Useful Teacher Resources

Here you will find links to sites that I have found useful during my teaching career. If you would like to suggest a useful link, please e-mail it to me at bridget_marshall@uml.edu

Resources for Teachers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst:

• Umass Amherst's Center for Teaching http://www.umass.edu/cft/
• Teaching Consultation, including the Mid-Semester Assessment Program (MAP) http://www.umass.edu/cft/teaching_consultation.htm
• The Teaching Documentation Program http://www.umass.edu/cft/ta_training/tdp.htm
• The Center for Teaching also offers downloadable handbooks, including the Handbook for Teaching Assistance, the Teaching Disabilities Handbook, and the Teaching Portfolio. All of these resources are available at http://www.umass.edu/cft/publications.htm

Online Resources for Teachers of Literature:

• The Voice of the Shuttle http://vos.ucsb.edu/index-netscape.asp is an immense humanities web site maintained by Alan Liu from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The site includes syllabi listed under various periods/types of literature at the "Courses in English and American Literature" page.
• Jack Lynch at Rutgers has collected tons of links to courses with considerable online content: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/syllabi.html
• Joan Korenman at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) has a huge collection of syllabi on the Web for Women- and Gender-Related Courses http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/syllabi.html
• At the University of Colorado, there is a course called “Masterpieces of American Literature.” Here is a link to an archive of syllabi for the course from the last ten years: http://www.colorado.edu/English/amlit/malsyllabi.html
• The Electronic Archives for Teaching American Literatures, sponsored by Georgetown and Heath, http://www.georgetown.edu/tamlit/tamlit-home.html includes an extensive library of syllabi for teaching American Literature: http://www.georgetown.edu/tamlit/teaching/syllabi_lib.html
• There is an excellent Introduction to Literary Theory suitable for use with undergrads created by Dino Felluga at http://www.sla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/
  

Publisher Sites for Teachers of Literature:

Some publishers also maintain excellent companion sites, particularly in support of their anthologies:

• Norton Anthology of English Literature http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/
• Norton Anthology of American Literature http://www.wwnorton.com/naal/
• Norton Introduction to Literature (LITWEB) http://www.wwnorton.com/introlit/
• Multimedia Assignments for the Norton Anthologies of American and African American Literature http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/naaal/mab/
• Houghton Mifflin: http://college.hmco.com/english/instructors/literature.html
• Heath Anthology Teacher’s Site: http://college.hmco.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/instructors/index.html
• The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets.htm
  

General Resources for Teachers of Literature:

• The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/
• Looking for an English Department anywhere in the world? Check out the listing at David L. Hoover’s site at NYU: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/english/links/engdpts.html
  

Resources for Teaching Online Courses:

• Umass’s Center for Teaching offers an excellent guide to teaching and Learning Online, which you can download in PDF format: http://www.umass.edu/cft/resources.htm
• The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning: http://www.irrodl.org/
  

Plagiarism:

There are a wide variety of online resourcees for Teachers dealing with plagiarism. Here are some that I recommend:

• I like this informational site from Bruce H. Leland at Western Illinois University: http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/wiu/plagiarism.htm
  
• And this top-notch and very detailed site by Robert Harris (he also has a book on plagiarism): http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm
  
• This comprehensive site is from the University of Alberta: http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/plagiarism/
  
• An excellent article – “Student Plagiarism in an Online World” -- here:
  http://www.prism-magazine.org/december/html/student_plagiarism_in_an_onlin.htm
  
• A Wired article on the proliferation of paper-mills:
  http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,33021,00.html
  
• Sample Cases (true life crime stories!): There are also numerous articles detailing various cases of plagiarism that are both disturbing and enlightening. For a truly amazing story of plagiarism via an IM exchange, check out this blog entry: http://www.aweekofkindness.com/blog/archives/articles/the_laura_k_krishna_saga/
  The story features a student soliciting a paper via IM; the comedy writer she solicited proceeded to document the entire exchange, and she was caught, with much to-do and an ensuing avalanche of postings in various blogs.
  
• Check out The Harvard Plagiarism Archive: http://authorskeptics.blogspot.com/
  
• Thoughts on high-profile plagiarist Stephen Ambrose: http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060618
  
• The Chronicle ran a series about plagiarism, including this article on four professors who have plagiarized in their writing: http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i17/17a00802.htm
  
• Hi-Tech methods of catching plagiarism: Eve2.2 is one plagiarism detection package: http://www.canexus.com/eve/index.shtml
  
• The university currently has a subscription to Turnitin.com; however, some have protested the use of Turnitin, and suggested it violates students’ rights, as explained in this article from the Chronicle: http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i36/36a03701.htm
  
• As a final piece of advice to students and scholars, here are my favorite plagiarism-related lyrics from the Smiths, found on “Cemetery Gates” on The Queen is Dead, 1986:
  A dreaded sunny day
  so I meet you at the cemetery gates
  Keats and Yeats are on your side
  while Wilde is on mine
  . . .
  You say, "ere thrice the sun hath done salutation to the dawn"
  and you claim these words as your own
  but I've read well, and I've heard them said
  a hundred times (maybe less, maybe more)
  if you must write prose and poems
  the words you use should be your own
  don't plagiarize or take "on loan"
  'cause there's always someone, somewhere
  with a big nose, who knows
  and who trips you up and laughs
  when you fall
  
• If you catch a plagiarized paper in your class, I urge you to follow University protocol, as described by our Writing Program here: http://writingprogram.hfa.umass.edu/student_resources/plagiarism_policy.asp There you will find the following information: “If any alteration is made in a student's grade because of academic dishonesty, the instructor must report the matter to the Academic Honesty Board and alert the student to his/her right to an appeal. You do not have the option to lower a student's grade without reporting it to the board. Details on due process for cases of academic dishonesty are explained in the University's handbook, Undergraduate Rights and Responsibilities.” If you have any questions about how to proceed with a case, talk to your course director, departmental advisor, or contact the Ombuds Office : The Ombuds Office Room 823 Campus Center Phone 413 545-0867 email: ombuds@ombuds.umass.edu

Teaching Evaluations:

• One study has shown correlation between how attractive students rate their teachers and higher evaluations: http://chronicle.com/jobs/2003/10/2003101501c.htm
• Students who are asked to evaluate their college instructors are biased toward those who give high grades and require the least work, according to a recent study by University of Washington researchers: http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb98/studs.html
• Here is an interesting write-up of a survey of Faculty about Student Evaluations: http://faculty.fullerton.edu/senatenews/page2.html
• An article from The Scientist discusses some studies of student evaluations and proposals for Peer Teaching Evaluations: http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1998/apr/prof_980427.html(this site requires a free registration in order to read the full text of the article)

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