came to conceptualize what writing was and could do for you in and out of school. You will
then reflect on how these assumptions are changing with your emerging understandings of
literacy policies and practices you are now researching in your current field setting, in course
readings, and having unpacked your own literacy encounters as an adolescent. You will end with
theories you are now forming about productive literacy, language acquisition, and writing
frameworks and questions these frameworks raise for you.

Inquiry
II

Adolescent Interview: Student

Response to Writing

Due Wed, Nov.

18, 2015

Inquiry II is an opportunity to study the writing, preferably argumentative of one or more

adolescents in your site and to learn from that adolescent what he/she understood and gained
from that assignment and learned about argumentative writing and what he/she might have
changed about the assignment, the stages of the writing processes, the specific instructional
strategies. It is a chance to help an adolescent reflect on where he/she is as a writer and what

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goals he/she has for improving as a writer, in particular an argumentative writer. It is a chance to
learn from the adolescent what kind of grammar instruction and writing instruction he/she finds
most beneficial. It is a chance to learn what kinds of feedback on his/her writing the adolescent
prefers and why. It is a chance to learn the range of literacy frameworks the adolescent has
encountered in school and how they have been positioned by these frameworks.
Once you have completed this interview, you will then reflect on the literacy frameworks that
informed the design of the writing assignment and how the adolescent was positioned as a writer
and a language learner in response. You will reflect on the connections between the writing
assignment and the assumptions about learning to write that the adolescent is forming. You will
reflect on what kinds of changes you would make to the writing assignment to support
adolescents through various stages of writing and grammar instruction/editing/feedback to
support adolescents as writers. You will reflect on what kinds of literacy frameworks and language
acquisition frameworks will inform your design of your own argumentative writing assignment.
You will then compare the adolescents literacy experiences and assumptions about literacy with
your own assumptions about literacy as an adolescent. Finally, you will expand upon your
emerging theories for what kinds of literacy, language acquisition, and writing frameworks foster
productive inquiry and learning.

Inquiry
III

Argumentative Writing

Due Date
Wed., Nov.
18, 2015

Inquiry III is an opportunity ethnographically to read a conversation about a social issue. Your
job will be to collect multiple articles that capture a range of arguments and perspectives on that
social issue. We will spend time learning how to deconstruct the language choices of each writer,
their claims, evidence, and warrants. In order to better understand the specific written designs of
each writers argument, we will also spend time deconstructing their grammatical and rhetorical
choices. As you read, you will inquire into their intended audiences and purposes.
Once you have deconstructed the language choices of each writer, you will compare and contrast
the sources, warrants, and claims they are making. You will examine which perspectives have
been included and the language that accompanies those perspectives, which perspectives are
missing, and the needed language if progress is to be made in determining socially just solutions
for the issue at hand.
You will then determine the genre and desired audience you would like to target. Using prezis or
power points or iMovie, you will outline a sophisticated argumentative piece that carefully
explains the way different stakeholders frame their perspectives with their grammar and rhetoric.
You will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each argument, where and how writers
strengthen or debunk one anothers claims, which perspectives are particularly helpful in
understanding the real issue, and what kinds of arguments writers are not making that are needed
in order to make progress in determining socially just solutions.
You will then explore different ways of organizing your introductions, body paragraphs, and
conclusions to most effectively articulate your understandings of the strengths, weaknesses, and
needed conversations if progress towards socially just decision making is to be made.

Inquiry
IV

Argumentative Unit Plan

Final, due
Dec. 7, 2015

Inquiry IV is a unit plan on argumentative writing that you will design based on course readings
about middle and high school English teachers and their design and assessment of argumentative
writing. The texts you have chosen for your argumentative piece will serve as your model texts,

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and you will design essential questions, reading strategies, supportive materials, cumulative
reading activities, writing assignments, and a variety of assessments to support students in
deepening their abilities to apply grammar and language learning to their own writing and to the
writing of their peers. Please come to class with a 3-ring binder, divided into sections, labeled as
the following:

1. Argumentative!Unit!plan!
a. *Writing!assignment!for!argumentative!writing,!Wed,%Dec.%2,%2015!
b. *Interview!+!Responding!to!student!writing,!Wed.,%Nov.%18,%2015!
c. *Grammatical!analysis!of!articles,!due!Mon,%Oct.%12,%2015!
d. Vocabulary!concept!maps!for!articles!
e. Teaching!ideas!for!helping!students!deconstruct!word!form,!function,!
meaning!
f. *Cumulative!Research!Activity!+!rubric,!Due!Wed.%Oct.%14,%2015!
g. *Power!Point!Presentation!of!argument,!due!Mon,%Oct.%21,%2015!
h. *Rubric!for!writing!assignment,!due!Mon,%Nov.%18,%2015!
i. Peer!editingNinclude!exercises!for!every!editing!category!
j. Sequence!for!grammar!instruction!
k. *Grammar!lesson!plans,!due!Wed,%Dec.%2,%2015!
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Inquiry
V

Case Study and Final Portfolio

Due Wed,
Dec. 9 + 14

Inquiry V is a compilation of each of the required components of your case study of your school
and observation classroom, including each of your field notes, reflections on each of your
observations, the lesson you taught and a reflection on that lesson, a detailed analysis of the
school, school district and their policies, language and literacy frameworks, analysis of the kinds
of literacy frameworks you observed in one classroom, the range of literacy events and practices
students encountered, the kinds of language they acquired and constructed, the kinds of identities
as readers, writers, researchers they constructed, and the kinds of relationships they formed in
this classroom with texts, with each other, with their teacher, and with the world. Included will
also be your reflections on how students experienced writing, the writing process, grammar and
language learning, and assessments. This is an opportunity to provide final reflections on your
own literacy, language, language acquisition, writing, and grammar, assessment frameworks for
your own practice.

Breakdown of Assignments
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Inquiry 1: Literacy/Writing Autobiography Part I.

Interview: with one or more adolescents from your site.
Inquiry 2: Student interview + Response to student writing assignment
Inquiry 3: Argumentative writing assignment.
Inquiry 4: Unit Plan argumentative writing + lesson plans.
Field Notes and Reflections: ethnographic field notes applying the
sociocultural lenses for language, identity, and literacy you have
constructed to your analysis of student identity development and learning.
For each observation, you are required to write an extensive reflection
focused on student language learning and identity construction.
7. Grammar and Writing Lesson Plan and Reflection: designed
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following lesson plan template provided in class. Taught to one of your

classes in your fieldwork site. Reflection on student learning opportunities
and changes you would make included immediately following teaching.
8. Reading Notes: To be kept in a reading journal and brought to class.
These notes are in response to weekly assigned focus questions and other
requests listed on week by week.
9. Final Portfolio/Case Study:
Presentation of your findings about the ways your school and
classroom teacher implement national, state, and local policies.
Presentation of your findings about the range of identities available
to students in one classroom in your site and closer analysis of the
specific identities and relationships to texts, peers, teacher, and the
world of three students who represent that broader range.
Close analysis of what literacy events and practices they are
encountering, what language they are using and acquiring and what
knowledge of language and of the world and what identities they are
forming.
Close analysis of their actual literacies and of the identity options
available to them as learners and those that are not available.
Final inquiry into what you have learned about language, language
acquisition, literacy and the teaching of writing, vocabulary,
phonology, and grammar and what questions remain and how your
unit plan demonstrates your literacy and language learning goals.
Assessment/Grades
Class Participation

Grammar Exercises,
Analysis and Quizzes

AED 308
Coming to class with
reading notes in hand
and sharing valuable
insights from your
notes with classmates.
Posting notes when
asked to do so and
engaging with peers
on-line when asked to
do so. (15%)
Coming to class with
grammar exercises,
with grammatical
concepts highlighted
on articles, being able
to successfully identify
and analyze
grammatical concepts
on quizzes. (10%)

AED 309
Coming to class with field
notes/case
studies/interviews/policy
documents in hand. Being
ready to share and analyze
field notes and other
documents with peers.
Using course readings and
frameworks to analyze
fieldnotes. (20%)

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Literacy
Autobiography

Argumentative
Writing Portfolio

Capacity to follow and

engage deeply with
guidelines provided for
each inquiry. An
inquiry stance of
exploring ideas.
Consistent use of
course readings to
dialogue with course
authors, to question
and interrogate their
theories and practices,
to form and re-form
your frameworks for
teaching, to engage
with different
perspectives, to
identify and raise
helpful questions, to
apply close analysis of
style, genre, language,
and grammar where
necessary. (20%)
Sophisticated analysis
of a social issue, the
claims, evidence,
warrants, and
discourses writers are
constructing to make
sense of that issue.
Sophisticated analysis
of the strengths,
weaknesses of writers
claims, of the evidence
and warrants
underlying the claims,
of the discourses at
play and whom they
privilege, and of the
missing perspectives.
Sophisticated
comparison/contrast
of writers arguments
for those that have the
most validity. Writing
demonstrates
organization,
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Unit Plan

coherence, controlled
rhythm, sentence
variety, assigned
emphasis, parallel
structure, strong, tight,
well syntactically
organized sentences.
Punctuation
incorporated correctly
and appropriately for
your intended
purposes and
audience.
Self-assessment of
your growth as a writer
of content and craft.
Charts, descriptions,
and assessments of
your writing processes
including revisions
(RADAR) and specific
categories for editing
incorporated with
charts and examples.
(25%)
Evidence of use of the
frameworks for course
concepts as the
foundation for your
unit and lesson
planning. Evidence of
carefully scaffolded
teaching, of detailed
and specific
understanding and
explanation of
grammatical and
language concepts, of
meaningful reading
and writing
assignments,
supported by logical
stages for teaching
argumentative writing
and revision using a
range of assessments
and providing a range
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of methods of
feedback. (30%)
Field note journal
including lesson plan
taught and reflection
on that lesson plan

Case Study and Final

Portfolio

In depth field notes

drawn from clearly
identified sociocultural
frameworks/guidelines
for looking at school,
teacher, and student
literacy and language
frameworks and practices.
A consistent focus on
student language
learning/acquisition as
it connects with patterns of
literacy events and
practices. A consistent
focus on the identities
as readers, writers,
researchers, and
language learners of
students within literacy
events and practices. A
consistent focus on
students uses of
language to analyze
and interpret texts,
themselves, others, the
world. A consistent
focus on student
language acquisition as
they write. Reflections
throughout field notes and
one larger reflection after
each day of observing,
applying course readings
and sociocultural
frameworks to
observations and
summarizing student
literacy practices, language
learning, and identity
construction. (50%)
A compilation of each of the required components of
the case study, including each of your field notes,
reflections on each of your observations, a detailed
analysis of the school, school district and their
policies, language and literacy frameworks, analysis
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of the kinds of literacy frameworks you observed in

one classroom, the range of literacy events and
practices students encountered, the kinds of
language they acquired and constructed, the kinds of
identities as readers, writers, researchers they
constructed, and the kinds of relationships they
formed in this classroom with texts, with each other,
with their teacher, and with the world. Reflections
on how students experienced writing, the writing
process and assessments. Final reflections on your
own literacy, language, language acquisition,
writing, and grammar, assessment frameworks for
your own practice. Continued dialogue,
interrogation of assumptions, reflection, and
ongoing questions with yourself and course authors
across course inquiries. (30% to 309)

Cell phones and Computers

As a courtesy to our class community, please turn off and put away all cell phones
before class starts. Because there are multiple opportunities for online
engagement within the structure of this course, I welcome your laptop
computers; however, use of computers is restricted to class work only.

Attendance & Policies for Late Work

Attendance is expected at all class meetings. Please let me know IN ADVANCE
if you need to be absent for any class sessions for reasons of illness or family
emergency or if there is a mandatory school event that requires your presence. If
you are ill, I will need a doctors note. Unless you are having an extreme
emergency, I need this information ahead of time in order for you not to be
penalized.
These two courses have been designed to provide you support on each major
writing assignment. Because everything is carefully scaffolded so that you turn in
parts of an assignment over time and/or you have opportunities to revise, late
work is not acceptable. If at any time, you are struggling to keep up with the
work, please talk to me individually or as a class immediately, and we will work
out a plan. Otherwise, for every day that an assignment (all assignmentsdrafts
and final drafts) is late, you will lose a quarter of a letter grade.

Required Course Texts

1. Christensen, L. (2000). Reading, Writing, and rising up: Teaching about
social justice and the power of the written word. Wisconsin: Rethinking
Schools, Ltd.
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2. Christensen, L. (2009). Teaching for joy and justice: Re-imagining the

language arts classroom. Wisconsin: Rethinking Schools, Ltd.
3. Freeman, D. & Freeman, Y. (2011). Between worlds: Access to second
language acquisition, third edition. Heinemann: NH.
4. Glaser, Joe. Understanding Style: Practical Ways to Improve Your Writing.
5. Hogan, G. B. (2013). Building better grammar. Wadsworth, Cengage
Learning: Boston, MA.
6. Rymes, B. (2009). Classroom discourse analysis. New Jersey: Hampton
Press, Inc.

Other Important Information

A Note about Professional Dispositions: Our program takes the
professional dispositions teacher candidates acquire and routinely display very
seriously. At the end of this syllabus is a useful document, the Professional
Dispositions Policy, to guide your work in the AEN program. Please read. If you
have questions about anything in this policy statement, please raise them with
your instructors.
Taskstream: This is an NCATE accredited program. In order to provide you
with a continuing accredited program that schools will recognize, we need you to
enroll in Taskstream. If you are not already enrolled in Taskstream you will
enroll for the first time. Those of you already enrolled will re-enroll in the 2013
portfolio.
At the end of the semester, you will need to upload to Taskstream, several
examples of assignments that fulfill each program standard. I will provide
instructions for how to do this before then. It is important that you do this at the
end of the semester, and you will not receive a grade for this course until this has
been completed. See attached for NCATE/NCTE and SUNY standards this
course this course meets.
Office of Student Disability Services: Any student requesting academic
accommodations based on a disability is required to register with the Office of
Student Disability Services (OSDS). A letter of verification for approved
accommodations can be obtained from the OSDS. Please be sure that the letter is
delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. OSDS is located in Van
Hoesen Hall, Room B-1 and is open 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., M-F. Their phone
number is (607) 753-2066.
Student Writing Support: At any time, please know that SUNY offers an
Academic Support and Achievement Program. You can find out more

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information about this peer tutor on-line or in person support at

http://www2.cortland.edu/offices/asap/.
Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty:
The College is an academic community whose mission is to promote scholarship
through the acquisition, preservation and transmission of knowledge.
Fundamental to this goal is the institution's dedication to academic integrity.
This academic community takes seriously its responsibilities regarding academic
honesty. In this setting all members of the institution have an obligation to
uphold high intellectual and ethical standards. Plagiarism, a form of academic
dishonesty, involves incorporating the words or thoughts of another into ones
original writing without proper documentation. Common examples include
submitting a paper by another student; failing to document properly
paraphrased, summarized or directly quoted material: or subtly altering the
diction and content of a source author without documentation. The minimal
consequences for plagiarism will be a 0 grade for the assignment and most
likely for the course. Students should consult the College Handbook (see Chapter
340 beginning on page 50) for full details of SUNY Cortlands policy on academic
dishonesty.

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English Department Adolescence English Education

Programs
Professional Dispositions Policy
(1) Students in the AEN program will be introduced to and held accountable
for the Dispositions in all courses with an AED prefix.
(2) Syllabi for AED courses should have a dispositions statement which exists
as a contract for that class. Statement to follow the Academic Integrity
statement:
Professional Dispositions Statement
One goal of this course is to provide opportunities for
continuous positive growth toward strong teaching skills and
dispositions as reflected in the Assessment of Candidates
Professional Dispositions. Positive teaching dispositions are a
basic requirement for all successful completion of the AEN
program. In the event of problematic demonstration of
teaching disposition, incidents will be documented and the
departmental and Teacher Education Council Fair Practice
Policy and Procedures for action will be followed.
(3) Concerned faculty member(s) must meet with student, record the first
annotation on Candidate Consultation Report form and gain signature during
the meeting. In the event that a student refuses to sign the form, faculty
should note that fact on the form before the form is forwarded to the Program
Coordinator.
(4) The Program Coordinator will periodically review students files to note
multiple cases reported for one student and/or non-resolution of requested
correction. Near the end of the semester, the faculty member(s) should
provide a second annotation on the Candidate Consultation Report indicating
whether the problem has been resolved or whether there has been failure to
resolve the problem.
(5) Three weeks before the end of the semester, the AEN faculty will review
the status of all students with actions. As indicated, the committee will
determine whether to advance the student (with a contract) or to follow
procedure for dismissal from the program.
(6) Egregious breach of deportment/dispositions may result in dismissal
from the program at any time, as determined by AEN faculty and/or Program
Coordinator.
(8) Student teacher supervisors will be notified of contracts concerning
students placed for student teaching in order to address and support
dispositional aspects of professional performance. When necessary,
supervisors will be asked to participate in final review of particular students.
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AEN Program Assessment of Candidates Professional

Dispositions
At SUNY Cortland teacher education is framed by a central commitment to liberal
learning that comprises the themes of personal responsibility, social justice and global
understanding. Teacher candidates are expected to develop and demonstrate the
dispositions identified in professional,
state, and institutional standards.
Note: the default assessment is S = Satisfactory. Only those dispositions found to be lacking will
be noted with a U = Unsatisfactory.
Rating
Date
Faculty
Teaching Dispositions
Initial

Demonstrates content knowledge (masterful, innovative)

Is competent in arts/sciences (literate, articulate, well-read)
Sees children are capable learners (encouraging, supportive)
Maintains high standards (challenging, investigative,
curious)
Is fair (responsible, socially just)
Creates safe and nurturing classroom (supportive, aware)
Uses technology effectively (creative, innovative)
Meets varied learning styles (flexible, inclusive)
Respects diversity (accepting, inclusive, equitable)
Is reflective (thoughtful, resourceful, self-aware)
Uses assessment effectively (thorough, objective)
Communicates effectively (articulate, persuasive, respectful)
Integrates curriculum
Professional Dispositions
Conveys appropriate attitude to learning (participates, is
enthusiastic, analytical)
Is punctual
Demonstrates commitment (dedicated, persevering,
tenacious)
Collaborates (sensitive, open minded, gracious)
Is respectful (shows due regard, is polite, considerate)
Is receptive to feedback (proactive)
Is focused and organized
Pays attention to appearance (clean, groomed, appropriate)
Is honest (moral, ethical, honorable)
Demonstrates integrity (trustworthy, resolute, selfadvocating)
Is caring (empathetic, supportive)
Demonstrates strong work ethic (accepts challenges)
Is responsible (reliable, deliberative)
Is accountable (takes ownership, dependable)

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