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Cathy, Here is a brief description of the Engineering Communication course I've been teaching since Fall'97. I used models of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave and Wenger) and Guided Participation (Rogoff) and North American genre theory (of course!) to design the course. It's a compulsory course for all first- and second year engineering students. We have three-hour workshops once a week for each group. Initially, we had a one-hour lecture and two-hour workshops, but the new course layout works much better: it allows us to combine lectures with discussion and writing. The students are asked to choose one of the Engineering courses they are taking concurrently with the Communication course and to follow it in all Communication assignments. They are asked to post journals to the electronic course newsgroup discussing their chosen engineering courses (discussing assignments, asking questions, solving problems, etc.) and responding to other students' postings. It's a kind of electronic log book and at the same time it's dialogic. Other assignments in this course include a formal letter to instructor written in response to the instructor's letter of request (in this letter students inform the instructor of the details of the engineering course they choose as the focus of their work in the Communication course); a proposal for the topic for the major Communication course project written in response to instructor's RFP; an abstract of an article directly related to the topic of their major project; a progress report (includes both a written report and an oral presentation), and the major written report (both oral and written). In fact, there is only one large assignment in the Communication course: the major project on the topic related to the chosen engineering course. All smaller assignments reflect different stages in the process of completing the project. The instructor discusses topics for the project individually with each student and provides extensive feedback on all their submissions. Students are asked to exchange drafts, make comments on them, and revise their drafts using peer comments. They can use the course newsgroup to receive feedback from their classmates. I strongly believe that the pedagogy of this course can be translated to other Writing/Communication courses, not necessarily technical. I'd like to think of the design of this course as one example of "good "Canadian" practices". Natasha c schryer wrote: > I like your idea Roger that we have the most radical sets of practices on > both sides of the equation. In my own intro writing course, because of the > historical and political circumstances here, I have to lecture for an hour > a week to 200 students ( a practice which I compare to lecturing about > swimming) but at the same time we have active workshops (2 hours a week) > with inkshedding, discussion groups, peer editing, drafts, an interactive > web site that supports the course etc, etc. But this is a precarious > balance and one which the administration wants to challenge ( in its quest > for greater numbers). One of the easiest ways to challenge this balance is > by calling the "newer" elements ie, the workshop approach--foreign, > non-Canadian. > > I think what I am looking for is some descriptive accounts of what people > think are good "Canadian" practices. > > For example, I am willing to go out a limb and say that because of the > history of the "whole" language approach and even the Lit.Com approach here > in Canada that we have a history of retaining the interaction of reading and > writing in our courses. > > I would appreciate hearing about any other Canadian "limbs" that people are > willing to offer. > > Catherine F. Schryer > Dept. of English > University of Waterloo > Waterloo, Ontario, Canada > N2L 3G1 > (519) 885-1211 (ext 3318) -- _____________________________________________________________ Natasha Artemeva School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Carleton University Tel. (613)520-2600 ext. 7452 Fax: (613)520-6641 E-mail: [log in to unmask]