Day 11 - Friday, September 19^th

Lesson Objectives: Students are exposed again today to the value of peer review. They complete their first college writer’s workshop. They continue to learn how to be constructively critical rather than blissfully uncritical or harmfully hypercritical. They further develop a sense of good partners and readers and extend their abilities to be good critics of one another. They receive final clarification on the requirements for the portfolio and folder, as needed. They develop the grading criteria for the course. They examine a sample paper that responds to this assignment.

Connection to Course Goals: CO150 strongly encourages peer cooperation and exchange of ideas. The course also strongly encourages deep or global revision, rather than simple editing or local revision. When students develop the grading criteria with their teacher, they reflect upon their learning and also become active participants in the evaluative process—a good outcome, in and of itself. Reading of a sample paper is not intended to provide a model for students but rather is meant to provide opportunity for discussion of elements of the paper that are working well, or not so well.

A Possible Sequence of Activities for Today

1.     WTL reviewing the usefulness of the workshop done in the last class

2.     Review of sample paper(s) and application of a brief outline describing them—or alternatively try a Cut ‘n Paste Activity, as posted in the Activity Bank

3.     Develop grading criteria for Portfolio 1 and especially for the final essay (letter-to-the-editor)

4.     Complete the workshop from last time.

Activities

1. Ask students to write a WTL (5 minutes) in which they reflect on the usefulness of the last peer review or workshop. Ask them to indicate one piece of advice they will use. Ask them for another piece of advice they will not use. Collect these WTLs and quickly skim through them in class to learn if there are any groups that are simply not working adequately. You might also point out groups that are working well for one reason or another.

2. As a class, examine a few sample essays (15 minutes). Have students do a brief analytic description of the samples, otherwise known as a descriptive outline, to get a clear sense of how the samples are constructed. An alternative method for conducting this review would be to do the “Cut-‘n-Paste Activity” from the Activity Bank. When students read to reconstruct an essay that has been cut into pieces, they have to read with care and attentiveness to the unifying ideas and language (or the problems in these areas.)

3. Develop grading criteria with the class (5 minutes). ( Be sure to prepare your own ideas on this before class begins so that you don’t find yourself committing to grading criteria you can’t ultimately justify/support!)

4. Do Workshop #2, focusing on the remaining elements of the workshop that you didn’t get to on Wednesday (20 minutes) and/or examining the changes the writer made between workshops. To expedite discussion, it would be best to get students back together with their partners from Wednesday unless there are some groups that aren’t helping each other much. If you form new groups, new readers will need to review the notes of the first readers. This second workshop will work best if writers have revised their drafts between workshops.

Assignment for Next Time

Bring your first portfolio to class. It should include your final drafts—clearly marked--of the summary/response Letter-to-the-Editor and the abstract of less than 200 words, as well as all drafts, homework assignments, and in-class activities you’ve completed during this portfolio period. It should also include a copy of the formal workshop responses you received in class today, and these should be attached to the appropriate draft. Finally, the folder should include the postscript.* Please organize all materials so that there can be no confusion about your choices and with the goal in mind of reducing the amount of digging your instructor has to do to find your process materials and final drafts. Organizing from the most recent on top to the earliest draft on the bottom is a good strategy.

Note: Alternatively, you can have your students do the postscript at the next class meeting as a WTL done immediately before they turn in their folders.