CUNY Class Information: 

Prof. Elyse Zucker

Hostos Community College/CUNY

Composition and Literature

English 111-314A/August-December/ 11 AM-1:45 PM (this is a stacked session, so each class is the equivalent of two classes)

Length of COIL Collaboration: 5 weeks

International Class Information:

Two professors shared this class with me

College in the Philippines

Psychology of the Self

Fall semester, 2023

Length of COIL Collaboration: 5 weeks

Mode of instruction:

in person/face to face

Project Description:

Students in this COIL exchange read two works of fiction and a poem --one story written by a canonical American author, another by a canonical Filipino author and a poem by a canonical American poet –all with settings situated in their respective cultures. Additionally, students read excerpts from contextual articles about the prose selections to facilitate an understanding of the respective writers, their cultures and how those cultures shaped the particular works of fiction considered. In some ways all three selections convey universal themes. In other ways, they are indigenous to their respective cultures, customs, and countries, opening new vistas for students in both classes to contemplate.

This project was accomplished so as to meet each course’s objectives and to help students gain insight into and information about the cultures, customs, traditions, values, psychology and history of the other class’s country --as well as (more) about their own. Throughout the exchange, students from both colleges met in their assigned groups to discuss the works of literature and the poem (and consider the supplemental material), and what the literary works indicate about their respective countries and cultures. Students shared one exact essay assignment and one overlapping essay assignment (based on the same selections but different prompts) yet both variations measure comprehension and other indicators of knowledge and skills, such as inference-making and identifying main ideas. After writing the reflective piece about the COIL experience and how it impacted learning and world view, students shared their reflective pieces with one another during the culminating event.

Student Learning Outcomes:

The COIL students collaborated on their various platforms to achieve broad-based interdisciplinary education. They employed the IMMERSEU platform in the Philippines, Zoom, WhatsApp, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, and email venues of communication.

The students learned competencies, such as reading and listening critically and analytically, identifying an argument's major assumptions and assertions and evaluating its supporting evidence; they learned to write more clearly and coherently in varied, academic formats using standard English and appropriate technology so as to critique and improve their own and others' texts; they demonstrated doing some research using appropriate technology, supporting a thesis with well-reasoned arguments, and communicating persuasively across a variety of contexts, purposes, audiences, and media. They formulated original ideas and related them to the ideas of others by employing the conventions of ethical attribution and citation.

They additionally learned global citizenship and life competencies in a multicultural planetary civilization. Furthermore, they functioned effectively as a member of the local and global community by utilizing prior knowledge and the knowledge gained through study as demonstrated by writings, actions, and oral communications. The COIL exchange also facilitated students would further appreciate, understand, accept and respect human differences in ethnic and cultural perspectives, as well as with regards to race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability.

Working together also enabled students further develop empathy and understanding for different viewpoints, cultures, and backgrounds, and learn to reflect on the social, cultural, and historical context in which a text was written. These actions generate introspection on their own lives, values, and emotions, which leads to personal growth, self-discovery, and a deeper understanding of oneself, as well as the power of storytelling via immersion in captivating narratives, engaging characters, and imaginative worlds.

Participation Policy:

Students in COIL are expected to prepare for, attend and participate in all classes, and attend all meetings each group allocates for itself, as well as communicate, as agreed upon, by the members of each group via the various platforms enabling this objective. Should a student necessarily need to miss a COIL class, they are required to reach out to classmates about and do the missed assignment.

Assessment and Grading:

The essay assigned students on the shared selections was worth 15% of their final grade.

The reflective piece was assigned 10% of students’ final grade, plus an additional 5 points were awarded to those students who volunteered to read their reflective essays during the culminating event.

The class participation grade is accumulative for the semester -worth 20% of the entire grade—and approximately 30% of students’ participation in the COIL exchange gets factored into the entire participation grade, which accounts for 20% of the final grade.

Online Platforms:

In addition to IMMERSEU, as the platform required of the Filipino professors, students used WhatsApp, Zoom, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, and email.

Technology used for shared space: computers and cell phones

Technology used by students in bi-national teams: computers and cell phones

Zoom and IMMERSEU were the technological tools used and video/audio were projected on a Smart room screen.

Pre-exchange activities:

Students took a brief survey which gathered information about each student’s experience level with an educational international exchange such as COIL, their knowledge of Philippine culture, and their expectations of the experience.

Introduction

I informed students at the semester’s commencement that for our second unit, “Narrative, Point of View, and COIL Exchange.” they would be studying in collaboration with another class in a Filipino college and explained the benefits of such an experience. I also showed the class pictures of the other college as well as of the two Filipino professors of our exchange, alongside a picture of myself. To introduce my class to the other class, I turned over my class list to the other professors, and they divided the class into groups consisting of students from both colleges. Collaboratively, I and the counterpart professors let students know what particular group each was placed in and how to access their group peers on the IMMERSEU platform. Instructions for IMMERSEU were provided by the Filipino professors. Next the students met their groupmates on the IMMERSEU platform. After that event, in conjunction with COIL lessons, the groups started their collaborative work.

Week by week schedule

Oct 15th: Collaborative Online International Learning Plan introduced below: 

October 15, 2023 - Nov 26th, 2023

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Exchange activities:

Icebreaker: Write, for 6-7 minutes in Discussion board, your response to the following:

Have you or a relative of yours (older than you is best-- parent/grandparent/great-grandparent) ever encountered obstacles beset you (or them) because of the race, class or environment that you (or they) were born into?

Post-ice-breaker discussion: what, if anything, could you or the relative who encountered the obstacles do to better the situation? What did you learn about yourself or relatives from the experience? How does this ice-breaker relate to our reading selections?    

Comparative analysis;

Dodong in Villa’s “Footnote to Youth,” Phoenix Jackson in Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” and the speaker in Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” are all in search of their identities, and encounter or have relatives that encountered cultural obstacles due to their being situated in a particular race and/or class in their respective countries. We know from our contextual readings that colonialism plays a part in all of their situations, but not discussed directly in the selections, we can only work with what the authors provide us. Thus, students will write in response to and discuss the following prompt to arrive at comparative analyses:

Comparative Analysis Prompt:

Dodong in Jose Garcia Villa’s “Footprint to Youth,” Pheonix Jackson in Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” and the speaker of Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, all of whom carry their ancestry, are in search of their identities and freedom and seek to reinvent themselves.

In what ways do these characters’ and the poem speaker’s journeys to reinvent themselves intersect and in what ways do they diverge?

Collaborative work final project

All binational teams write reflective pieces* considering their varied responses to the selections, which shed light on the different customs, cultures and their values.

*See reflective piece guidelines below the post-exchange activity

Post-exchange activities:

How were you impacted by the COIL exchange? Write and share your responses.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR REFLECTIVE ESSAY, WORTH 10% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE

Keep track here of your reflective notes in s Word document, from which you will glean points to include in your reflective piece. Below are some suggested questions you can address in your piece.

The Reflective Piece should be 2-3 pages long, and as with all our essays, be double-spaced, have one-inch margins all around, have an MLA style header and title centered but not bolded. No extra spaces between the title and body of the essay. Double spaced from beginning to end! Follow the model for an MLA header and paper format: MLA Sample Paper - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University

Your Reflective Piece should have a topic sentence that acts as an umbrella “covering” all points made and be general but not more general than you need.

Here is a model topic sentence:

Working with students from the Philippines proved to be an enriching and eye-opening experience.

You will show what was enriching and how or why, and what was eye-opening and how so and/or why, if this were to be your topic sentence.

The above is just a model topic sentence. You create your own! Look for the common denominator of all your experiences and observations to arrive at the adjectives you will include to describe your overall experience in COIL, and include those adjectives in your topic sentence. Then make sure your writing goes back to them as you need a controlling idea, even in a reflective essay!

The version to be shared with the COIL students is due Sunday, Nov. 12th.

EVALUATING YOUR GRADE FOR THE REFLECTIVE PIECE:  

Reflective essay grades will be assessed by how clearly and fully and thoughtfully you convey the information about your experience as a COIL student, as well as how well you discuss the selections by Villa, Welty and Hughes, along with your reflections of the collaboration. Your discussion should include references to the content of the selections as well as how the Filipino students responded to the stories (and how you responded to the Filipino students)!

Some guidelines for your Reflective Essay (of course you will not respond to all. Pick and choose what works for you to include in your essay)

Guidelines for Writing a Reflective Essay with primary research: pick and choose from the list below:

• What did you learn from working with the class in the other college?
• How are the students from there the same or different than you as part of the American culture?
• How is the other college’ students’ way of interpreting the stories aligned to or different than how you perceive the stories?
• Do you like interchanging with the Filipino students? What about it do you like? What were they like to work with?
• What surprised you?
• How did you feel collaborating with them?
• How is their thinking about genders different than or the same as yours in the USA?
• Did you enjoy meeting your counterpart peers?
• Did discussing the stories with the students help shed new light on the stories’ meanings?
• Did you enjoy discussing the stories with your Filipino peers?
• Did the studies get enhanced talking to Filipino peers?
• What are you getting from this experience?
• Write about the students’ netiquette. Were they respectful? Responsive? Receptive to you?
• Talk about what you learned from them
• Ask them how they felt working with you, What did they learn about NY students and what if anything interested them about it?
• How does the environment of the other College differ from the Hostos environment?

Success and Challenges

The students who participated most fully and were able to meet with their counterpart peers were very enriched and expanded by the COIL exchange, having learned a great deal about a culture not their own, which also gave them some objectivity when viewing their own environment and culture. The students were impressed with the good writing, sophisticated thinking and respectfulness displayed by their peers in the Philippines. They very much enjoyed meeting and spending time discussing selections and life with their counterparts. Not all students, however, were able to maneuver the IMMERSEU platform, which the Filipino faculty required we use. There was some communication breakdown when the counterpart college believed all their students were reachable via that venue, yet some of my students insisted that was not so. As a result, some groups never came to fruition so those students missed out on much of the COIL experience.

The COIL exchange was a very exciting, enlarging and enriching approach to pedagogy. I am grateful to the other college faculty for providing a structure for proceeding, as this was my first time teaching a COIL class. They came up with some thought-provoking questions to guide students through thinking about the literature, and they organized the opening and culminating COIL events, which was helpful to me. We could have, however, worked more in collaboration on creating the groups, which might have helped solve the problem of some students not connecting sufficiently with their assigned groupmates.