Week 13: Monday, November 18^th - Friday, November 22^nd

Note: As you design your lesson plans for this week, consider whether it would be best to meet in class, to schedule individual conferences, or to do both. If you believe conferences would be most valuable, cancel one or more of your class meetings this week and meet with students one on one. If you sense that students are having trouble with their research, spend a class in the library gathering sources. If you think students would benefit most from meeting formally, design a mini-workshop where students can peer review HyperFolio drafts in groups. Use this week to reinforce important concepts for Portfolio 3 and to catch up before Thanksgiving Break.

Goals for this Week

• Take students to the library to continue gathering sources for their arguments
• Help students understand the implications of their publication analysis activities for their selection of a target publication and for the writing and design of their arguments
• Workshop drafts of the HyperFolio worksheets in class
• Meet for individual conferences. See Resources, below.

Connection to Course Goals

The activities this week support the concept that writing is a process involving collaboration and revision. By interacting with other writers (through research), peers, and instructors, students allow their previous ideas to take on new shapes. They make crucial decisions about content development based on observations made during research or the feedback received from potential readers.

Required Reading and Assignments

• HyperFolio worksheets are due this week. If you run into trouble collecting them (due to conferencing and Thanksgiving Break) have students email them or drop them by your office at a designated time.
• Students should prepare for their individual conferences

Resources

Individual Conferences: Plan to spend 10 to 15 minutes per student. During the conferences, focus on these main concerns:

·        Do they have a focused, debatable overall claim?

·        Do they have a clear sense of why they’re writing on this issue in the first place?

·        Do they have a clear sense of purpose in why they’re writing their argument for their defined audience? Does the claim fit the purpose?

·        Are the audience, purpose and focus they’ve identified coherent?

·        Do they understand what evidence they’ll need to support their sub-claims? What types of evidence do they plan to use? What evidence do they already have that can work?