[audio logo]

Speaker: OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Francisca Wentworth: All right. So welcome, everyone. And again, you're here for The Write Stuff, which is a writing course, and I am-- hold on. Let me share my-- hold on. Get my slide show going here. Hopefully things will wake up. All right. There we go. All right. So I am Francisca Wentworth. I'm one of the OTAN SME, subject matter expert, and I'm presenting on The Write Stuff ESL writing course.

And I'm going to let Anthony take it away here. Things are being stubborn here. OK. There we go. So I know you're going to just want to get a copy of this course. So Anthony is going to take it away here and explain to you what the process is for getting this from the Canvas Commons.

Anthony Burik: OK. Thank you, Francisca. So yes, in the last few weeks, we have been letting folks know about a new adult education dedicated space on Canvas Commons called the California Adult Education Canvas Commons. And this course that Francisco is going to introduce today, The Write Stuff, Francisco also presented last week on advanced ESL.

Some of you are familiar with our putting English to work courses. We also have some ESL civics courses as well that we've developed here at OTAN. So all of these courses are going to be available on this dedicated Canvas Commons space, so not in the general Canvas Commons, but this California Adult Education Canvas common space.

So the process to be able to access this course and other courses there is basically your agency needs to let us know that you're interested in joining this adult education Canvas Common space, and as Francisca has here on the slide at the very bottom in her third bullet, she has a link to a form that your agency will fill out. It's just asks for a little bit of information, again, it lets us know that you're interested in joining the Canvas Common space. And we'll put the link to that form in the chat in just a second here.

Francisco, do you want to go to the next slide?

Francisca Wentworth: My things are being a little stubborn here. OK.

Anthony Burik: OK. So depending on how you have Canvas set up at your agency is going to determine how easily we'll be able to help you get into this Canvas Common space and then have access to these courses. So some of your agencies are a part of something called the California-- sorry, called the Canvas-- well, actually, no, I think it's called the--

Francisca Wentworth: California.

Anthony Burik: It's called the California Distance Learning Cooperative, and we have a link to that also on the OTAN website. We'll share that link to that page in a second here. But some agencies are this-- part of the CDLC and so if you're a part of the CDLC, then it's going to be pretty easy to get your agency into this Canvas Common space. It's pretty automatic actually.

And then one of the things that Francisco is going to talk about today, that you heard about also last week in the advanced ESL course, is that some of the activities that are a part of the Canvas courses use some non-native Canvas applications, in this case, two different ones-- H5P and Learn 360.

So basically what we need to do is work with your Canvas admin to basically enable those or turn on those-- turn on those applications and then you'll be able to-- when you get your copy of the Canvas courses, you'll be able to use those-- activities all the activities in the Canvas course no problem. Let's go to the next slide, Francisco. The-- OK. So some of you may not have Canvas at your agency. You may be using the free for teacher Canvas course or free for teacher Canvas accounts.

So in that case, when Francisco talks about the activities that use H5P and Learn360, we won't be able to help you install those or have those activities kind of fully functional in your Canvas courses, because we're not able to make those available in the free for teacher accounts. So really, the best situation is that you have a Canvas-- you already have a Canvas instance set up at your agency--

--it could be through the CDLC, it could be through your school district, it could be through some other way that you've set up the instance back at your agency, and in that case, we can work with you to make sure that those activities will work fine in your Canvas courses. But again, if you have the free for teacher Canvas accounts, those activities are not going to be-- they're not going to work.

If you have questions about any of this, you can put your email or name in the chat, and we'll reach out to you. You can also reach out to us at OTAN and we can follow up with you with on those instructions. So just want to make it kind of clear from the beginning that it will take a little work to get access to the Canvas Common space, but once you have access to that space, you'll be able to get this course and other courses that are available there.

And also, you-- it's a space that's adult education dedicated so from your agency, if you have materials that you want to share with other adult educators, you'll be able to put them in that Canvas Common space as well. So I'm going to turn it back over to Francisco. If you have questions, go ahead and put them in the chat and I'll follow up with folks in the chat.

Francisca Wentworth: All right. Thanks, Anthony, for the clarification on all that. And so just-- muted accidentally. I was trying to move it. A little background about me. So I'm an OTAN SME, subject matter expert. We've had different names over the years. And I've worked in adult education since 1987. So I was in the first team at cohort in 2004, and then 2005, I became a coach.

So I was a coach and TIMAC and OTAC and then those two came together and became DLAC and then I was a coach for DLAC as well. I taught ESL at all levels from literacy to advanced for 32 years. And initially developed these two courses, the advanced ESL and The Write Stuff in Moodle and then with the move to Canvas, have transferred them over and redone them, updated, revised them with newer content and they are now both in Canvas.

And then I was a director of Jefferson Adult School in Daly City from 2016 to 220. But I continued to work with OTAN. We don't retire from OTAN. And then I'm having a little trouble with my slides moving forward. There we go. All right. So a little background on the course itself. So this is a shared course as Anthony mentioned on OTAN.

I designed it in 2012, and this was actually through-- I was funded through a grant from Silicon Valley Community Foundation-- excuse me. And then, as I said, I moved it to Canvas and redesigned it in this past year. So this course is geared towards high intermediate and advanced ESL students, although at my agency, some adult basic ed students also used it but it's mostly focused towards English language learners, which some of them were in the adult basic education department.

So it has been revised, as I said, with new content and new activities, and the goal is to prepare students to transition to college, career or the workforce, and also to prepare students to enter college at a higher level ESL for credit classes. And I don't know how it is in different places in California, but our local community college system, when students go in at a lower level, they're not credit-- for credit towards graduation.

And it can be used as a standalone online course, so as part of your distance learning program or as a hybrid blended learning course in addition to a face to face class. So what we're going to do today, we're just going to look through the way the course is structured and some of the type of learning activities, and then I'll take you online to the live course.

So there's a-- beginning of the course, there's a student intro module where they have a welcome module and some student support items.

Speaker: --audio.

Francisca Wentworth: There's a section on ask the teacher discussion. There's a section on-- just about the teacher, an intro section to do with basic computer skills, and then students can build their own dictionary, their own glossary. And then there's some instructions on how they do assignments and class resources. So that's the introduction module.

And then all the other modules follow the same structure, so they all have an introduction to that particular module and what topic will be covered in that module, then they'll have-- there's a glossary and then vocabulary practice quizzes that go along with the glossary, then a grammar section, which covers grammar and writing concepts, quizzes based on that grammar instruction and then writing activities-- some have videos based on some videos.

And then there's a discussion for students and then each module ends with a test, a unit test. And then the topics there are 10 modules in this course and these are the writing skills topics that are covered. So there's basic sentence structure, writing mechanics, capitalization, punctuation, word order, and then a module on coordinating conjunctions, a module on subordinating conjunctions.

And then unit module 5 is kind of the meat of a lot of this in terms of good writing, so there's a focus on transition words and phrases and module 5 is large, so it's divided up into two extra 5A and 5B all on that transition words topic. And then 6 is on paragraphs and the structure of a paragraph, 7 is graphic organizers, 8 is informal writing, 9 is formal writing and then 10 is essays and some academic writing.

So are there-- I'm going to stop us here. Are there any questions before I take you to the live site? I'm going to stop my share for a second here.

Anthony Burik: Francisco, I don't see any questions in the chat so far about what you presented so--

Francisca Wentworth: Good. All right. Good. Thank you. So let me take you-- hold on a second. Open this and share my screen again. OK. So hopefully everybody can see that. OK. So this is the home page. So it just takes you to The Write Stuff. It's not going to say master in your course. I'm showing you my course.

So the name of the course and there's a welcome message here just about writing, describing the course, a little bit and there's also a little PowerPoint narrated. So there's several of these types of PowerPoints in this course where I basically narrate a PowerPoint, and-- so it's a little video following that.

Then if you move down a little bit, there's a navigation tip so this just talks about the left side modules is where students will go. This is where everything that's in this course is found. And then there are also some links here to the class overview instructor information and learning content which also goes right to the modules. And a little bit of Canvas support for students here.

There are some quick links and these go to the modules. This is a page on class resources and a teacher contact page, which you will have to edit with your own information. And then-- so that's the home page, and then there's the syllabus. And similar, if you were in the advanced ESL, it has the similar introduction here for instructors only so when you publish your course, you will want to remove this part, and you just would go to edit and just get rid of it.

But I've left it here because there are some resources that you might want to look at for yourself that you could perhaps save somewhere else for your own information. And then here's a brief description of the course and the learning outcomes and a section on materials. You can edit this if you have a textbook you're using in your class that you want to supplement this course with. You could put it here.

This is part of the template, it says, book class page. You might want to have that there, if not, you can just delete it. And the supplemental materials, I just added to have a good headset with a microphone and a computer with a good internet connection. So best for students is to use a headset similar to what I'm wearing right now. We find that works the best.

And then a little bit about attendance. Again, this is something you can edit, but I just put in here because it's online. It's met by posting assignments and taking quizzes and exams by whatever due dates are set. And a little-- computer skills they should-- this is especially in discussions.

And then there's the announcement. My internet connection is unstable it's telling me. Don't do that to me. So this announcement page is just a placeholder, so you'll want to remove this, which you can just delete and then put your own announcement to students. OK. So now we're just going to go to the modules which is where we'll find everything.

It takes a minute for this to load. Just want to wait till it does its thing here. The very first section, it says, do not publish. This is just for the teachers. So for instructors only, it says, do not publish. And this is some background on the course. Here's what Anthony was also talking about, and I'll open this for a second because here's also-- and maybe we can to put this in the chat.

But again, this course actually doesn't have Learn360 in it, the advanced course did, but this is just a generic message for anybody using these courses. And if you have trouble with these functioning, you can contact AECanvas@scoe.net and there's a little thing that'll tell you what you'll need to provide them with for that.

And then they can make sure that all your external tools, which is what these are, will function correctly. And then there's just a licensing information on this course so that you can look at. So this won't be seen by students. This is just for the teachers. OK. So the students, their of course will start with this, Welcome to The Write Stuff.

There's the overview, which is actually the same little PowerPoint that was on the home page, and then a little video that they can watch about reasons to write. And here I mentioned about the teacher so this is similar to what's in the advanced course, if you were there. And this is something you would edit, put your own photo, a little background about yourself, contact information.

And you can edit this. If you don't have a website, then you could just delete that. If you don't have additional contact information, you could delete that as well, and make it work for you. All right. And then the class resources page, which is also linked from the front page. Hold on a second. Every time I change, it takes a minute to load.

So on this page, again, you can edit. Once before you publish, I would take this little-- the teacher note out, and I put some things here-- there's just a list of irregular verbs, a couple of online dictionaries. And then this is something that they'll need for this course, and it's also linked within the module, but this is a chart on the connectors, on different types of transition words. So this will be a useful tool for them.

And then if you want to add anything else, other helpful resources, you can add that here. Let me just go next here. Oh, already did that. Hold on. Back to the modules. And then there's a general course glossary, so again, this is just a list of all the words-- all the vocabulary words in this course. And it's just an alphabetical list.

So the reason for this is that each unit or each module has a glossary, but students might remember, oh, there was this word, and I don't remember which module it's in, then they can just look it up alphabetically here. And that just-- so this is not something they'd necessarily be studying from but it's a resource just in case they need to find a word that they'd forgotten about.

And then students can build their own dictionary. So this is-- I had this in the advanced course as well. So this is just where they can edit this page and then add new words for themselves. All right. So that's the end of the student introduction section on that part. And then there's just a general overview of resources.

So this Canvas-- this is a Canvas resource for students, if they have questions about just course navigation, things like that, it can help them with that. There's a section on here on tech skills, which is also in the syllabus as well as what their computer needs to have and then instructions on how to submit a writing assignment and how to post a recording.

There are no-- this is a writing course so there are no speaking assignments in this course, but they do have listening assignments, and they can post video in the discussions if they want to. So it just shows them what the buttons look like. So for a writing assignment, they have to select start assignment and after they write in the text box whatever their assignment is, then submit assignment.

And then how to post in a discussion, there's a little-- hold on-- so some instructions on how to do that here and then also a video that shows them how to do it. So they have a couple of ways to look at that. OK. So then after that section, there's just a general-- this is like a pre-unit, an introduction module, and this just gives them a little welcome to the course, some computer vocabulary that they might need, some computer skills practice.

This includes-- so many people now are on cell phones a lot and maybe haven't used a mouse for a while so if they need to practice using a mouse and some other computer skills, then they can do that here. And then there's a vocabulary quiz based on this computer vocabulary. And this is an H5P quiz, and this is actually the same one I put in the advanced because it's really the same topic.

So you can tell this is-- especially-- you can tell this is an external tool because of the way this is set up. If I look at this in student view, it's even more obvious because it'll say submitting an external tool. So this is how you know this is incorporated into Canvas, but it's a tool from the outside from another from H5P.

And so this is just a drag and drop so they can just do that. And then once they've filled them in, they would click submit and then they would find out which ones they got correct and which ones they didn't. And generally, a lot of these quizzes, in H5P, they can retry. So I'll leave it in student view for the moment.

OK. So now we start the module. So I just want to show you the basic structure of all the modules, and then I'll come back and show more individual activities. So it starts off with basic sentence structure. And again, there's the intro module with the audio that basically speaks and tells them what is written there so they get to listen and read and then the vocabulary.

So it starts off with just grammar terms. So these are terms, you know, what adjective, object, subject, noun, all these types of terms and then a crossword puzzle. So this is another-- several crossword puzzles in this course. This is another H5P external tool puzzle, so they would just type in the correct word here of whatever that is and so on. So that's just a-- I'm assuming that's the answer.

And then they can-- once they go to the bottom, they can just submit. They can show the answers if they want to. It's just practice, so it doesn't really matter if they know the answers. Hopefully, they'll do it first before they show the solution. OK. So that's the crossword puzzle. So then once you're in-- after you've done the vocabulary section, so this vocabulary and then whatever vocabulary list, glossary, and the quiz that goes with it, then there's the grammar section.

So this will explain-- and all of these will have a video explaining, so I'll show you this for a bit just so you can see what it looks like. So this is-- again, it's a narrated PowerPoint, so once they open it-- we're not going to listen to it, but I just want to show you what it looks like-- then pretty much I-- I pretty much talk about each of these slides that they'll see and then the same information is written in here too with examples. So it's talking about the different types of parts of sentences.

And then each of the-- after the grammar section, there are quizzes related to the grammar section. So if we're looking at grammar, then there are a couple of quizzes here and these-- the rocket ship means it's a Canvas quiz. This is within Canvas. And most of the Canvas quizzes are either a close like fill in the blank type of exercise, multiple choice, and in some cases, they have to write sentences and if that's the case, then teachers do need to grade that.

And then the next section is writing activities. So they have a writing activity-- in this module-- writing about their country, how they learn and sentence practice. So the writing modules, they all have a rubric and they're all teacher graded. So this is a writing course, it's hard to get away from that. And then there's a discussion section here, they're just introducing themselves, and then the unit test.

So then same structure, unit 2 is just about some rules. So again, there's the intro module, now we're talking about the word families so there's group one word families. All the glossaries, moving forward, have a quizlet activity, and then an exercise that's generally a fill in the blank and a dictation and then a Canvas quiz. So this is just following the vocab. So they get a lot of practice with vocabulary and practicing it in different ways.

And in this unit or module, we're talking about the mechanics so the grammar section is capitalization, punctuation, subject verb agreement and word order and then Canvas quizzes that are all related to these topics. And then the writing here is some-- what did you used to do in your country? And writing about goals. And sometimes the discussions have more than one.

A lot of times in the discussions, I have put sharing new things that they've learned, new words they've learned that they can put in the discussion and share with classmates so that they can share with each other and see what other people have learned. And then another discussion about sharing their goals.

And then all the module tests require sentence writing with the word families vocabulary or whatever vocabulary was in the glossary, so these do need to be teacher graded. And then unit 3 or module 3 starts with coordinating conjunctions, and again, there's the intro module, this time, word families group two quizlet. These are all H5-- quizlet and then H5P activities, which is a fill in the blank and the dictation.

I'm going to show you just the fill in the blank so you can just see what they look like. So in here, students do get hints, so they have to fill in the correct word, but they can look here and get a hint to what the word would mean when they fill it in. So they just fill that in and click submit. And then the dictation-- you go here-- is dictating some sentences.

So they get two tries. There's normal speed, and then here, it'll be at a slower speed. So they can hear it twice, and of course, they can repeat it too. And then gives them a little hint, makes sure they check their spelling and punctuation, because sometimes if you don't put a period at the end, it will mark it wrong.

[ INAUDIBLE ] on 3-- or 2, excuse me. All right. So then in-- and then there's the Canvas quiz. And then the grammar part, we're talking about types of sentences, and they'll be looking at conjunctions and then introduction to those coordinating conjunctions, so the FANBOYS. So this lists the coordinating conjunctions and all the-- so I have the FANBOYS broken down, so what they stand for, right, the F and the A and so on and then it explains them and a little bit of an example of how they're used.

The FANBOYS. OK. Let me move on here. All right. And then they have quizzes. So we're looking at independent clauses, which is covered in here, in the grammar part, some coordinating conjunctions, and then another coordinating conjunctions writing quiz. And then practice-- writing practice, so writing sentences of FANBOYS. What do what do you do every day? Here they have to describe a picture and describe a person.

And in this case, the discussion is just writing in their language. So they have to post a discussion about did they study writing in their language, and then the module test. And then unit 4 starts subordinating conjunctions, and now we're into word families group 3 and same quizlet fill in exercise dictation and a Canvas quiz.

And now the grammar is talking about subordinating conjunctions and also about what sentence fragments are and what run on sentences are. And then there are quizzes in Canvas on each of these and then an H5P dictation related to subordinating clauses. So I put this here because it's not under vocabulary, it relates to this topic, the grammar topic.

And then some writing activities. So this is writing some sentences with cause and effect, tell about a time you lost something. This many of you might be familiar with But IT'S how the wolves change rivers when they were introduced into Yellowstone, so then they need to write a description and-- about what happened about this video.

And then discussion, a person you admire and then some new words and the test. All right. So now we're in 5 and this is more what I mentioned of the meat of a lot of these things in writing the transition words and transitional phrases and so on. So this unit is broken up into three. So there's the introduction module, and now it's the first advanced vocabulary list module-- not module-- page, glossary page and then quizlet and this is a fill in the blank quiz dictation and also a crossword with this vocabulary.

And then this is the transitional words and phrases chart. This is the one I mentioned it's also in the resources. So this is a chart that breaks down-- so it's a good reference for them. It breaks down all these words by types. So all the time and sequences-- time and sequence transitional words, if they're conjunctions, they would be here, but there aren't any so it's dependent words, transition words.

So as you go down, space and location, rank and importance. And then cause and effect, it shows these are cause and effect conjunctions, dependent words, transition words and so on, and all the ones-- there's adding information, comparison, contrast, all these things. So this is a resource for them and it-- for them to check. For students.

OK. Sorry for the scrolling. All right. And then there's an introduction on transitional words and phrases. And then each-- the next two, so 5A, there's a list of the function of all the transition words, which is somewhat what's in the chart, but it's broken down here, and again, there's a little video PowerPoint about that.

And then the purpose of all these words and their functions. And then it's broken down one-by-one. So the ones for adding information with an example, like dependent words, transitional words. So it breaks these down with examples. So they're all here giving examples.

So this, again, when students want to write something and they want to find words to choose from, they can come here and choose, and learn how these work, and how they can improve writing. So 5A, because there are so many of these, 5A is broken down-- oops, yeah, there we go-- by the time, and sequence, and space, and location. And then there are quizzes related to both of these types of transition words.

And then for writing they have to describe a picture, describe a room in their house, a market scene, and what happened. And they'll be able to use either time and sequence or space and location words, depending. So if they're describing a room in their house, for example, they'll be using space and location type of phrases.

And then the discussion in this one is just about what they've learned. And there's no-- the unit test is at the end of 5B. So 5B now, we'll talk about cause and effect dependent words, and transitions, and rank order of importance. And then quizzes related to some of these, including adding information.

And then there's some writing here on using cause and effect, giving directions, what to do in an earthquake, which we just had yesterday. And you guys in Sacramento, I don't know how that was for you. And then your favorite recipe and step-by-step. So this would be like a rank order type of activity. And then writing about the future. And then some discussion about why learning English is important.

And here's the module test for five. And this is based on the advanced vocabulary list one. And then module six starts on paragraphs. So again, introduction. Now, it's advanced vocabulary list group two and same activities. So there's a Quizlet, fill in the blank dictation and crossword.

And now the grammar will be about paragraphs and writing topic sentences. What makes a paragraph. And then a little bit about compare and contrast transition words and phrases. All right, so these have some videos as well. So the same type of instructional PowerPoint here that covers the same thing that's written down here.

So they can listen and watch the PowerPoint and also read what's written in here. So it gives them a few different ways to access the material and reinforcement. Down back down to six, OK. And then some of these-- I'm trying to remember now which one it is. Some of these, yes, I have found in other places. And I did get permission from the people that did this, Amal.

I actually wrote to her and asked her if I could use her video because I liked her explanation. And she said, yes, please. So used by permission. And it's sometimes tricky when things are on YouTube because sometimes, they get taken down. So that's one of the risks. But she seemed to sound like she wasn't going to do that. I'm just to keep it there, all right.

And then there's some writing. These are some videos. So there's a-- this elephant in the credit card is a little-- it's actually an advertisement for Mastercard. But it's a little video on-- they just have to explain what happens and writing about that. And then there's a little video about what success means.

So this is-- they watch the little video. And this is actually one that I made quite a while ago. And then they click, start assignment and write assignment. So it tells them here, what does success mean to you?

And then as I mentioned, all the writing assignments have this rubric. It's all the same rubric. If you want to change it for some reason for each assignment, maybe, you want to put something different in the teacher view, you can edit it, obviously, not as a student. But when you're in teacher mode, you have a little pencil icon here, which would allow you to edit this if you wanted to.

So for all the writing assignments, it's the same rubric throughout here, throughout the course. All right, back to down six. OK, so then they-- and then this is just a story. It's a Puerto Rican story. But what I did is I put this in here with no connectors.

So students would-- asking students to read it out loud. What does it sound like when you just have sentences that aren't connected with any kind of conjunction or transition? And then I asked them to rewrite it with connectors. And then you would want to keep this hidden. This is the answer.

And explain there's more than one way. But it's really just so that they can get a sense of what something sounds like with no connectors versus what something sounds like with connectors. And you can-- in your own course, you can set up prerequisites. So you could keep this hidden until the student has completed this activity.

And once they've completed this activity, then they would be able to see the answer to that. And then there's just a writing. Describe a place you will never forget. So then this is a writing activity. And then in discussion, the same theme of what does success mean to you and then the module test.

And then seven starts talking about graphic organizers and then more about paragraphs. So same structure introduction. The quizlets and activities on the glossary, all the same. I do want to show you. So this is using some different graphic organizers. A little bit about what brainstorming is, talking more about topic sentences and controlling ideas. And then quizzes related to that.

And then writing using a timeline. And easy lunch, where they have to write some sort of process and making something. And then some of you may know this video about Rara the penguin. So here, they have to watch the video and then describe what happens. Basically, retell the story.

And then this is putting sentences in order. And I'm going to open that for a minute because this is another H5P type of activity. So this is a paragraph. And what they have to do is, basically, using these little arrows, put these sentences in order. And I give them a hint to look for what the topic sentence is, and the controlling idea, and what the concluding sentence would be just to help them get started.

And then again, this is actually just for the teacher. So I would keep this unpublished. But I left the whole paragraph in here just to make it easier for the teacher, so you know how it's supposed to go. Instead of having to do the activity and figure it out yourself, you can just check there.

But you can make this available to students after they've done the activity, if you would like to. But they'll get the answers as they're doing it. When they submit, they'll know which order is the correct order. So they won't really need that. It's really more for you or for the instructor, OK.

OK, and then there's another activity using a Venn diagram, where they compare and contrast. And then a discussion on using graphic organizers and then what they've learned in this unit and the test. And then module eight is informal writing, same structure here. And the grammar is about writing emails.

So there's writing an email, writing a work email, and then doing some descriptive writing. And here's a quiz just choosing a topic and supporting sentences. And writing practice, writing an email message, describing a dream house, and talking about their first impression of the US when they first came here.

And then discussion on, how often do you use email? And then the module test. And then formal writing, same beginning structure. We're now on list five. And then more on reviewing paragraphs and topic sentences. And information on persuasive and narrative writing. And then a quiz on there.

And then different writing activities. Writing an email letter of complaint, writing a formal letter of complaint. And then some videos describing this. This Is a video on they have to describe what happens here. Writing a feeling narrative. Writing a folktale that they know about.

So they read this Raven story, but then they need to write their own folktale from their own culture or one they know about. And then writing a description using some sensory adjectives. Sharing an experience and then the test. And then the very last unit, unit 10, same structure. But now, we're looking at more essays and more formal types of writing.

This introduces thesis statements. And more about essays steps you take when you want to write, like an outline or what steps would you do first? And more about academic writing. And then a quiz on topic sentences. You have to decide, is it a topic sentence or a thesis statement?

And then these are some other writing an opinion essay about using a cell phone while driving, about a grandparent or another relative, or I put in there also, another older person that had an influence on you. About climate change, this is a video from Greta Thunberg. And then they have to write an opinion about climate change.

This is a reading about computer games. And they have to write an opinion, whether computer games can incite violence or not. And this is a video from KQED about trash on the spin cycle. So they need to write about. Watch the video and write about that. And then discussion about the trash problem. That's kind of a worldwide problem. Things they've learned overall in the course that they can share and then the test.

And that's the end of the course. So does anybody have any questions? Because we have about 10 minutes for questions. Trying to keep my share thing open for the time being, if you have a question, go ahead and you can post on the chat or you can just go ahead and speak.

Anthony Burik: Yeah, I didn't--

Francisca Wentworth: Because I see Anna.

Anthony Burik: Oh, yeah go ahead.

Francisca Wentworth: [ INAUDIBLE ] raised your hand, yeah.

Anthony Burik: Go ahead, Anna, yeah.

Francisca Wentworth: You can go ahead and use your microphone.

Anna-lisa Helmy: Yeah, I'm Anna-Lisa, can you hear me OK?

Francisca Wentworth: Yeah, fine.

Anna-lisa Helmy: OK. Yeah, I'm wondering, how many weeks is this course?

Francisca Wentworth: This is-- it depends how fast you want to take it. I mean, it could be-- I would say 10 weeks would be kind of fast. I would say probably a semester. I would divide it up, if I were teaching this. I would probably divide it up and be supplementing too. But I would-- yeah.

Anna-lisa Helmy: Yeah because it just seems like an incredible amount of content. And I'm just--

Francisca Wentworth: There's a lot, yeah. It would be, probably, I would say, more like at least two weeks per unit.

Anna-lisa Helmy: Yeah. Well, I'm just thinking-- yeah, I'm like-- and also, the level because I teach at City College and not an adult Ed, but we have non-credit and credit. This is a couple or three courses put together. So it's interesting. So I'm curious about the level. Are these students who are coming in with lots of speaking and vocabulary and they just haven't learned how to write? I mean, is that the focus, the demographic that you're really focused on?

Francisca Wentworth: I used to teach this course with a advanced ESL level. And I mean, they needed the vocabulary. Some of them had-- I mean, you know how it is in adult Ed class, you've got all levels of education. So some had writing in their own culture. So they had some concept, even though it might not be exactly the same. But they had some concept about writing skills.

And for some, it was pretty new. So it's varied. But I used to teach this as a blended class. So we would do this course plus what I would-- so I would teach a lot of this content live as well. And then we would practice. We'd go to the lab because students rarely were able to really do this at home. Some did, some didn't.

But I would often just-- when I was teaching, I was not teaching it online alone. But I've had other teachers or other teachers that were using it really as just an online class. And so I would spread it out because, yeah-- but there is a lot of content.

Anna-lisa Helmy: I just have one more quick follow-up question. I see other people's questions in the chat. I just wanted to ask. You said you've taught it really as a more of a Zoom synchronous and asynchronous or hybrid yourself. And other people have taught it asynchronous. I'm wondering, do you have any-- I'd be really curious about the completion rate. How many students actually go through this and complete? And do you have any stats at all?

Francisca Wentworth: Oh, I don't have any specific-- yeah, I don't have any specific statistics. I mean, in adult Ed, it's a little tricky because not all students stay for the whole time. Because we have a lot of stop and stop out type of situations.

Anna-lisa Helmy: Yeah, certainly a ton of resources for them. So yeah, I mean-- but not that that's the point. But yeah, it's all here. So very impressive. Thank you very much.

Francisca Wentworth: No, thank you, yeah. All right, let me see here. There are a bunch of questions here that I'm like--

Anthony Burik: Francisco, do you want-- let's work our way through the questions here.

Francisca Wentworth: OK, thank you because I don't know where we are here.

Anthony Burik: Yeah, OK. So first question, just remind us, again, how to get to the course. So if we can just show the steps.

Francisca Wentworth: OK, you know what, I forgot to do that anyway. Yeah, thanks for the reminder too. Yeah, so the place you would find this course, if you go to where this menu bar, and you go to the far left, it says CDLC actually up there. And then you just scroll down where you see this commons. Has this little c with an arrow and it says commons.

So just go to that area. And I'm going to have to move a few things here, all right. So when you get to this page, this is the general commons of anybody that's put something in here. So to find the California Adult Education, you can click on this filter and then just scroll down. So you can see there's all these grade levels, et cetera. But we want to be down here where it says shared with and go down, which is California Adult Education Canvas Commons. So that's where we want to be.

Anthony Burik: And Francisca, before you leave there, so everybody, look at this view that Francisco is showing. So again, what we explained in the beginning is that this is kind of a subset of the general Canvas Commons. So this is a adult education dedicated Canvas Commons space that OTAN is helping to manage.

So just actually in the chat, I replied to Marianne with a link to the form that your agency should complete. Send that to us. Or actually, when you complete the form, it'll come to us. So that's how it all works. And then that indicates your agency's interest in being a part of this adult education dedicated commons.

We will work with your Canvas admin to basically turn on the switch as it were, so that you will then see this option when you come to the commons, so that you can be directed to this dedicated space. And then that's where this course and other courses will be available. So they're not available in the general commons. They're only available in this dedicated space.

So again, if you have questions about that, I'll put the email address, again, in the chat. It's AECanvas@school.net. Email us if you're having trouble, if you still don't quite understand what I just explained. We'll work it-- we'll work through the steps, so that we can get your agency attached to this commons. OK, so that's that. Let's go back up here. Francisco--

Francisca Wentworth: I was just going to show them. So then, yeah. OK, next question. So this is where the courses are, so if you wanted to find it there.

Anthony Burik: Exactly, yeah. OTAN is trying to get as many Canvas courses on this site as possible. And then again, once you all join this common space, you will be able to share your Canvas-- sorry, you'll be able to share your Canvas materials with other adult educators in California. So yes, OK.

Francisca Wentworth: Yeah, this is great. Also, just a quick note on this. Once you download the course and you have your own course, if there are updates, if I end up making an update to the master or any of these courses with updates, they get pushed out. So that you'll get a flag that's going to say, this course was updated. You don't have to do anything. It's just-- my understanding is it'll just-- it's just automatic.

Anthony Burik: Yeah, those updates will be pushed out to your copies.

Francisca Wentworth: Yeah, which is fantastic, which was not the case with Moodle.

Anthony Burik: Yes. OK, Francisco, question. Robin asks, is there anything about citing articles or sources?

Francisca Wentworth: No, I didn't include that. That's a good idea, though. But no, I didn't include that in the course.

Anthony Burik: OK. You sort of answered this question already, Francisca. But again, Adrian asks, is this synchronous? Do the students work on it through their own or through this course on their own? I think you gave some examples from your own experience. So it's really meant, I think, for you to decide as an instructor how you would like to use this course.