20 March 2007

Welcome Colleagues!

Ruissaari (Rye Island), a family island in Finland
Ode to My Sabbatical!

Sabbatical Materials

This blog was created for one specific purpose: to share some of my Spring 2007 sabbatical projects with my colleagues. My sabbatical plan requires me to do this, but also, I hope that some of the materials will be useful as prompts, as resources, or simply as comparisons to what you're doing. By design, most of the assignments are very simple and require little preparation. Feel free to use them in your teaching and adapt them as needed, giving me appropriate acknowledgment (please, read my complete copyright statement below). Most of the materials have been created for College Composition II, which is a second-semester research writing course at Lake Superior College. I have also created a few assignments for College Composition I, a first-semester expository essay writing course, as well as some general introductory-level literature exercises. If you would like to see my other more specific Modern World Literature assignments, please let me know!


One of the goals of my sabbatical project was to select new resources and design new assignments that would require students to think, discuss, and write more creatively, analytically, and systematically about issues in a global context. We know that experts in multicultural education frequently emphasize the importance of using current literature to increase cultural awareness. I anticipate that a more diverse, "globalized" curricula would help expand our students' cultural literacy and help them assume their roles as global citizens in an increasingly global community. Personally, this is just a beginning of what I hope to be a continuous, concentrated effort to globalize my curricula and help my students gain global competence.

Since most of the assignments are completely new, not tested in a classroom yet, I anticipate that they will require some modification. As is the nature of all learning experiences, these are no doubt works in progress - as is the entire blog. I welcome your feedback and suggestions for improvement!


Copyright Statement: The assignments created for this blog exist for the benefit of educators - please use them in your teaching and adapt them for your classroom as needed, giving the author appropriate acknowledgment. Requests for permission to use the lessons outside accepted educational fair use guidelines must be made to the author in writing.

Note: In the right-hand column, I have provided links to online resources that have proven quite useful to my curriculum development.


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