Week 4: Monday, September 15th  Friday, September 19th

Week 5, September 20 - 24:  Overview

Goals for this Week
  • Review portfolio requirements for the letter to the editor component of Portfolio 1 and address student concerns about meeting those requirements. Reinforce student understanding of what is involved in writing an effective letter to the editor.
  • Discuss sample letters to the editor (both from students and from the New York Times.
  • Review peer review techniques and conduct a full workshop on their drafts of their letters to the editor.
  • As with the summary/response, develop evaluation criteria (rubric) for the letter to the editor, making sure students understand that meeting the new expectations of the letter to the editor context is different than the choices they made in their summary/response essays. Also clarify that focus (of purpose, audience, and message) is a top evaluation criterion for this paper, too.
  • Discuss what needs to be turned in with final drafts of both the summary/response essay and the letter to the editor.
 

Activities for this Week
Detailed lesson plans are available for the first five weeks of the course. Beginning in the third week you will be encouraged to take over the writing (or rewriting) of all introductions, conclusions, and transitions. You will also notice more activity choices in the third, fourth and fifth weeks.  Beginning in the sixth week, you will be expected to choose activities from a set of suggested activities and/or develop your own activities that will help you and your students achieve the course goals for a specific week.