Day 5 . Friday, September 5^th

Lesson Objectives

By summarizing a journalistic argument, we solidify understanding of summary principles, accentuating the importance of understanding and representing the author’s purpose for generating a text and familiarizing students with the article style of the New York Times. Additionally, we introduce students to the three types of response developed in this course, and we provide an initial overview of how each response type is developed.

Connection to Course Goals

By the end of today we complete the classroom instruction on academic summary writing, and we move to response writing. We introduce the importance of fully developing a narrowed and focused response that is then developed with ample and relevant reasons, evidence and discussion—factors associated with strong writing throughout the course and the university. By discussing the effective use of paraphrasing and quoting we hope to help students write more accurate and concise summaries (especially when dealing with longer texts). Introducing all three types of response prepares students to think about the various ways they can respond to a text and how they can develop their ideas with reasons and evidence. Responding is also important for the thematic aims of this course because it allows students to invest their own ideas on issues of public importance.

A Possible Sequence of Activities for Today

2. Use students’ homework to discuss writing a summary of Krugman's and Frank's articles  

Activity Ideas:  Concluding and Assigning Homework

Assignment for Next Class Session

• Choose a key point from either Krugman's or Frank's article and write a one-and-a-half to two-page agree/disagree response to that idea. Start this effort by writing out the key point of the speech and relating it to the main idea of the article, providing author tags to show whose idea it is. Then, respond to the key point and main idea, stating whether you agree or disagree with the overall idea and the key point you’ve selected to focus on. Give reasons for why you agree or disagree and provide specific evidence to show why you feel this way (personal experience, textual evidence, or cultural observations). Post your response to the Writing Studio. Bring a printed copy of your response to class.
• Bring in three clipped articles from the NYT related to debatable issues in U.S. culture/the global community. Be ready to summarize and discuss them.
  *From here on out, students should keep a News Clippings Journal of the NYT articles they are reading.  You will want to establish when you are collecting these, how much the journal is worth in the first portfolio (percentage of the portfolio or homework points), and how students keep track of their work.  The Writing Studio activity, "Keeping a Reading Log" is a great way to save paper and check student work online (this is located under the "Tools" option on the Writing Studio tool bar. If you use this reading log, be sure you have a way to check the actual articles themselves).  Or you may have students keep a spiral notebook or composition journal where they hand-write their summaries and responses. 

Additional Teaching Resources

Go to Improving Discussions or Answering and Asking Questions for excellent additional information on making the most out of your class discussions.

Teaching Development and Detail provides great explanations and activities to help teach students how to develop support in their writing.

If you have concerns about classroom management or behavior, check out Understanding Student Resistance or (Gender) Identity and Authority in the Classroom.