CEI News, January 2002

Newsletter of the NC Conference of English Instructors
Rick Lewis, Sandhills CC - Editor
E-mail: lewisr@sandhills.edu

Turning New Pages
Vol. 21, No. 9
January 2002

CEI Board Meeting
The Executive Board of the North Carolina Conference of English Instructors will meet at noon, Monday, January 21, at the W. B. Joyce & Co. restaurant near Central Carolina Community College.
     Agenda items include discussion of the possible scholarship and the Distinguished Service Award, planning for the spring regional meetings, discussion of the evaluations from the 2001 Fall Conference at Wrightsville Beach, and planning for our fall conference concomitant with the Instructors' Conference slated for October 13, 14, 15, 2002.
CEI Officers and Reps
President
Liz Meador
Vice-President
Barbara Rusher
Secretary/Treasurer
Tom LaBelle
Membership Chair
Crystal Brantley
Newsletter Editor
Dustin Greene
CEI Online
Rick Lewis

Eastern Regional Reps
Sharon Mills
Bill Gural
Cheryl Saba

Central Regional Reps
Anne Helms
Clem Welch
JoAnn Buck

Western Regional Reps
Freddy Bradburn
Tom Hearron
Brett Wallen

Blackboard Help
     Blackboard Instructor Help, CEI's new site for Blackboard teachers, is now ready for your use. Note: You can create a link to this site in the External Links section of your Blackboard course. This site and the student site below contain links to CEI's "Resources" page.
     Blackboard Student Help is CEI's new site for Blackboard students and is now ready for your students' use. Note: You can create a link to this site in the External Links section of your Blackboard course to improve your students' chances for success in their online course.

Authentic Learning Theory and Applications

Tami Sloane Thrasher, English instructor at Piedmont Community College, presented a demonstration of authentic learning, or problem-based learning, at the North Carolina Conference of English Instructors' Fall Conference 2001 at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, on October 29, 2001.
Thrasher provided learning theory and practical examples of collaborative activities for ENG 111, using real-world writing. She designs all her assignments to integrate higher-order abilities (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) and multiple assessment strategies. Click here to read the presentation.

Advertisement Analysis Project

A classroom application of authentic, problem-based learning was presented by Tami Sloane Thrasher, English instructor at Piedmont Community College at the North Carolina Conference of English Instructors' Fall Conference 2001 at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, on October 29, 2001. This presentation provides practical examples of collaborative activities for ENG 111 using real-world writing. Assignments are designed to integrate higher-order abilities (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) and multiple assessment strategies. Click here to read Thrasher's presentation.

Research for Effective Comparisons

To help your students gather data to write an effective comparison, go the to Web site of Cars.com. (This site also contains a link to PBS's "Car Talk" programs.) Here you can compare the features of different cars, including performance reviews.

Internet Movie Database Anyone?

Throw Your Students Out of the Classroom!

"Throw Your Students Out of the Classroom! A Real World Experience for ENG 114 Students" is now available for CEI members only from the CEI Archives. This teaching assignment was presented by Clemellyn H. Welch, lead English instructor at Central Carolina Community College at the CEI Fall Conference 2001. Click here to read the presentation.

Grammar and Punctuation Practice

Grammar and Punctuation Practice, a new online grammar and punctuation quiz series from Capital Community College, is an excellent resource for students to receive instruction and practice quizzes to develop effective grammar and sentence structure tools.
This site has been modified to make it easy to use for CEI instructors and students from the CEI site.

Sentence Sense

Sentence Sense is a new, interactive online textbook from Capital Community College. This is an excellent resource for students to receive instruction in writing essays and paragraphs. The site also includes practice quizzes to develop effective grammar and sentence structure tools in the context of an essay. This is a different site than the "Grammar and Punctuation Practice" listed above.

Distinguished Service Award

At the CEI 2001 Fall Conference, the membership approved the CEI Distinguished Service Award. Click here for more information.