The following is a print-friendly version of the Mon/Wed/Fri Syllabus.
To print the Tuesday/Thursday Syllabus, please see this page.
**Please Note: The Appendix portion of the syllabus is not included in this print-friendly version.
CO150--College Composition--is a common experience for most CSU students. The course or its equivalent is required by the All-University Core Curriculum to satisfy Basic Competency in Written Communication (see this description). In addition to meeting this CSU core requirement, CO150 credit will satisfy a core requirement for communication at any Colorado public higher education college or university. That's due to its inclusion in the state's guaranteed transfer (gtPathways) program (see this description, Written Communication).
As we work toward these objectives, we rely on the metaphor of writing as a conversation. Like a conversation, writing involves exchanges of ideas that help us shape our own ideas and opinions. Students realize that they would be foolish to open their mouths the moment they join a group of people engaged in conversation—instead, they’d listen for a few moments to understand what’s being discussed. Then, if they found they had something to offer, they would wait until an appropriate moment to contribute. Our students understand what happens to people who make off-topic, insensitive, inappropriate or otherwise ill-considered remarks in a conversation. In CO150, we build on this understanding by suggesting that, prior to contributing to the debate about an issue, they should read, discuss, and inquire further about what other writers have written about it. Then, when they’ve gained an understanding of the conversation, they can offer their own contribution to it. By using this metaphor, we can help students build on their understanding of discourse as situated within larger social and cultural contexts.
With that notion in mind, we've structured the course in three phases. In Phase 1, students hone critical reading skills as they listen to the conversation on this question-at-issue: what should we eat? In Phase 2, students inquire into questions raised during the first phase, then add their voices to the conversation by writing an argument. In Phase 3, we begin new conversations about local sites of interest to new CSU students by investigating campus and community resources and writing an argument for a public audience about one. Each phase builds on the previous one to further develop the inquiry and composing competencies needed to achieve the course goals.
There are many approaches to teaching first-year writing. You may have experienced one of these other approaches as a student or as a teacher. Therefore, it may be helpful to consider what CO150 is not. It does not focus on writing about literature, creative writing or personal narratives. Nor is CO150 a course that teaches students how to write particular modes of discourse such as description, narration, or term papers. And while the course attends to editing and style concerns in the context of students' writing, it is not a grammar course. Rather, CO150 gives students experience with responding to various writing situations, making choices to address a variety of purposes and audiences, and developing strategies for successful communication.
The CO150 Fall 2007 Common Syllabus is designed to achieve the following course goals, which are aligned with gtPathways and AUCC guidelines:
The syllabus writers also hope this curriculum moves students toward these broader educational goals:
Phase 1: Reading for Critical Inquiry
In the first phase of the course, we're studying the work of an accomplished writer who addresses the question-at-issue: What should we eat? Michael Pollan is a professional writer and journalism professor whose writing for The New York Times exemplifies the thorough research, critical thinking and clear communication we ask our students to strive for. By looking at the strategies used by a writer who is trying to answer a significant question-at-issue as he approaches varying rhetorical situations, we hope to demonstrate critical inquiry-in-context that shares values and strategies with academic discourse. To this end, Unit 1 focuses on close and critical reading. We'll ask students to read several articles for various purposes, employing a variety of reading strategies. Our primary goal for this unit is to establish critical reading practices that will enable effective inquiry and support an understanding of writing as rhetorical practice. To assess students' close reading practices, we will ask them to write summaries of the readings. We'll assess students' critical reading practices with a review/letter at the end of this phase.
Phase 2: Expanding Critical Inquiry through Investigation and Argument
In the second phase of the course, we expand our inquiry into the question of what we should eat by identifying related issues, developing and refining questions, and investigating those questions. The goals for this phase include not only increasing our understanding of the issues, but also engaging in the conversations about them. In the first phase, we learned how one writer investigated the "ominvore's dilemma," considered some of the answers he found to "what should we eat?" and began posing further questions that Pollan's work raised for us. Now, we will refine some of those questions and investigate them. In the process of doing so, we will build information literacy as we find and select sources that offer a variety of perspectives on the questions we pose as well as credible and authoritative information. Students will work collaboratively to investigate one question and explain their findings to the class. These explanations can serve as initial inquiry for students who wish to pursue these questions further or as an impetus for initiating other lines of inquiry. Students will then join the conversation on a question-at-issue by writing an argument.
Phase 3: Sharing Local Inquiry with Public Audiences
In the final phase of the course, students will apply the inquiry and writing practices and strategies they have been using in the course as well as learn and develop additional research methods and writing skills. So far, we have focused our inquiry on questions related to “the omnivore's dilemma.” At this point, we hope students have begun to understand how critical inquiry into significant questions crosses disciplinary boundaries. As students investigate their issue across a variety of disciplines, we expect that they will learn to develop a repertoire of strategies for considering purpose and audience is a variety of academic writing situations. In Phase 2, students had a chance to see how conversations about significant issues occur in layered contexts that are interrelated, much like an ecosystem. Phase 3 asks students to explore the local ecosystem of the CSU campus and surrounding community, focusing on sites of academic, social, cultural, recreational, political, or personal interest to new students at the university. In this unit, we ask students to investigate a site of interest--a course, an academic program, a service, an activity, an organization—and explain the results to inform new students about it. Based on their investigation of the site and evaluation of its value to students, students will then write an argument to promote the site to other students, to address a problem with the site, or to effect change.
The following articles are assigned in the syllabus. A few alternatives are included, as well.
Waters, Alice, ed. "One Thing to Do About Food." The Nation 11 Sept. 2006.
Pollan, Michael. "An Animal's Place." New York Times 10 Nov. 2002.
---. "Cattle Futures." New York Times 11 Jan. 2004.
---."Mass Natural. New York Times 4 June 2006.
---. "Our National Eating Disorder." New York Times 17 Oct. 2004.
---. "Power Steer." New York Times 31 March 2002.
---. "The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity." New York Times 12 Oct. 2003.
---. "The Futures of Food." New York Times 4 May 2003.
---. "The Modern Hunter-Gatherer." New York Times 26 March 2006.
---. "The Vegetable Industrial Complex." New York Times 15 Oct. 2006.
---. "Unhappy Meals." New York Times 28 Jan. 2007.
---. "You are What You Grow" New York Times 22 April 2007.
Accessing Articles
Web. All of the articles by Michael Pollan are posted in full on his web site: www.michaelpollan.com. There is no "printer friendly" or "text-only" option on the site, but the articles, but the articles do include the cover art from New York Times magazine issue in which they appeared.
eReserve. All above articles can be placed on eReserve in the library. Because they are all available in library databases, you can quickly and easily put them on reserve at your computer. Access for students is quite simple.
Library Databases. You and/or your students can easily retrieve all the articles from the Morgan Library site, using either the Citation Linker or directly from Lexis-Nexis or Academic Search Premier. You can assign students to retrieve the articles themselves. [handouts with directions for databases forthcoming from library]
Writing Studio File Folder. We have a preliminary assurance from the library that because your class's Writing Studio site is password protected, you may save articles you've retrieved from databases to the File Folder without violating fair use. Students can then download them from there in either PDF or Word format.
From the beginning, you need to make some decisions about your course policies regarding attendance, homework, late assignments, quizzes, and grades. Here are some suggestions:
Attendance: You should take roll at the beginning of every class. Devise a system to mark absences and excused absences. Many instructors use "A" for absent, and "X" for excused absence, and a check-mark for those present. The English Department may provide gradebooks in which you can record this information, or you may create a spreadsheet on the computer or adopt another method of your choice. The Writing Studio for your class also has an online gradebook. Establish at the start of the semester, and make crystal clear in your policy statement, what the consequences are for (excessive) absences and apply those equally to every student. Helpful hint: it is much harder, or nearly impossible, to toughen up later in the semester regarding policies; instead, it is to easier to lighten up. But always have your policies in writing so you can point students to them and rely on them for "back up" if the need should arise.
Late Attendance Policy: Particularly in early morning classes, students will push the envelope by coming in late. You can handle this through talking to the offenders, devising a policy where more than a specific amount of minutes equals an absence, whatever. Once you have policy, make it clear on your policy statement from the start of the semester and stick to it.
Collecting Homework: You have two choices here, and both methods have their merits. First, you can collect homework and Write to Learn (WTL) activities everyday. This obviously creates work for you everyday, but it also allows you to recognize right away who is having difficulty with certain skills, whether everyone really understood the reading, and how students are succeeding at creating accurate summaries or developing support, for example. (For the first three weeks of the semester, please collect all homework so you can determine whether all of your students should remain in CO150, should enroll concurrently in a Writing Studio tutorial, or should be moved to CO130. If you have a student whose writing suggests that he or she might be at risk of failing CO150, please email Sue Russell or Stephen Reid.) On these homework assignments, you do not need to comment extensively -- just a word or two of encouragement and/or suggestions. You might put an "S" for satisfactory work or a "U" for unsatisfactory work (if a student missed the point of the assignment) at the top. You could use an "M" in your gradebook if someone didn't hand in anything. It is also effective to assign numbers to homework assignments. Many instructors count homework assignments as 5 points each. It is a good idea to discuss how the points students receive correlate to their success on the assignment. For example, 4s and 5s may demonstrate an effective (or even great!) grasp of what the assignment called for, 3s may have gotten the point but need a bit of work, and 1s and 2s may warrant a visit to your office to clarify larger concerns. At the end of the semester, you can easily tally homework points and translate them to the percentage homework is worth in the students' grades.
After the first three weeks, you may wish to use the second method, and collect homework and WTLs only randomly and periodically. This saves you having to read every single thing they commit to paper, which has its obvious advantages.
We advocate the former method, though most people use the second. We find it helps us get to know the students better earlier, allows us to foresee problems, and students trust us more if we ask them to do something and then collect it faithfully. Some students will try to get away with doing as little as possible, and those students can get left behind if you're not keeping up with their work (or lack thereof).
The compromise is to collect homework everyday at first, to get them used to being responsible for it, and give it a quick read and a sentence or two. You can relax a bit after that (especially once you've got their major papers to read!)
Late Assignments: You should also anticipate how you will handle the occasions when students fail to turn in assignments on time. To prevent the majority of these occasions from happening in the first place, be very clear that it is each student's responsibility to turn in work when it is due, regardless of the circumstances that may surround their attendance at that particular time and/or date. Remind students that you have all due dates and assignments posted on your Writing Studio site. So if an athlete has an out-of-town softball game on the same day a major paper is due, make sure she knows she needs to send her work in with a trusted classmate or email it to you before she leaves. Also, be sure due dates and expectations are clearly explained for students well in advance and are accessible to them outside of the classroom (through assignment sheets, a syllabus, or an online course management calendar). However, "life happens" and some students may have legitimate reasons for why they miss a deadline. Establish the consequences for this early in the semester (and make them explicit in your policy statement) and apply these consequences fairly to every student.
Reading Quizzes: You do not need to give these; in fact, the syllabus doesn't include any. However, you may find students stop reading after a certain point or there is a particular day when clearly everyone felt the reading "wasn't important." Feel free to provide short quizzes, announced or unannounced, but decide beforehand how they will count: will they be part of the homework percentage? will they be part of participation?
Recording Grades in General: You will need to keep track of everything you take in since, undoubtedly at the end of the semester, a student will question you when you inform them they missed "X" homework or "Y" assignment. (It helps to email students several times during the semester who have excessive absences or who have not turned in homework so that they are aware of the number of classes they have missed and know what the consequences will be. Construct a system to record not only essay grades but also homework assignments, write-to-learns, workshop days, any quizzes you might give, etc. No matter what system you devise, be sure to label the assignments, papers, homeworks, etc. clearly enough so that two months later you'll know what each label refers to.
In the first phase of the course, we're studying the work of an accomplished writer who addresses the question-at-issue: What should we eat? Michael Pollan is a professional writer and journalism professor whose writing for The New York Times exemplifies the thorough research, critical thinking and clear communication we ask our students to strive for. By looking at the strategies used by a writer who is trying to answer a significant question-at-issue as he approaches varying rhetorical situations, we hope to demonstrate critical inquiry-in-context that shares values and strategies with academic discourse.
Pollan's writing engages us in answering an enduring and significant human question--What should we eat? He relies on firsthand reporting as well as his reading from agriculture, food science, history, and other disciplines. His New York Times articles show us how a writer pursues a question-at-issue, synthesizes what he learns, and presents arguments for ethical and healthful eating. In this way, his work is an example of a form of discourse highly valued in academic contexts. By focusing on Pollan's articles, we can examine with students how a successful writer engages in critical inquiry and communicates the results to critical readers.
To this end, Unit 1 focuses on close and critical reading. We'll ask students to read several articles for various purposes, employing a variety of reading strategies. Our primary goal for this unit is to establish critical reading practices that will enable effective inquiry and support an understanding of writing as rhetorical practice. The following writing assignments and class activities are designed to teach and assess such reading practices.
We start with close reading of texts to practice strategies for accurate comprehension of information and arguments. For our purposes, close reading will include identifying arguments, clarifying information and recognizing rhetorical strategies. We will ask students to read a series of short articles from the Nation by various authors and three New York Times magazine columns written by Michael Pollan, all of which address the question: What should we eat? Our purpose for reading these pieces is to learn how various writers address the question-at-issue. To assess students' close reading practices, we will ask them to write summaries of the readings.
After reviewing close reading strategies and discussing various responses to our question, we will continue our inquiry by employing critical reading strategies as we read three longer pieces by Pollan from the New York Times magazine. These articles deepen inquiry into the social, cultural, ethical and environmental consequences of American eating. As we continue inquiry into our question-at-issue, we want to sharpen critical tools for not only understanding Pollan's arguments but also for analyzing, evaluating and responding to them. We hope to engage students in examining how one writer presents the answers he found to the question through research and critical thinking. By analyzing and evaluating the effectiveness of Pollan's writing, students can continue inquiry into the question (through making decisions about information and posing further questions). In addition, students will be introduced to writing as rhetorical practice by examining how Pollan's articles address the rhetorical situations in which he wrote them. We'll assess students' critical reading practices with a review/letter at the end of this phase.
By the end of Phase 1, students should be
Overview. Students write summaries in college classes for a variety of purposes, including allowing instructors to assess students' understanding of texts. We will practice this important kind of academic writing in this assignment.
Purpose. Your purpose in writing a summary of an article is to demonstrate to your instructor that you have read the article closely. You will need to retell, objectively and concisely, the writer’s argument (thesis and reasons).
Audience. Your CO150 instructor. Your reader is, therefore, very familiar with the article. She will expect that your summary is accurate and objective, and will know if it is not.
Subject. Choose one of the following New York Times articles by Michael Pollan to summarize:
Strategies. To achieve your purpose with your audience, use these strategies.
Details.
Format: [Instructors, add your formatting requirements here. Typically, instructors ask that the summary be double-spaced, with a readable 11- or 12-point font, with reasonable margins, etc. Also, indicate what identification you want from students (name, date, course #, etc.)]. Turn in your summaries with other materials specified in class.
Length: about 1 double-spaced page
Worth: 5% of your final course grade.
Due: Beginning of week 3
Grading Criteria
Your instructor will ask these questions as she grades your summary. They are listed in order of importance.
Purpose/Audience: Does the summary convince the reader that the writer has read the article closely and understands its argument?
Conventions: Has the writer observed the genre conventions of academic summary?
Summary grades will be assigned as follows.
An “A” summary will convince your reader that you have read the article closely and represent its argument well. It will not only accurately and objectively report the argument, but will focus on the article’s purpose and how the argument supports that purpose. “A” summaries rely mainly on paraphrasing but will quote key words, phrases and/or sentences effectively. The reader of an “A” summary will always be aware that the summary refers to the article because it contains frequent and varied author tags. “A” summaries will be clear and readable without distracting editing errors.
A “B” summary will also convince the reader that you have read the article closely and represent its argument well. B summaries, however, will show that the writer needs to work on communicating information more effectively. These summaries will report the thesis and reasons of the argument but could organize them more effectively. “B” summaries may also need more work on balancing quoting and paraphrasing and/or attributing information. They will be clear and readable but may need further editing for minor errors.
A “C” summary will show the writer is learning to read closely and to summarize but has more work to do achieve all of the goals of the assignment. “C” summaries will be generally accurate, though they may contain minor misreadings. These summaries may contain subjective responses to the article as well as objective information. They will show an effort to focus on the argument, but may get sidetracked by giving too many details. A summary that reports information accurately but does not effectively represent the argument will also receive a C. These summaries might need stronger organization to show how the argument’s reasons support its thesis. “C” summaries may also need more editing for readability.
A “D” summary shows an attempt toward the assignment goals that has fallen far short. These summaries will show significant problems with close reading and will not communicate effectively. “D” summaries contain serious misreadings and inaccuracies. They may not focus on reporting the argument at all but instead list information from the article. The reader of a “D” summary is convinced that the writer has only a slim grasp of close reading and summarizing. These summaries often need editing to be clear.
An “F” summary ignores the assignment, or is unreadable due to language and coherence problems, or shows little to no understanding of the article or summarizing, or is plagiarized, or is not turned in.
Overview. When we're involved in meaningful inquiry, we often want to discuss what we're discovering and the questions our research raises. If we get really excited about a topic we're investigating, we want to get others interested in it. This assignment asks you to initiate a critical conversation with someone you know about the articles we've been reading by writing a letter. Its goal is to extend the conversation we've begun about "the ominvore's dilemma."
Purpose. The main purpose of your letter is to start a discussion with your reader about an article. You will need to inform your reader of the content of the article and convince them that the article is worth discussing critically.
Audience. You will choose the recipient of your letter. Choose a person who is interested in the topic or issues of the article, whom you know reasonably well, and who would have knowledge or experience of the issue(s). Teachers, professionals from various fields, and people with direct experience related to the topics/issues (in agriculture, vegetarianism, activism, etc.) will make the best choices of readers. Just be sure to choose someone who not only would be interested in the subject but who also might have a perspective about it that would help you understand the issues better. You will have to assume that your reader has not read the article.
Subject. Choose one of these articles by Michael Pollan from the New York Times:
Author. Present yourself as someone who has read Pollan's article closely and critically. Show your interest in discussing issues from the article thoughtfully and in coming to a broader and deeper understanding of those issues.
Strategies. To achieve your purpose with your audience, use these strategies:
Details.
Format: Use a standard letter format by beginning with date, a salutation (Dear _____) and ending with a closing (Sincerely, Your friend, Cheers,) and signature. Print your name under the signature. Double space the letter. Turn in your letter with other materials specified in class. (Letters to a family member or close friend will have a less formal format.)
Length. Three-four (3-4) ds pages.
Worth: 15% of course grade.
Due: Beginning of week 6.
Grading Criteria
Your instructor will ask himself these questions as he grades your letter. They are listed in order of importance.
Purpose/Audience. Does the letter identify and address its intended reader? Does it engage its writer and reader in a critical conversation on "the omnivore's dilemma"?
Conventions. Does the letter observe conventions of academic discourse that will enable a critical conversation with your reader?
Grades for the letter will be assigned as follows.
An "A" letter will convince your intended reader (and your instructor) that the article you chose is worthy of a critical discussion that furthers inquiry into "the ominvore's dilemma." These letters will show that you not only understand and represent Pollan's argument well but also can have a critical conversation about it. "A" letters will consider what Pollan's article has to say about eating in America, evaluate his contribution, and raise additional questions for further inquiry into the subject. These letters will not only inform their intended readers about Pollan's article but will also show readers how reading it can help them learn more about the question-at-issue. "A" letters focus on explaining why you recommend the article and are organized to highlight and explain reasons for your recommendation. "A" letters will show a good sense of purpose, audience and conventions and will be carefully edited for readability.
A "B" letter will also convince your audience that the article you chose is worth reading and discussing. These letters accurately and objectively represent Pollan's article, and they explain why it's worth reading. However, they need additional development to explain how the article contributes to inquiry into the question-at-issue or they could be more effectively organized. These letters may need more editing, but will be clear and readable.
A "C" letter but will show that the writer is working toward the assignment goals but has not entirely achieved them. In general, "C" letters will have problems developing an argument for how reading the article can lead to a critical discussion of the article. For example, a "C" letter may need a stronger focus on making and supporting the recommendation, more development of support for its recommendation, or more effective organization to convince the reader. Though they may have some minor inaccuracies, these letters will generally represent the article well. "C" letters may also need to observe conventions more closely.
A "D" letter will show an attempt to meet the goals of the assignment that falls short of doing so. A "D" letter has significant problems with critical reading and/or communication that prevents you from achieving your purpose with your audience.
An "F" letter ignores the assignment, or is unreadable due to language and coherence problems, or shows little to no understanding of the article or of critical reading, or is plagiarized, or is not turned in.
The following lesson plans are designed to demonstrate effective pedagogy for achieving CO150 course goals. Their primary audience is new teachers (or teachers new to CSU's composition program).
Phase 1 Lesson Plan Template
Below we have described the format we have followed in writing lesson plans for this syllabus. As the semester progresses and you take more ownership of your class you'll probably find ways of altering this template. We encourage you to do that when you feel comfortable--from the very start, you should customize the lesson plans in this syllabus so that the design is readable for you during class and so that you have conceptualized the lesson from start to finish.
Lesson Objectives
This is the overview of what you want to accomplish for the class session, i.e., what students should know or be able to do as a result.
Connection to Course Goals
Here, we've articulated the ways in which the class activities help lead us to accomplishing course goals. It's easy to overlook this step in favor of getting to the "to-do" list of activities, but taking time to articulate the connection to course goals can help you refine your plans, transition between activities, make decisions on the spot, and feel more confident in knowing why you are teaching what you're teaching.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing (CSOW)
In this section, we have explained the ways in which the class session is designed to be relevant to student writing. Students appreciate how CO150 class time always contributes (in some way) to a graded writing assignment.
Prep
Here we've explained the things you'll probably need to do to prepare for class.
Materials
Here are the things you'll need to have with you in class. We've left the everyday stuff (like chalk or markers, attendance sheet, etc.) off.
Lead-in
In this section, we discuss the ways in which the previous class session(s) and students' homework have set up today's class.
Activities
This is the list of things you'll do in class, including handouts, text for overhead transparencies, homework, and more. For the first few weeks we've included introductions, transitions, and conclusions in each lesson plan to guide new teachers. Soon you'll get used to that "scaffolding" enough that you'll write your own.
Connection to Next Class
Here we've shown some of the ways in which the lesson leads into the next.
Day 1 (Monday, August 20)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today's class introduces students to course goals, content, and structure, as well as their instructor and each other.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Introducing students to each other and to the course lays the groundwork for the Phase 1 writing assignments.
Prep
After orientation last week, you're well prepared to teach your first class (even if you feel like you're not!). To get ready for day 1, reread the syllabus introduction, revisit the first few readings you'll assign, prepare your materials (see the list below), ask for any advice, help, etc. you need (the lecturers are here for you!), and write out your own lesson plan (do this even if you plan to follow this one 100%--the act of writing it out in your own words and in a format that makes the most sense to you will give you confidence and will help you remember what you want to do, and why).
Materials
Class roster (as up to date as possible)
20 copies of your syllabus (if Writing Studio instructions aren't on your syllabus, prepare an extra handout with those)
Yellow handouts about the CO150 drop policy
Overhead transparencies:
Instructions for student introductions
Homework
Lead-In
Some students may have prepared for class today by buying the textbook. Also some may have set up Writing Studio accounts. Today is unique because it's a fresh start. Your students will come in with few ideas about what the class will be about, what the atmosphere will feel like, etc. One of your primary tasks for today is to establish a classroom culture that will work for you and your students, and to give students a fair idea of what they can expect for the rest of the semester.
Activities
Before class begins, write your name, the course number, section, and title on the board. Once all (or most) students have arrived, take a moment to introduce yourself--tell students what you would like them to call you, and consider what else you'd like them to know about you. The formality of your introduction will help set the tone for the semester, so consider the atmosphere you want to foster. It's much easier to become less formal as time goes on than it is to become more formal. Make sure everyone is in the right place--have students check their schedules to be sure that they're really in your section. Offer an "out" for anyone who is in the wrong room.
Use your roster to call names and make note of anyone who is absent. After you have called all the names on your list, ask if there is anyone in the room whose name you didn't call. If anyone raises his/her hand, take time to sort it out. Possible reasons why the student isn't on your roster include (in order of likelihood):
Transition It's important to articulate a connection between each activity so that your classes feel well-planned and organized and, even more importantly, so that your students understand the purposes of the activities you ask them to do. Over time, you'll get good at transitioning without thinking about it. You may already be good at this; one way to ensure that you use transitions, and to help you speed to transition-use stardom, is to write them out in your lesson plan. Over time, you can scale this back, but at first it's a really good idea to think through transitions ahead of time. Here, you can simply say something like: now that we know who is here, let's take a look at what this class will be about.
Spend time looking at the document with your students. Discuss the course description, your contact information, your grading system, and key course policies. You might not discuss every single thing in detail; if you don't (and even if you do), remind students to reread the document after class and to email you with any questions or concerns.
Transition Here you might say, we'll be doing a lot of work together in this course so let's start to get to know each other now.
Choose one of the introduction activities below, or use another that accomplishes the goal of allowing students to make connections with each other and the goal of setting precedents about participation and community.
Option 1:
In this activity, students pair up and interview each other; then they introduce each other to the rest of the class. Here are instructions which you can put on an overhead (be sure to enlarge the font to 16pt or larger):
Introductions
Pair up with someone seated near you (preferably someone you don't already know).
Take a few minutes to find out interesting things about your partner---you can ask the typical questions (name, major, hometown, etc.) but also try to find out something unusual, unique, silly, amazing, etc. so that we can start to learn about each other.
In a few minutes, I'll ask you to introduce your partner to the class, so be sure to jot down notes.
Option 2:
In this activity, you generate a handful of questions with the class and then go around the room and allow each student time to answer the questions. You can start out with the obvious--write "What's your name?" on the board. Ask the students what else they'd like to know about each other. Give them time--if nobody suggests anything, make another suggestion. Something like "What's your major?" works and might get them going with more suggestions. Once you have four or five questions listed, end with one of your own---something like "what did you have for dinner last night?" or "what's your favorite food?" can help connect this activity to our question-at-issue. Feel free to answer the questions yourself, too, if you'd like.
No matter the option you choose, keep track of time--it's easy for some students to get carried away. You need about 5 minutes after this activity to finish up with class. If you're running out of time, cut the activity short and finish it on Wednesday.
Transition Here you might say, now that we've met each other and learned some things about the course, we're ready to proceed with a great semester.
Put the homework on an overhead transparency, explain it, and allow students time to copy it down (as an alternative, you can make handouts; you can print 4 or 5 to a page and cut them apart to save paper and precious copies. If you worry about running out of time, or that students may not get everything copied down correctly, handouts are a good option).
Homework for Wednesday
- Log in to our class page at https://writing.colostate.edu. Instructions for how to do this are on the syllabus.
- From our class page, go to the File Folder and open the document called "One Thing to Do About Food."* Print this document out (it's very important that you have hard copies of our readings with you in class) and read it. For each essay, find a sentence (or two) that encapsulates the main idea of which the writer aims to convince us. Underline the sentence and/or write it out on a separate sheet. Do the other things you tend to do when you read closely (underline key passages, write questions and reactions in the margins, etc.). Bring this document to class with you on Wednesday.
- Be sure that you have purchased your textbook by Wednesday.
*These directions represent one method of making articles available to students: putting copies of them in the File Folder of your Writing Studio class page. Students may also retrieve articles from www.michaelpollan.com or through Morgan Library databases. See appendix for a student-ready handout with directions for retrieving articles from library databases.
Wrap up today's class and point students forward to Wednesday's class.
Be sure to always conclude class, even if you are pressed for time. Here you might say, it was great to meet all of you today; I'm looking forward to discussing the reading with you on Wednesday.
Connection to Next Class
Today you've taken care of a lot of "business" and you've prepared students for what they can expect next time. On Wednesday, you'll introduce students to academic inquiry and the question-at-issue.
You might take a moment to reflect on today's class, to assess what went well and what could have gone better (and go easy on yourself--you're probably way more aware of what you did or didn't say/do than your students are!), and to make notes about anything you need to remember for next time. Be sure to check email now and then before Wednesday so that you can help students out with questions, Writing Studio issues, etc.
Day 2 (Wednesday, August 22)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today's class focuses on close reading and begins to introduce rhetorical concepts.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Identifying thesis statements practices close reading and prepares students for summary writing. Developing questions for further inquiry will engage students in ongoing inquiry that they will write about in Phase 1 and Phase 2 assignments.
Prep
Before today's class, be sure you have reread "One Thing to Do About Food,” revisited the Writing as a Conversation model and written your own lesson plan.
Materials
"One Thing to Do About Food" (annotated for each author's thesis and reasons)
Overhead Transparencies:
Identifying Thesis Statements activity instructions
Homework (or make handouts for homework--do the same thing that you did on Monday)
Lead-In
For today's class, students have read "One Thing to Do About Food," have looked for thesis statements, and are expecting to discuss the reading. Note that it's not uncommon at all to have a few students come to class the second day without having done the homework. Usually this is because of technical difficulties that the students have waited until class to tell you about. Any unprepared student can join with a peer to look on with the reading and will be able to follow along during class. Be sure to arrange a way to help the student with the problems and point out how important it is to keep up with everything. Remind students of the upcoming limited add/drop policy deadlines. Refer them to the yellow sheet you handed out on the first day.
Activities
If you arrive to class a few minutes early, you might write the "agenda" on the board. A brief list of today's activities could go something like: "Discuss reading; Identify thesis statements; Introduce summary; Further inquiry." If you do this, make it a routine so that students know what to expect.
Take care of any remaining registration issues, and be sure to note which students are absent.
Begin today's class by previewing the activities you have planned: today we are going to start talking about academic inquiry and the subject we'll be inquiring into together over the next several weeks-- food ethics.
Prepare an overhead transparency with instructions:
Write-to-Learn
On a sheet you can turn in, please write for a few minutes in response to the following questions:
- Are there problems with food in the U.S. today? If so, what are some of them? If not, why are so many people concerned about food right now?
- What are some of the problems with food in other parts of the world?
- What are some ethical (right/wrong) debates about food?
- Do you have an answer for "what should we eat?" If so, what is it? If not, why not?
When students have finished writing, engage them in a brief discussion of their responses. Then collect the Write-to-Learns. You'll want to read them over to get a preliminary sense of your students and their writing as well as to start a list of inquiry questions and topics.
Transition: We've come to this class with our own knowledge, beliefs and values about food, and we've read what several writers think about the issue. From this starting point, we'll explore the subject together.
Explain to students that as members of the academic community, one of our goals is to inquire into significant questions. Working together, we can see what others have to say about such questions and find "answers" to them. Explain the inquiry list. Here’s a sample explanation:
As we work over the next few weeks, we will be keeping track of the questions and terms we want to know more about. I will start a list as I read your WTLs from today. During each class session, someone will be in charge of adding questions to the list rasied by our reading and discussions.
Then ask for a volunteer “list-keeper” for today (or start with the first (or last) name on your roster). The "list-keeper" should listen especially carefully during discussions to make a record of the ideas and questions that come up. Also, the list-keeper can add questions of his/her own.
Transition: one of the ways we will inquire is to discuss what we are reading.
Talk with your students about the reading. While the aim of this activity is to teach students what it means to read a text closely, it's very likely that students will have reactions and opinions they want to share. You might start off with a general question, such as "which writer did you agree with most?" or "which of these suggestions do you think would work best?" As students offer answers, encourage them to talk to each other by responding with questions like "how many people agree (or disagree) with that?" or "who had a different reaction?" Don't hesitate to ask "why" or for clarification. If your students are very reluctant to speak, give them a WTL and then ask for some responses. If your students are overly-exuberant, keep track of time so that you can move forward with class after 10 minutes or so.
Transition: these reactions show that, often, writing gets a conversation going.
Explain the ways in which writing is similar to conversation. Here’s a sample explanation:
Like a conversation, writing involves exchanges of ideas that help us shape our own ideas and opinions. It would be foolish to open your mouth the moment you join a group of people engaged in conversation—instead, you listen for a few moments to understand what’s being discussed. Then, when you find that you have something to offer, you wait until an appropriate moment to contribute. We all know what happens to people who make off-topic, insensitive, inappropriate, or otherwise ill-considered remarks in a conversation.
The following is a visual representation of the way in which this course is designed around the writing as conversation metaphor. Present it to students on an overhead, or draw it on the board.
Right now, we are at the first stage: reading what others have written. That is, we are listening in on the conversation.
Take time to define "thesis statement." There are many ways of defining this term; for our purposes a definition such as "the main idea that the writer wants to communicate to readers" works well.
How can a reader find a thesis statement? Brainstorm ideas.
The writers in "One Thing to Do About Food" have made their thesis statements pretty easy to find, because each essay focuses on answering the question: "What is the one thing we can do about food to make the most difference in current food-related problems?" Practice with Peter Singer's essay--what is his answer to the question? (He says, “don’t buy factory-farm products.”)
Now, give students a chance to practice this in small groups. Give instructions for group work on an overhead before you divide students into groups.
Identifying Thesis Statements
Work with your group to identify the thesis statement in one of the "One Thing to Do About Food" essays.
If you disagree, try to figure out why, and try to reach a consensus.
In a few minutes, you'll report your findings back to the class.
Group 1-Schlosser
Group 2-Nestle
Group 3-Pollan
Group 4-Berry
Group 5-Duster and Ransom
Group 6-Shiva
Group 7-Petrini
Group 8-Hightower
Have students count off from 1 through 8 to create groups (all 1’s will group together, all 2’s together, and so on). Direct groups to particular parts of the room. Give groups a chance to say "hello" to each other, and then remind them of the task at hand.
It probably won't take groups a lot of time to do this; ask the first two groups finished to come to the front of the room and write the thesis statement they came up with on the board.
Once you have two theses on the board, talk them through with the class. Ask groups to explain why and how they identified this particular thesis, and ask the class if they agree with this group's identification. You can refer to your own notes to add on to (or to correct, if needed) what the groups have come up with. Remind students that thesis statements don't always come in the first paragraph, nor are they always neatly packaged in one obvious sentence.
Transition Being able to find the writer's thesis statement is essential to listening to what the writer has to add to the conversation on an issue.
Assign the following as homework:
Homework for Friday
- Read pages 163-168 in The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers (PHG).
- View the video titled “The Meatrix” (available through the links section of our class page) and the accompanying presentation (available in the file folder).
- Annotate "One Thing to Do About Food" to identify reasons that support each author's thesis.
Conclude class by saying something like, on Friday, we will work on identifying how these writers support their thesis statements and work on writing summaries.
Connection to Next Class
On Friday, you will continue on with concepts you introduced today and introduce academic summary. In class, you will review summary writing, and students will work collaboratively to write summaries of the arguments in "One Thing to Do About Food."
Day 3 (Friday, August 24)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today's class focuses on close reading and begins to introduce rhetorical concepts.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Writing collaborative summaries gives students practice with summary writing, the focus of our first graded assignment.
Prep
Before today's class, be sure you have reread "One Thing to Do About Food," added to the "inquiry list" owithquestions and terms from Wednesday's WTL's, reviewed the PHG reading and "The Meatrix" PowerPoint, and written your own lesson plan.
Materials
Inquiry List
"One Thing to Do About Food" (annotated for each author's thesis and reasons)
Overhead Transparencies:
Group Summary Activity instructions
Homework (or make handouts for homework--do the same thing that you did on Wednesday)
6 blank overhead transparencies (you can get these from the mailroom in Eddy)
6 overhead markers, such as Vis a Vis (you'll need to supply these yourself)
Lead-In
For today's class, students have reread "One Thing to Do About Food," looking for reasons to support each thesis statements, and are expecting to discuss the reading. They have also viewed the PowerPoint about summarizing and have read about summaries in the PHG.
Activities
Write the agenda on the board if that’s what you’ll prefer to do throughout the semester. From here on out, the lesson plans in this syllabus won’t include this item, so remember to add it to your own lesson plans if you will be using it.
Take care of any remaining registration issues, and be sure to note which students are absent.
Ask students to sit with their groups from Wednesday.
Begin today's class by previewing the activities you have planned: today we will practice demonstrating close reading by writing summaries.
We ask students to write summaries that demonstrate their accurate comprehension of the texts. Writing a summary requires one to set aside one’s own biases and preconceived ideas and really listen. The summaries that students write will enable us to assess their ability to distinguish between subjective reactions and objective understanding of what a text says.
Introduce academic summary by explaining the above in your own words. On the board, write:
Academic Summary
Purpose: to offer a condensed and objective account of the main ideas and features of a text; to demonstrate your accurate comprehension of a text
Audience: your instructor
Make sure students understand what "objective" means, and then ask students to talk about how they might go about writing a summary that accomplishes the above purposes for the audience. That is, how can students write a summary that will show you, the instructor, that they have understood what they have read?
This is a key moment of learning for students. They're probably used to being told how to write a particular kind of document. Give them time to think through your question, and be encouraging about even minor suggestions (provided they apply--if a student says "write about why I disagree," for example, you don't want to validate that because it will confuse everyone in the class). Below "Purpose" and "Audience" on the board, make a list of "Strategies." Once students have offered everything they seem to have, take time to assess the list of strategies. If there's anything that seems off, clarify it. If anything essential is missing, add it and explain why you are adding it. It's ok if this list isn't 100% complete because students will read more about writing summaries for homework, and you will cover it more in class next week. You may want to refer to "The Meatrix" PowerPoint lesson on summarizing as you prompt students here. In a perfect world, the following would be on the list in some form (explanations you might give are in parentheses):
Choose one of the essays in "One Thing to Do About Food" and model the process of summary writing for students. Start with the thesis, and then help students identify key points. Here's an example from Peter Singer's essay:
Start by writing "Peter Singer, ‘One Thing to Do About Food,’ The Nation, and September 11, 2006" on the board.
You've already identified the thesis: "don't buy factory-farm products." Write this on the board, and then introduce the concept of "key points."
Often, key points are reasons, or "because" statements that support the thesis. Sometimes they are not phrased with the "because" conjunction, though they could be. Ask students to find particular language in Singer's essay that explains why he thinks we should not buy factory-farm products. Possibilities include: "Factory farming is not sustainable," it is “the biggest system of cruelty to animals ever devised," factory farmed animals have lost "most of their nutritional value," and factory farming "is not an ethically defensible system of food production."
How do these statements differ from ones like "pig farms use six pounds of grain for every pound of boneless meat we get from them" and "pregnant sows are kept in crates too narrow for them to turn around"? The difference, mainly, is in scope--the statements quoted in the paragraph above are broader and use general language; they are reasons. The statements quoted in this paragraph are narrower and give specifics; they are evidence for the reasons. A way to determine whether or not a statement is a reason or if it is evidence is to see if it can be grouped with other similar statements in the essay. Singer includes a few more statements about feed for animals--see paragraph 3. He includes other statements about animals' quality of life--see paragraph 4. Writers often offer several pieces of similar evidence to prove a reason; Singer has done so in this essay.
With a thesis and some reasons listed, you’ve got a good start. But does this cover all of Singer's main points? Not really; arguments often contain more main points than just a thesis and reasons (sometimes they offer concessions, refute counter arguments, or suggest solutions. These things do not offer direct reasoning for the thesis, but still they are integral parts of the argument). In Singer's case, he has included an alternative to his thesis: he says that the best thing we could do would be to "go vegan," or at least vegetarian. This is another key point, though it is not a reason for the thesis (saying "We should not buy factory farm products because we should go vegan" doesn't make logical sense). Leaving this point out of the summary altogether, though, would be misrepresenting the text.
On the board, now, you should have the basic things that would need to go into a summary of Peter Singer's essay. Ask students how they would turn this list into paragraphs. How long might the summary be? Might you incorporate quotes?
Transition Since I'm asking you to write a summary for homework, I'd like to give you a chance to practice writing one here in class.
In this activity, students will work in their small groups to complete the same tasks you just worked through on the board, and to write the summary in paragraph form. They should continue on with the same essay they used in Wednesday’s activity. Explain the group work instructions (on an overhead transparency) and then give groups time to work.
Group Summaries
Work with your group to write a summary of one of the essays in "One Thing to Do About Food":
First, read the essay closely and make an outline like the one we just did together
- Identify the author, title, magazine, and date
- Identify the thesis
- Identify the reasons/key points
Then, come up to the front of the room to get a blank transparency and an overhead pen.
Write an academic summary in paragraph form. Please write your summary on the overhead transparency so that we can look at it next week during class.
Circulate around the room to answer questions and to keep track of how much time the groups will need. You need a few minutes after this activity to assign homework. Once all (or most) groups are finished, collect the transparencies and markers. Talk about the writing process, and ask if students have questions about writing summaries.
Transition:
For homework you have a new article to read and summarize--this one is by Michael Pollan (the author who wrote about the farm bill).
Assign the following as homework:
Homework for Monday
- Access, print and read “Our National Eating Disorder” by Michael Pollan [remind students where/how to get it]. Use close reading strategies as we discussed in class.
- Using your notes from today’s class as well as the summary example and guidelines on pages 164-168, draft a summary of Pollan's article. Print out your draft and bring a copy of it to class with you on Monday.
Conclude class by saying something like, next week we will continue with our work of academic inquiry by working more on summary and by generating inquiry questions as we talk about Michael Pollan's work.
Connection to Next Class
On Monday, you will continue on with concepts you introduced today. Identifying a writer's argument will get more complex as we ask students to read more complex articles, so you'll need to spend more time with that. Students will be self-evaluating their summaries on Monday as well; to model that, you can use one of the groups’ summaries from today's class.
Day 4 (Monday, August 27)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today, students continue to practice close reading as they learn to recognize strategies writers use to accomplish goals and connect with audiences.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Practicing close reading will help students write effective summaries. Self-workshops encourage students to look at their own work critically in order to revise.
Prep
Decide how you will prefer to keep your attendance record from here on out (you shouldn’t have any more roster changes), and set up what you need in order to do that. Also, decide how you will hold students accountable for reading—quizzes? WTLs? another activity? You don’t have to do the same thing every time, but be sure you do something, especially at first, so that students do the reading. Reread “Our National Eating Disorder” and your own summary of it from GTA orientation. Make sure you have notes about what needs to go into a summary of this article. Make your own adjustments to the summary criteria and the assignment sheet as well.
Materials
Inquiry list
Attendance record
“Our National Eating Disorder” (annotated)
Your notes on and summary of the article
Summary assignment sheets
Overhead transparencies:
Quiz questions or WTL prompt
Summary criteria
Self-workshop instructions
Lead-In
For today’s class, students have read “Our National Eating Disorder” and they have drafted summaries. They are expecting to discuss Pollan’s piece and their summaries. Since Pollan’s article is more complicated than the “One Thing to do About Food” essays from last week, and because summary writing may be new to many students, students might be coming to class today with questions and uncertainties.
Activities
After today’s class you should not have any roster changes, so you can begin to take attendance in the same way you’ll take attendance throughout the semester. Be sure to keep an accurate record so that you can apply your attendance policy fairly. Keeping accurate attendance records is essential. If you end up lowering a student’s grade for excessive absences, you must have accurate records of the classes missed.
Introduce today’s class by designating a student to be in charge of the inquiry list today. Link back to last week (last week, we began to inquire and to learn about summary writing for example). Preview the activities you’ll do today.
Allow students time to talk about the homework by asking questions such as:
Transition The articles we are reading this week are considerably more complex than the essays we read last week, so we’ll be sure to take time to understand what they say.
Take plenty of time to discuss what Pollan says in “Our National Eating Disorder.” Here you’re modeling what you are asking students to do for the first assignment, so it’s important that you talk it through so that students see how a more complex argument can be structured.
Start by brainstorming ideas on the board. What does Pollan say? Here, anything that is objective and accurate (even if it is a minor point, evidence, etc.) is worthwhile. Write student responses on the board (or ask a student to be your “scribe”).
Once you have most or all of Pollan’s major points on the board, begin to label them: thesis, reasons, evidence, key points (such as counterarguments, questions-at-issue, causes and effects, solutions, etc.).
Here’s an example of how a class might brainstorm “Our National Eating Disorder.” On the board, you can shorten student responses.
What Pollan says:
Allow yourself time to look through your own notes to see if there is anything to add to the list your students develop and then allow students another opportunity to add anything more.
Finally, determine what should go into a summary in order to accurately and objectively represent Pollan’s argument (you really can’t go overboard in reminding students of the purposes of summary writing). It’s tempting to summarize in chronological order (Pollan says X and then X and then X, etc.), but that doesn’t enable one to restate the argument. Take time to determine Pollan’s thesis first. As with the essays from last week, Pollan does not announce his thesis in his first paragraph.
One way to do this is to label the items in the list as part of the thesis (you can write “thesis?” next to any items up for debate), as reasons, as key points (you can specify what kind of key point it is), and as evidence.
As you talk students through these decisions, you don’t need to “give them the answers.” That is, you don’t need to write out The Thesis on the board for them, in part because that would be doing the work you want them to learn how to do. More so, though, because there is not just one way of stating Pollan’s thesis. Though we ask students to be objective in the summary, identifying and rephrasing the thesis is, to a degree, an interpretive act that can’t be 100% objective. Here are several acceptable ways of phrasing Pollan’s thesis:
Americans have a paradoxical relationship to food which has made us “the world’s most anxious eaters.”
Michael Pollan says that America’s scientific approach to making decisions about food has created a culture of anxious, guilt-ridden eaters who, while “obsessed” about health are really quite unhealthy.
According to Michael Pollan, Americans need to change their attitude towards eating from a paradoxical one to one that balances health and pleasure.
Talk about how Pollan supports his thesis, being sure to sort out confusion about key points vs. evidence. Refer back to the explanations in last week’s lesson plans for ways of helping students discern the difference.
Give students a chance to look through their own summaries to make notes of things they might add or remove (more opportunity for this later, too).
Transition the most important thing you can do in your summary is accurately and objectively represent the writer’s argument. Let’s look at the other criteria now.
Remind students of a summary’s purpose and audience as you present the following on an overhead transparency:
Purpose/Audience: Does the summary convince the reader that the writer has read the article closely and understands its argument?
- Accuracy: Does the summary accurately represent the author’s thesis and reasons/key points? Does the summary contain misreadings? Does the summary omit key elements of the article?
- Objectivity: Does the summary remain focused on fairly retelling the author’s main ideas? Has the summary writer included anything subjective (such as reactions, judgments, etc.)? Has the summary writer included minute details in addition to or in place of larger points?
Conventions: Has the writer observed the genre conventions of academic summary?
- Attribution: Does the summary cite the author, title, date and publication of the article? Does the summary writer use author tags so that it remains clear that he/she is retelling the author’s ideas?
- Quotes and Paraphrases: Does the summary contain both paraphrases and quotes? Are the paraphrased and quoted passages appropriately chosen? Are they well integrated into the summary? [we’ll go over how to quote and paraphrase next class]
- Style: Has the writer maintained an objective tone throughout the summary? Is the summary carefully edited for clear communication?
Point out that this is a hierarchy. That is, the items at the top of the list are more important to a successful summary than are the items at the bottom of the list.
Transition let’s use these criteria to workshop the draft you brought in today.
Present the following prompts on an overhead transparency, and ask students to work through them with their own summaries (anyone without a summary can work on drafting one now). Explain how they reflect the criteria you just reviewed so that students don’t think of them simply as a checklist.
Summary Self Workshop
This workshop will help you determine how well you have accomplished the goals of representing the writer’s argument both accurately and objectively.1. Underline the sentence(s) in which you have restated the author’s thesis.
2. Circle the author’s name, the date of publication, and the title of the magazine or newspaper in which the article was published.
3. Put a star by each reason or key point.
4. Draw a box around each author tag.
5. Draw [brackets] around anything superfluous: any of your own opinions or reactions and/or minutiae from the article (evidence, anecdotes, etc.).Now, look over your paper. You should have: an underlined sentence or two, three circles, a few stars, and a few boxes. If any of those things are missing, make a note to yourself that you need to add them in revision. If you have anything in brackets, be sure to remove them in revision.
If you're concerned that you will run out of time, you might consider discussing criteria one at a time and asking students to look at their own summaries to see if they meet the criterion. For example, you could first explain "Accuracy," then ask students to underline the thesis and reasons and then make a marginal note about whether they are represented accurately. Then you would move on to "Objectivity." This way, if you don't have time to get through all the criteria today, you can address them Wednesday.
Collect the summaries, with however much of the self-workshop done. You can read through these to assess students' progress toward summary goals. You might make a single comment on each summary to let students know how they are doing on accuracy and/or objectivity. You can look at how the class as a whole is doing on other criteria and address their strengths and weaknesses in Wednesday's lesson. Collecting summaries today will also help hold students accountable for homework.
Today you can begin to assign homework in the way you will do so throughout the rest of the semester. If you plan to post homework to the Writing Studio, it is fine to remind students of that and simply talk through the homework assignment. You might continue to put the homework on the overhead and/or create handouts, but be aware that your students might come to rely on that and ignore the Writing Studio calendar. Some teachers choose to write the homework on the board with the agenda. Whatever you choose to do, today is the day to start the routine. Be sure to collect the inquiry list before students leave.
Homework for Wednesday
Access, print, and read [Instructors, add your choice of articles here: “Mass Natural” and/or “You Are What You Grow.” If you choose to assign both, be sure to specify which you want students to summarize, and be sure to adjust Wednesday’s lesson plan so that you have time to discuss the content of both].
Draft a summary of Pollan’s article. Bring a printed copy of your summary draft.
Find the Academic Summary assignment sheet under Assignments. Print it and bring it to class. (This is one option for dealing with assignment sheets. You may forgo this and simply make copies for the class and bring them on Wednesday.)
Wrap up today’s class by saying something like, next time, we’ll look at another article by Michael Pollan, and we’ll go over quoting and paraphrasing.
Connection to Next Class
Today you’ve emphasized the importance of taking time to understand what an author is saying. Next time, you won’t need to spend as much time on this because, presumably, students will read more closely this time around. Because you've focused on discussing the homework and you've collected it, any students who came unprepared today should be more inclined to prepare for Wednesday.
Day 5 (Wednesday, August 29)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
During today’s class students begin to see summary writing as a rhetorical act (that is, as a set of choices made to achieve a particular purpose with a particular audience).
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Introducing the Academic Summary assignment helps prepare them to write it. Students will continue to build the close reading and summarizing skills they need to write academic summaries.
Prep
For today’s class you need to have reread the assigned readings. Since today’s class includes a number of potentially time-consuming activities, you might take a moment to assess the way you have been customizing the lesson plans for yourself, and make any changes that would help you stay organized, focused, etc. during class.
Materials
Inquiry list
Reading(s) for today with notes
Summary assignment sheets (if you plan to hand them out; if you assigned printing out the assignment sheet, ask those who forgot to look on with another student)
Overhead transparencies:
Directions for group activity
Reading quiz or WTL prompt
Quoting and paraphrasing
6-8 blank transparencies for group activity
Lead-in
For today’s class students have read another Pollan article, and they have drafted another summary. They may have questions about the summary assignment.
Activities
Take attendance in the same way you did on Monday.
Designate a student to add on to the inquiry list for today. Link to last class and preview your activities for today.
Design an activity that will review the content of and hold students accountable for the reading homework. Remember to put questions/prompts on an overhead transparency.
As you did on Monday, take time to check in with students about the summary writing and their understanding of the reading. Return the summaries you collected Monday and make some general comments to the class about the common strengths and weaknesses you found. You might also want to remind students of how homework fits into their overall grade and explain any marks or comments you made on their summaries.
If you assigned both “Mass Natural” and “You Are What You Grow,” you’ll need more time for this activity, probably:
Generate summary points with students by asking two or three students to come to the board with their summary and write out the thesis statement they identified. While students are doing this, talk with the rest of the group about how they identified the thesis, and what key points they chose to include.
Note: you could ask two or three students to write on the board before class begins (just be sure you don’t have a quiz question about Pollan’s thesis!).
Once you have a few theses on the board, compare them to each other. It’s likely that they will be somewhat similar, though if they vary greatly you’ll need to spend time determining why that is. It might be a matter of scope (maybe one student looked more narrowly at Pollan’s argument than another student, for example), it could be a genuine misreading (if so, try to lead the class to an understanding of that rather than evaluating it on the spot), or it could be something else. In any event, work with your students to come to a consensus about which of the thesis statements on the board is both objective and accurate. Point out (again) that there is not just one way of representing Pollan’s argument (though there are limits to what passes as accurate).
Ask students to share the key points they chose to include. You don’t need to list these on the board as you did last time; students should be getting this concept by now.
Transition we’re getting pretty good at reading to understand a writer’s argument, and that’s key to writing a successful academic summary. Let’s look now the Academic Summary assignment.
Ask students to take a few minutes to re-read the assignment sheet. Then, walk them through it (no need to read it word-for-word, but be sure to highlight the essentials) and allow students time to ask questions. If a student asks a question you don’t want to answer right away, simply say, “let me get back to you about that” and then be sure to return to it on Friday. Since you’ve already looked at the criteria, you don’t need to do that again. Show students the letter-grade descriptions and ask that they read them over before next class.
Transition For Friday, you will revise one of the summaries you've written and bring it to class for a peer response workshop. Some of you have probably done peer response workshops before. Let's talk about your experiences.
Ask students if they have done peer response in previous classes and what their experiences have been. Move toward generating a list of helpful and not-so-helpful types of feedback. You can collect these on a blank transparency so that you can bring them back on Friday when you introduce the peer response activity. Remind students of your goal for peer response--to get reader feedback on work-in-progress. This would be a good time to remind them of your workshop policy, emphasizing the need to come prepared with a draft.
Homework for Friday
Revise one of the summaries you've written. Bring a printed copy of your summary draft for a peer workshop on Friday.
Reread the summary assignment sheet and email with any questions you have.
Read pages 205-206 about paraphrasing and quoting, and jot down any questions that come up.
Wrap up today’s class by saying something like, next time, we’ll go over quoting and paraphrasing, and you’ll get a chance to get some feedback from a classmate.
Connection to Next Class
You’ve gotten students used to bringing their own writing into the classroom and so some of students’ nervousness about peer workshopping might be lessened. Next time, you’ll do a practice workshop before students trade papers to give each other feedback and that will give you a chance to address concerns and misconceptions about what workshops will be like in CO150.
Day 6 (Friday, August 31)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
During today’s class, students will, on a small scale, engage in an academic community by participating in peer workshop.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
The work students do with quoting and paraphrasing will help them write effective summaries. Student writing becomes the focus of today’s class during the peer workshop.
Prep
For today’s class you need to have recorded the quizzes or WTLs from last time and to have made a list of discussion questions in case you have extra time at the end of class.
Materials
Inquiry list
Reading(s) for today with notes
Workshop handouts
Overhead transparencies:
Paraphrasing and quoting
Peer response guidelines you generated on Wednesday
Lead-in
For today’s class students have drafted another summary. They may have questions about the summary assignment, and they may be apprehensive about the prospect of peer workshopping.
Activities
Take attendance in the same way you did on Monday.
Designate a student to add on to the inquiry list for today. Link to last class and preview your activities for today.
Introduce the concepts of quoting and paraphrasing first (use an overhead transparency to save yourself having to write everything out on the board):
Quoting and Paraphrasing
Both quoting and paraphrasing are methods of representing another writer’s language and ideas in your own writing. Since summary is a condensed version of another writer’s ideas, summary depends heavily on quoting and paraphrasing.
Quoting: inserting another writer’s exact words into your writing. The exact words are contained within quotation marks. For example:
Peter Singer says, “Going vegetarian is a good option, and going vegan, better still. But if you continue to eat animal products, at least boycott factory farms.”
Paraphrasing: rephrasing another writer’s language into your own language, voice, and style. For example, the quote above could be paraphrased like this:
Peter Singer wants us to become vegetarian or vegan but he says that if we still want to eat meat, eggs, cheese, etc. we should avoid those that come out of factory farms.
Or like this:
Peter Singer asserts that many of the nation’s food problems would be helped were U.S. citizens to become vegans, vegetarians, or, at minimum, unwilling to purchase food from factory farms.
Paraphrasing can be tricky because it requires true understanding of the passage’s original meaning. Some paraphrases are better than others. The following is a poor paraphrase because it misrepresents Singer’s point:
Peter Singer says that people really need to become vegan or vegetarian but since many people refuse to do that, they could help out a little by not buying things that come from factory farms.
The following paraphrase is poor because it doesn’t fully rephrase Singer’s idea:
Peter Singer hopes that people will choose to go vegetarian or vegan or at least boycott factory farms.
Next, lead students through an activity that allows them to practice these concepts.
Group Practice
Choose an important phrase or sentence from one of the articles we’ve read already and copy it out on an overhead transparency (since it will be a quote, be sure to use quotation marks).
Paraphrase the language in at least two ways. Write your two paraphrases on the transparency below the quote.
Give an example of a poor paraphrase as well.
Choose someone (or two) from your group to present your transparency to the class.
This kind of activity can take up tons of time, so keep an eye on your watch. If you tend to run out of time during class, you might select phrases or sentences ahead of time and write them on the transparencies yourself. Allow students time to work, and when all (or most) groups are finished, call groups up one at a time to present their work. It’s ok if every group does not have time to present. If your students are more interested in their transparencies and each other than they are in the presentations, you might collect the pens (you’re probably thinking that this would be unnecessary; pens and transparencies do, though, inexplicably fascinate some students!).
After the presentations, sum up with the following guidelines on the overhead:
In a summary, quote when:
- You want to capture the writer’s tone
- The writer has said something particularly memorable
In a summary, paraphrase when:
- It’s the idea and not the tone, voice, or style that is important
- You can rephrase the writer’s ideas both accurately and briefly
We’ve incorporated peer workshops into the syllabus in a number of different ways; we use workshop to help students engage in an academic community as well as to learn more about writing and its processes. The aim of a workshop is not to have a paper “pre-graded” by a peer (there are more problems with that idea than we have room to explain here) and so, more often than not, we ask students to describe the text they are workshopping and to explain their reactions as readers (not evaluators). Based on their prior workshop experiences, students may also believe their job is to "correct" their peer's paper, editing it for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We want students to avoid focusing on editing in most workshops. In addition, rarely do we ask students to evaluate their peers’ writing, though that is what many students will expect out of workshop. When we do ask for some evaluation, it is always linked to criteria such as, in this case, accuracy. Our aim, therefore, is to give students an idea of how their writing could be read. We encourage students to consider every reading and response as valid to some extent, and to make their revision choices as carefully as they read.
Still, many students expect that their peers will tell them that their paper is either “good” or “bad” and, depending on past experiences, some students will be eager for this kind of praise or will dread this kind of criticism. Refer back to the discussion of helpful and not-so-helpful peer response comments from Wednesday to set your expectations for effective peer response.
Distribute copies of the workshop instructions (it’s worth it to make a handout so that students may refer to it as they revise and as they seek more feedback from others). Give students a moment to read over them, and then practice on the sample summary. You don’t have to go through all of the workshop questions on the sample; go through enough of them so that students get to see how to construct meaningful feedback as well as what kinds of comments are useful, and what kinds are not so useful.
Then allow students time to find a partner. They should trade summaries, work through the workshop prompts on the handout, and then take time to consider the feedback they receive. After most everyone is finished, talk for a bit about revision. Explain that students don’t have to make every change that their partner suggested, nor are they limited to making only the changes their partner suggested. Remind students that revision is different from editing and proofreading, and that after revision their summary might be very different from its current state.
Students are likely to ask if you'll grade their paper based on whether or not they follow peers' workshop advice when revising their papers. This is a good opportunity to explain your workshop policies. We usually tell students that we evaluate the final paper on its merits when assigning a grade; however, we may comment on how they may have better used peer advice.
Summary Peer Workshop
In this workshop, one of your classmates will give you feedback on your summary’s accuracy and objectivity. (Accuracy and objectivity are the first two grading criteria for the summary, so the feedback you give and receive will be especially valuable!) as well as on attribution and quoting and paraphrasing.
First, trade summaries with another student. Take out your copy of the article your partner has summarized. Re-read the article. Read your partner’s summary and then:
1. Underline your partner’s restatement of the author’s thesis and then check it for accuracy. Does it fully capture the author’s main message? Is it worded fairly? On the back of your partner’s summary, explain your ideas. If you recommend revision, be specific.
2. Put a star next to each reason or key point and then check these for accuracy. Do they fairly represent the writer’s ideas? Are any key points/reasons missing? On the back of your partner’s summary, explain your ideas. If you have time, make note of anything extra (minor points, evidence, etc.).
3. Read back over your partner’s summary, looking closely for subjectivity. Has your partner included his/her opinions at all in the summary? (Look for moments of response: agreeing or disagreeing, supporting or refuting, etc.). Has your partner passed judgment on the writer or his/her ideas? (Look for adverbs and adjectives in phrases like “Pollan outrageously suggests that. . .” or “Pollan’s wise advice is. . .”). Suggest ways for the writer to revise any subjectivity out of the summary.
4. Circle moments of attribution. These include information about the article such as its title, when and where it was published, and author tags. Let the writer know if at any point you lost track of the fact that he/she is writing about another writer’s ideas or if the writer needs to vary the author tags.
5. Thinking back to the quoting and paraphrasing activity we just did, identify quotes and paraphrases by writing a “q” next to each quote and a “p” next to each paraphrase. Is there a good balance of quoting and paraphrasing? Are quotes copied word-for-word? Are any of the paraphrases too close to the original phrasing? Can you suggest any revisions?
When you receive your paper back, take time to consider your partner’s understanding of your summary: is the sentence he/she underlined what you intended to be read as your restatement of the author’s thesis? What about the key points? Assume that your partner read carefully. What, in the writing, might have allowed the misreading? How can you revise it?
Finally, read over what your partner wrote on the back of your summary, ask your partner any questions you have, and then write a revision plan for yourself so you remember what you want to do when you sit down to revise.
Transition now that you have a revision plan, I want to make sure you understand what is due next time.
Ask students to take out the assignment sheet you handed out last time, to re-read it and to ask any questions they have. If your students don’t have any questions, verify that they understand what you are asking of them by posing questions like, “what is due next time?” and “what are the top two criteria for an academic summary?” Reiterate how you want students to turn in their work (electronically (and if so, by what time?) or hard copy, etc.).
Use any extra time you have to discuss where you are now with your inquiry. Call to mind the WTLs from the second day of class, and ask students to compare what they knew then with what they know now. What new questions have come up? Is the question “what should we eat?” more complex than the students thought at first? If you have a lot of extra time, ask students to share their opinions about recent readings. You could project into next week by bringing up the term “animal rights” and asking students their current ideas about that topic. If you tend to have extra time in class, you might prepare a list of questions to refer to as you facilitate discussion.
Assign the following as homework using the method you established last time:
Homework for Wednesday
Choose one summary to turn in for a grade on Wednesday. Revise and polish it and print it
out on a good printer. [Refer students to syllabus and assignment sheet guidelines for submitting assignments, late paper policy, materials to submit with final paper, etc.]
Read pages 17-29 and pages 157-163 in the PHG.
Remind students of office hours and/or email and encourage them to come to you if they are struggling. Also, remind students of any policies (late work, attendance, etc.) that could impact their grade on the summary assignment. Wrap up today’s class by explaining that next week, you will move from close reading (reading to understand a writer’s argument) to critical reading (reading to understand how a text works and how well a text works). You might also tell students to look ahead to anticipate the longer reading assignments due next week. Some may choose to get started on those.
Connection to Next Class
Today’s class has gotten students as ready as possible to turn in a summary on Wednesday, and it has suggested a shift into more complex work next week.
At some point soon you should consider how to manage your normal prep work and lesson planning along with the grading work you will get on Wednesday (not to mention the work you have for the classes you are taking). You might get ahead a bit with your prepping and lesson planning so that grading doesn’t seem to take over your life.
Labor Day holiday - no classes today!
Day 7 (Wednesday, September 5)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today’s class provides a formal introduction to the concept of rhetorical situation and its terminology, and begins to show students how to talk about how a text works rhetorically.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Understanding rhetorical situations applies to every writing assignment students do in this class as well as in other contexts.
Prep
Today’s class may require a lot of prep. You’re introducing complicated concepts. To be confident in teaching the material for today, you might need to spend considerable time reviewing the rhetorical situation model and the related terminology. Developing several ways to explain context to students will help you meet their needs, as that tends to be the most difficult concept for CO150 students to grasp.
Materials
Inquiry list
Overhead transparencies:
Postscript questions
Conversation model
Rhetorical situation graphic
Rhetorical situation questions
Your textbook
Instructions for group work (unless you choose to conduct a class discussion instead)
Lead-in
For today, students have revised a summary and are preparing to turn in the first graded assignment of the semester. You will also make the transition from close to critical reading.
Activities
By now you probably have a routine established for beginning class. Write out your own introduction for today--remember to preview the day’s activities and to keep the inquiry list going. Since it’s been 5 days since you’ve seen your students, it’s a good idea to remind the class of what you did last time.
Chat with your students for a few minutes, asking them to talk about how they revised, what they did with the workshop feedback, etc. It can be great for your classroom culture if your students will talk about specific useful feedback. Asking a question like, “what was the most useful idea you received in workshop?” can get a discussion going that can reinforce the value of workshop. If your students don’t want to get specific, ask them to talk generally about the experience of writing and revising summaries.
Alternative: have students write their postscripts first, then discuss their responses.
Next, put “postscript” questions on the overhead and give students a few minutes to answer them. You might ask them to write answers on the backs of the summaries they’re about to turn in. We do a postscript at the end of each graded assignment, and this allows students to reflect on the writing process as well as to communicate with you about their writing. The postscript shouldn’t be an opportunity for students to vent or otherwise complain, so you should construct your questions carefully. Think about what kinds of things you want to hear as you grade your students’ writing. Questions like “what did you get out of workshop?” or “what should we do differently as we work on our next assignment?” leave students very open to give all kinds of feedback that’s not directly relevant to their writing process and/or the final product they are about to turn in, and can be saved for a mid-semester evaluation. You may want to review the postscript questions in each chapter of the Prentice-Hall Guide for more ideas about writing postscript questions.
General postscript questions follow that tend to work well for most any assignment. Feel free to modify them to suit your students’ needs and to suit each assignment. When you put the questions on an overhead, be sure to add instructions that tell students where to write their answers, where to put the postscript (if they’re turning in a portfolio), etc.
Postscript Questions
1. Are you satisfied with your final draft? Why/why not?
2. With what did you find yourself to be most successful as you worked on this project?
3. With what did you struggle most? How did you overcome that struggle?
4. What did you do to revise? How did you use your workshop feedback?
5. Is there anything else you would like me to know about your writing process as I read your final draft?
Collect summaries from students and explain your grading practices (i.e. you use the same criteria for every summary, you read closely and carefully, you write comments for them that are intended to help them learn about writing and about ways to improve for the next assignment, it’ll probably take about a week for you to grade the summaries, etc. Depending on your and your students’ dispositions, you might also remind students that a lot of CO150 students don’t earn high grades on the first assignment).
Transition our next project will build on the close reading techniques we’ve been learning.
To transition students into critical reading, spend a few minutes reviewing what it means to read closely. Students have this knowledge now, so you can rely on them to explain it to each other. Get them started with a question like, “what does it mean to read closely?” and record their answers on the board. Leave some room to one side so that, in a few moments, you can compare critical reading with close reading.
Remind students of the writing as conversation metaphor. If they seemed to pick up on this well last week, you can ask “in what ways is writing similar to conversation?” or you can explain it again. Have the conversation model overhead handy so you can remind them that the class is designed with this metaphor in mind. Right now we’re still in stage 1 (reading what others have written), but we’re no longer reading only to understand the writer’s argument.
Transition we’re going to continue reading about our question-at-issue (what should we eat?), but now we’re going to be evaluating what we read as well.
Ask for student ideas regarding the concept of critical reading. If students get caught up in “criticism” and “criticizing,” present them with the alternative phrase “active” reading. What does it mean to read actively? What can you do to/with a text beyond reading closely?
List student ideas on the board next to your “close reading” list. There will be some overlap, since it’s impossible to read critically if you’re not also reading closely. Let students come to this realization on their own; if they don’t, be sure to point it out. Here is the language that the PHG uses to describe critical reading: “Critical reading simply means questioning what you read. You may end up liking or praising certain features of a text, but you begin by asking questions, by resisting the text, and by demanding that the text be clear, logical, reliable, thoughtful, and honest.” Students will read more about critical reading for homework, so it is not essential that you cover all of the ground now.
Observe the lists you’ve made on the board, and ask students to point out similarities and differences. The major difference is that close reading involves finding out what a writer is saying, and critical reading involves evaluating how (and how well) a writer has composed his/her text.
During this discussion, you may also want to talk about the role of critical reading in academic inquiry to help students understand why we do it. For example, understanding how an author addresses purpose, audience and context can help us evaluate the quality of information and arguments.
To begin looking at how the text is composed, readers need to ask questions about the rhetorical situation. Your students likely have never heard of “rhetorical situation” (though they may have heard the same concept referred to as the “writing situation”), so this will be new to students. Introduce the key terms and relationships with the Rhetorical Situation graphic on the overhead [link to high res Rhetorical Situation pdf graphic in appendix]
Next, show students questions they can ask to find out about the rhetorical situation (see pages 161-162 of the PHG).
Questions for Understanding the Rhetorical Situation
Writer and Purpose
Who is the writer? What does the writer know about the subject?
What is the writer’s frame of reference (or lens or point of view)?
What is the writer’s purpose?
Reader/Audience
Who are the intended readers?
What do these readers likely know and think about the subject?
What assumptions does the writer make about the readers’ knowledge or beliefs?
Occasion/Genre/Context
What is the occasion for this text?
What genre is this text?
What is the cultural or historical context for this text?
What key questions or problem does the writer address?
Thesis and Main Ideas
What is the writer’s thesis?
What key points support the thesis?
Organization and Evidence
Where does the writer preview the text’s organization?
How does the writer signal new sections of the text?
What kinds of evidence does the writer use (personal experience, descriptions, statistics,
interviews, authorities, analytical reasoning, observation, etc.)?
Language and Style
What is the writer’s tone (casual, humorous, ironic, angry, preachy, academic, other)?
Are sentences and vocabulary easy, average, or difficult?
What key words or images recur throughout the text?
Once a reader has answered these questions, he/she can go on to respond and evaluate, asking questions like: “is the overall purpose clear?” and “does the writer misjudge the readers?” and “did the tone support or distract from the writer’s purpose or meaning?”
The above questions show that close reading is embedded within critical reading—it’s important to know what a writer says and how he/she says it before we go on to offer our opinions about how well the text works.
Transition there are many new terms here; we're going to take some time to work through them as we discuss the upcoming readings. Critical reading is crucial to effective inquiry, so we will spend plenty of time on it in the next several classes.
Remind students what it means to inquire, and generate a list of ways in which Michael Pollan inquires. How does he decide what to inquire into? How does he find answers to his questions? Where does he position himself as he inquires? What does he do with his inquiries once they’re complete? Will he ever be able to “complete” his inquiry about food? etc.
Next, point out that we are inquiring as we’re reading and discussing these articles. Generate a list of ways in which we have been inquiring. Add to this list any ideas students can think of for ways in which we could push our inquiry further.
In the first two weeks of lesson plans, we included “if time” activities as well as some suggestions for ways to manage if you run out of time. No teacher can predict with 100% accuracy how long his/her class will need for certain activities, and so it’s important to think through some lesson plan alternatives before class. By now you probably know if your class tends to get carried away with some kinds of activities and/or if they finish some activities very quickly. It’s a good idea to have one relevant activity on hand that serves not just to fill time, but, more importantly, to enhance existing activities and concepts. Also, it’s a good idea to think through (and write down) what you can cut out or modify if you run short on time.
Assign the following for homework, collect the inquiry list and then wrap up class by reviewing key concepts from today and explaining what students can expect next time.
Homework for Friday
Read about rhetorical situations on pages 17-29 of the PHG, and read about critical reading on pages 157-163.
Access, print and read “An Animal's Place”[remind students how to access the reading]. Try out one of the critical reading strategies explained on pages 160-163 (either a double-entry log or a critical rereading guide). You may hand write or type this. On Friday, bring your double-entry log or critical rereading guide, your textbook and “An Animal’s Place.”
Find the Writing a Letter assignment sheet in Assignments on the Writing Studio and print it out to bring to class. [add this item to the homework if you choose to handle distributing assignment sheets this way]
Connection to Next Class
Next time you’ll come back to the rhetorical terminology you introduced today, and you’ll discuss one of Pollan’s longer pieces. Students will be able to see common strategies Pollan uses as he writes, and they may begin to compare "An Animal's Place" to the shorter Pollan articles they've read.
Day 8 (Friday, September 7)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today’s class hits on many course goals; students are immersed in an inquiry and they are practicing sophisticated rhetorical analysis.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Critical reading is part of the writing process. The letter-writing assignment focuses on analyzing and evaluating a text.
Prep
Your prep for today may also be substantial, as you will need to carefully re-read "An Animal's Place" and take notes for the critical reading strategies you assigned to students to be prepared for today’s class. Hopefully you have had time to read over the summaries you collected on Wednesday, at least cursorily. Maybe you’ve begun grading them. If not, think about ways you can budget your time between now and next Wednesday to get them graded without losing sleep.
Materials
Inquiry list
PHG
Overhead Transparencies
Rhetorical Situation graphic
WTL questions
Group work instructions
Writing a Letter assignment sheet handouts (if you choose to hand them out)
“An Animal’s Place”
Lead-in
For today’s class, students have, in effect, completed a rhetorical analysis of “An Animal's Place” (that is, they have done a double-entry log or a critical rereading guide).
Activities
Begin class as usual, being sure to preview activities and connect this class to Wednesday’s. Also, remember to keep the inquiry list going.
Check that students understand the reading by asking for definitions of the terminology from chapter 2, by asking small groups to paraphrase definitions of particular terms, and/or by going around the room and asking each student to contribute one piece of information (or a question) from the reading. If you ask, “did you understand the reading?” you may not be able to address all of the gaps in understanding, so be sure you cover the terms. You might show the rhetorical situation graphic once more, and recap how all of the parts are interrelated.
Ask students to discuss the double-entry logs and the critical rereading guides—which did they choose? How did they choose? What did they learn? Focus the conversation on the insights students gained from writing as they read, especially those things which they would not have noticed otherwise.
Tell students that they may need these notes for the next paper and that you will collect them with the paper. Or you may choose to collect them today in order to assess how well students are grasping the concepts (and to hold them accountable). Keep in mind that if you collect this homework, you do not have to respond individually to it. You can record that it's done, and respond to the whole class about shared strengths and weaknesses, and you can explain to students that you are simply using the assignment to assess what they know as you plan your teaching.
Transition develop a transition that will show how the textbook reading connects to critically reading “Power Steer.”
Since students have already critically read “An Animal's Place,” students should be well prepared for today’s discussion. You can divide students into groups and assign each group a particular aspect of the rhetorical situation to discuss. Be sure to provide written instructions. This shouldn’t take terribly long since students will already have their own notes to compare. Pose at least one evaluative question to each group as well, and encourage students to show evidence from the text (“how well did Pollan accomplish his goals? Why do you say this?”; “are Pollan’s assumptions about his audience fair? Why/why not?” etc.). Allow groups time to present. Today, it’s fine to push students further in their explanations and to add to and/or correct as needed (since this isn’t brand new to them).
Before you move on to the next activity, be sure you tie the pieces together in some way. It’s all well and good to analyze something by breaking it down into parts, but if you don’t answer the “so what?” question you haven’t understood how the text functions. What does your analysis tell you about the text? Often, analysis leads to evaluation. The goal is not simply to judge the text “good” or “bad” necessarily, so encourage students to use other adjectives, such as "entertaining," "vivid," "sensationalistic," "credible" (or not), "logical" (or not), "confusing," "amusing," etc. Encourage students to focus on their responses to the text and what causes those responses. Pose the “so what?” question to encourage students to put the pieces back together.
Transition develop a transition that connects the skills you just practiced with the Writing a Letter assignment.
Hand out the assignment sheet (or ask students to take out the one they printed from the WS) and go over it together. You can allow students time to read it silently, then highlight important aspects and answer questions or you can have students read sections of it aloud to the class. If you put the assignment sheet on an overhead instead of handing out copies, be sure the font is large enough (at least 16 pt.) that students can see it, and be sure you reiterate the importance of accessing the assignment sheet through the Writing Studio. This assignment is considerably more complicated than the summary, and students will need to be familiar enough with the assignment sheet that they can accomplish the basic assignment goals.
Transition write a transition that will connect this activity to the next.
Think through and write down your “if time” and “if I run out of time” ideas here.
Assign the following as homework, collect the inquiry list and then wrap up today’s class:
Homework for Monday
- Research Michael Pollan by going to his website (www.michaelpollan.com). Read some of the interviews with Pollan (under “about”), take a look at his biography and vitae as well as the rest of the site. Try to home in on things that are relevant to what we have been reading, but collect whatever information sparks your interest. Bring what you find to class on Monday, when we’ll gather at least one piece of information from each student as we aim to describe Pollan’s “frame of reference,” or “lens.”
- Access, print and read “Power Steer” (remind how to access) and do either a double-entry log or a critical rereading guide (whichever one you didn’t do for “An Animal's Place.”
- To class next time, bring your Pollan research, and your critical reading work for “Power Steer” and for “An Animal's Place.”
Connection to Next Class
Today, students began thinking about the next essay, which you’ll continue to work towards during class next week. The analytical work students are doing now is quite challenging, so keep encouraging students to hang in there.
Day 9 (Monday, September 10)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Discussing the role of the writer furthers students’ understanding of rhetorical situations both as they read and as they write.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
The discussion of Michael Pollan will give students another way to discuss a text in the letter they will be drafting soon.
Prep
For today’s class, spend time on Pollan’s website so that you can add to the information students bring to class. Reread and annotate “Power Steer.” Finish grading the summaries so you can return them at the end of class, or by next class.
Materials
Inquiry list
Notes from you research on Pollan's web site
Overhead transparencies:
Rhetorical situation
Blank transparencies for small groups (optional)
Overhead pens (optional)
Graded summaries to return (unless you will return them Wednesday)
Lead-in
Students have researched Michael Pollan and read another piece—“Power Steer.” They’ve practiced more critical reading as well.
Activities
Take attendance and introduce class as usual.
Ask for reactions to “Power Steer.” Having read the piece critically, students should have more to say than “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” They can talk about the ways in which it appealed to them (or not) and the questions it raised for them.
Check in with students about the critical reading work—be sure they understand that they need to turn in one double entry log and one critical rereading guide with their Writing a Letter paper. Now that students have had a chance to practice both, they can discuss which they prefer, and why.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Show the rhetorical situation model once more, and explain why it’s important to consider the writer as you read (so that you can evaluate a text’s credibility and authority, so you can understand why a writer says what he/she says, so you can make better decisions about how the text fits into the conversation, etc.). Also, explain how you can consider the writer as you read (research him/her; use the text to infer the writer’s experiences, values and beliefs, etc.).
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Gather student research on the board by giving students a moment to look through what they brought from Pollan’s website and to choose a few pieces of information to share. Ask students to think of ways in which the information they have found illuminates the text in some way. Knowing that Pollan is a journalist, for example, explains why his writing appears frequently in periodicals.
Go around the room, asking each student to contribute something that hasn’t already been said. Write their ideas on the board. When you finish, assess what you’ve learned. You can probably make some general statements about Pollan as a writer, and how and why he makes the rhetorical choices he makes. You may have lingering questions about him, too. Generate questions and then see if anyone’s research can help answer them.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Before you hand graded work back, it’s important to explain to students how to read your feedback. For the summary, tell students about how you commented, where they can find the grade, etc. Remind them that this is a small assignment and that you’re available to talk about the summary with them. Many instructors have a “24-hour rule” which requires students to wait a day before contacting the teacher about the paper. Some instructors more casually ask students to take a day to read over the comments and the summary. The point is you don’t want to discuss the summaries right away for many reasons, the most rhetorical of which is that students need to take time to read and understand your comments before they can discuss them.
Also remind students of any relevant policies (such as revision), and explain the ways that the summary connects to the new assignment.
Assign the following as homework, collect the inquiry list and then wrap up today’s class:
Homework for Wednesday
- Access, print and read “The Modern Hunter-Gatherer” (remind how to access).
- To class next time, bring “The Modern Hunter-Gatherer” as well as all Pollan articles.
Connection to Next Class
Today, students developed a better sense of rhetorical situation by thinking about the author and his role in addressing purpose and audience. Wednesday's class will ask students to look at all of Pollan's work they've read and to think more about how he responds to rhetorical situation.
Day 10 (Wednesday, September 12)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today’s class emphasizes writing as a series of rhetorical choices.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
To write the letter, students will need to not only choose which article to write about but also consider how each article advances their inquiry into the question-at-issue.
Prep
Re-read and annotate "The Modern Hunter-Gatherer." Finish grading summaries to return (if you have not already). Gather all of Pollan's articles.
Materials
Assignment sheet
Pollan articles
Overhead transparencies:
group activity
Lead-in
By today, students will have read all of Pollan's articles (five or six) and have a good sense about how he approaches inquiry into our question-at-issue. They've also discussed the writer. They should be ready to discuss how and how well Pollan contributes to their inquiry.
Activities
Begin class as usual, remembering to keep the inquiry list going.
While you may elicit some general responses to get today's discussion going, move students toward discussing this article rhetorically. Ask them, as well, to consider how this article is similar to and different from the previous articles they've read by Pollan.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
In five or six small groups, ask students to consider one of the Pollan texts in light of what they learned last time about Michael Pollan. Ask them to use notes from last time to help answer the questions:
What does Pollan know about his subject?
How does his frame of reference affect how he views his subject?
How does Pollan’s frame of reference affect his choice of audience,
context, and genre?
So what? That is, what conclusions can you draw about the text, given
what you know about Pollan, his frame of reference and his rhetorical choices?
Give students about 10 minutes to discuss and jot down answers to the questions, and then ask each group to present their findings.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Remind students of the letter-writing assignment, and ask for ideas about how they could use what they’ve just done as they write their letter. Connect to the assignment sheet and to your discussions about what promotes effective inquiry and stimulates further conversation.
Ask students to share which article they might choose, and why. You might ask a few students to discuss their possible choice of audience as well. Help students see connections among subject-audience-purpose in their article choice.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Think through and write down your “if time” and “if I run out of time” ideas here.
Assign the following for homework, collect the inquiry list, and wrap up today’s class.
Homework for Friday
Reread the assignment sheet and decide which of the three texts (“An Animal’s Place,” “Power Steer” or “The Modern Hunter-Gatherer”) you will use for your letter. Choose your audience as well, and write a description of that person as a reader: describe your reader’s knowledge about the subject, and describe your reader’s frame of reference as best you can. Explain what about the essay you have chosen will interest this reader, and why. Explain what your reader will need to know in order to understand your letter. Bring your audience description to class with you on Friday.You might begin drafting your letter; a complete draft is due on Wednesday of next week.
Day 11 (Friday, September 14)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today’s class emphasizes the writing process as a series of rhetorical choices.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Before drafting the letter, students will examine its rhetorical situation to explore how they will address purpose, audience, genre and context.
Prep
All you need to do for today is to reread the assignment sheet so you can address student questions and any potential misreadings.
Materials
Assignment sheet
Overhead transparencies:
Pre-workshop instructions
Lead-in
Students have made many of the rhetorical decisions necessary to draft the letter, such as choosing a subject (article) and an audience. They may be uncertain about how to begin writing the letter, and so today’s class will focus on that.
Activities
Take attendance and introduce class as usual.
Ask students to share which article they chose, and why. You might ask a few students to discuss their choice of audience as well. Help students see connections among subject-audience-purpose in their article choice.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Ask students to take out the assignment sheet, and spend time reviewing the goals of the assignment. Point out the grading criteria, too, but don’t put too much emphasis on them because worrying about grades can hinder some students’ writing processes.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Put instructions on the overhead that will lead students through a pre-workshop in which they will get feedback on their audience descriptions. Explain the instructions and then arrange students into groups (groups of 4 work well for this activity).
Writing a Letter Pre-Workshop
In a small group, take turns sharing audience descriptions. Group members can help the
writer by asking for more description of the audience and by offering ideas about how the
writer can shape his/her letter to best meet the needs of the chosen audience.After everyone has shared, discuss the assignment generally, and come up with one
question to ask the class as well as one piece of advice to share with the class.
After groups have finished discussing, ask each group for their question and their piece of advice.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
With their rhetorical choices fresh in their minds, students should make so notes to help them as they draft. This doesn’t need to be formal; it can be a bulleted list, a web, or something else, as long as it will help the student remember how he/she wants to structure the letter and what he/she wants to say. This should help students get started and perhaps will raise questions they want to address on Monday or via email or during office hours.
Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.
Think through and write down your “if time” and “if I run out of time” ideas here.
Homework for Monday
Continue to collect ideas for your letter and bring them to class Monday, along with any questions that come up as you collect.
Access the sample letter(s) from the File Folder. Print them out and read them. Then review the assignment criteria and re-read the sample(s). When you finish reading, make a strengths/weaknesses chart on the back of the(each) letter. Bring the assignment sheet and the sample letter(s) with your comments to class.
Connection to Next Class
Today's class helped students collect ideas or "pre-write." Next time students will practice responding to sample letters.
Day 12 (Monday, September 17)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Students learn more about rhetorical situations through their role as readers of sample letters.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Reading and responding to sample letters will not only give students practice for doing so with peers’ drafts but will also give them ideas for writing their own letters.
Prep
You don’t have a whole lot of prep to do for today! You will need to review the sample essays and make notes on them, however.
Materials
Sample essay for practice workshop (make copies OR ask students to print this off the Writing Studio and bring it to class with them)
Workshop instructions (use handouts so students can keep them for next time)
Lead-in
Students have begun collecting ideas for their letters and have read some samples. This moves them along in the process of drafting their own letters. While the focus is on practicing workshop techniques today, keep in mind that even practicing peer response yields one of the benefits of engaging in peer response: seeing writing from a reader's point of view.
Activities
You might begin class today by asking about your students’ collecting processes.
Remind students of the goal of a workshop, and explain the setup of today’s practice workshop: groups will read drafts written by three writers, will make their own notes on the drafts and then will discuss their ideas to write revision suggestions for each writer whose draft they read. This is how we will conduct the workshop of their own drafts on Wednesday.
Practicing the workshop today will enable students to understand the process they'll engage in on Wednesday and to see how to make the most useful comments.
Distribute the workshop instructions and allow students time to read over them. Explain why you are asking them to respond as readers before they offer revision suggestions. Answer any questions that come up, and then ask groups to work through the workshop with the sample essays.
Writing a Letter Workshop
In this workshop, you’ll work in a group of three to collaborate on feedback for other writers.
As a group, decide which paper you will read first. Read (silently) the writer’s description of his/her audience, then read the letter itself and make your own notes on the draft:
When everyone in your group has finished reading and writing comments, talk as a group about the draft. Share your reader responses and your revision suggestions. Come to a consensus about a few revision suggestions. On a separate sheet, write an end comment that summarizes your discussion and revision suggestions. Each group member should sign his/her name to this end comment. Paperclip together all of the drafts and your group’s end comment and then move on to the next draft.
Once groups finish responding to the sample letters, allow them to share their end comments. Along the way, point out especially specific or otherwise effective comments. You might make a list on the board: “effective comments are. . .”
After you have discussed how to provide effective peer response, discuss the sample essays in more detail. Guide students toward discovering what was effective in the letters they read as well as the revisions they suggested. With these ideas in mind, have students work on writing an outline for their letter or another collecting/shaping activity to move them toward drafting their letters for Wednesday.
Take extra time today to reiterate the importance of 1) being present on Wednesday and 2) being prepared with THREE copies of a complete draft (“complete” here means containing a beginning, middle, and end—it does not mean “finished”). Remind students of your workshop policies.
Homework for Wednesday
Draft your letter. Bring three copies of your draft and (revised)audience description to class on Wednesday for workshop. Remember that [add your workshop policy here].
Connection to Next Class
Today's class helped students practice peer response and collect ideas or "pre-write." Next time students will workshop the drafts they write for homework based on the collecting and shaping they did today.
Day 13 (Wednesday, September 19)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Students learn more about rhetorical situations through their role as readers of peers' drafts. Giving and receiving feedback enables revision, an important phase of an effective writing process.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Workshops enable students to get feedback on almost final drafts. Peer response requires reading texts as a reader and as a writer, so it helps students get ideas for revising their own papers.
Prep
You don’t have a whole lot of prep to do for today! You might decide that a different version of workshop would work better for your class; if so, plan it carefully so that students give feedback that relates to the assignment but that doesn’t require them to evaluate or “pre-grade” papers.
Materials
Workshop instructions (students should have handouts from last time)
Paperclips
Lead-in
In an ideal world, each one of your students has drafted a letter for today’s class and has printed three copies of it. The likelihood of this happening corresponds with the effectiveness of your workshop policy and is complicated by any number of factors outside of your control. Expect a few students to come to class with no draft, with partial drafts, or with only one copy of a draft. You might have an absence or two as well. For these reasons, it may be best to arrange groups during today’s class. Students may come to class today unsure of their writing and of workshop (though the summary workshop should have helped with this, as should the practice workshop last time).
Activities
You might begin class today by asking about your students’ drafting processes. Take a few minutes to allow everyone to arrive, and then collect workshop drafts (which you’ll redistribute in a bit). You probably won’t have inquiry questions to add to the list today.
There’s potential for mayhem here, but if you ask each student to write his/her name on all three drafts and to paperclip them together, you should be fine. Decide ahead of time what you will do with incomplete drafts: will you allow them to be workshopped? If you do, try to distribute them throughout the room so that one group doesn’t have three incomplete drafts to read.
You can allow students to choose workshop groups (aim for groups of 3), you can have them count off, or you can assign them—whatever will work best for your students.
Remind students of the goal of a workshop, and explain the setup of today’s workshop: groups will read drafts written by two other class members, will make their own notes on the drafts and then will discuss their ideas to write revision suggestions for each writer whose draft they read. Since you practiced this on Monday, this should go smoothly and quickly.
Distribute the workshop instructions and allow students time to read over them. Explain why you are asking them to respond as readers before they offer revision suggestions.
You might have students form their groups after the explanation, then re-read the assignment sheet to give you time to organize the drafts before distributing them.
Writing a Letter Workshop
In this workshop, you’ll work in a group of three to collaborate on feedback for other writers.
As a group, decide which paper you will read first. Read (silently) the writer’s description of his/her audience, then read the letter itself and make your own notes on the draft:
When everyone in your group has finished reading and writing comments, talk as a group about the draft. Share your reader responses and your revision suggestions. Come to a consensus about a few revision suggestions. On a separate sheet, write an end comment that summarizes your discussion and revision suggestions. Each group member should sign his/her name to this end comment. Paperclip together all of the drafts and your group’s end comment and then move on to the next draft.
Students should be ready to go after having done the practice workshop. They can take their time today, as they’ll have time on Friday to finish. Or you can require that for homework students finish reading and making individual comments on the drafts they don’t finish today (this can be motivation for groups to stay on task).
Conclude class by explaining that you will give groups time to finish workshopping on Friday. Try to get a sense of how far along groups are, and determine whether or not they’ll need to work on commenting for homework. Also, assign the following:
Homework for Friday
Read about the writing process on pages 34-48 of the PHG. Please bring your book to class with you.
Be sure to be on time to class on Friday, and to bring your peers’ drafts with your comments written on them.
Remind students how essential it is to be in class on Friday with their peers’ drafts.
Connection to Next Class
Friday’s class is a continuation of today’s class: students will finish workshopping and will have an opportunity to review the feedback they receive and to make revision plans. Also, you can define “revision” and explain how it fits in to the writing process.
Day 14 (Friday, September 21)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Spending time talking about revision emphasizes a part of the writing process that often is rushed.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Workshops enable students to get feedback on almost final drafts. Revisiting the assignment sheet reminds students that they are writing within a rhetorical situation.
Prep
You don’t have a whole lot to do to prepare for today’s class other than deciding which revision activities you want to present to your class.
Materials
PHG
Revision activity materials
Lead-in
Students have read about the writing process and they may have worked more on workshopping their peers’ letters.
Activities
Begin class by letting students know how much time they’ll have to finish workshopping.
Allow students time to finish the group work and to return everything to the writers.
Allow students time to read through the comments their peers made on their drafts and to ask questions if necessary.
Transition write a transition here that will lead students into the next activity.
Depending on how much time your students need to finish workshop, design two (or three or four) activities that will show what revision can mean.
Discuss the textbook reading first, reminding students that “in practice, a writer’s process rarely follows the simple, consecutive order that these four stages [collecting, shaping, drafting, revising] suggest.” Ask students to describe their writing processes up to this point. Use Neil Petrie’s “Athletes and Education” along with his postscript as a reference point—would students describe their process similarly?
Then focus on revision, which seems to be the often overlooked aspect of the writing process. Are there ways in which students have already revised? There probably are—we resee some things as we write. Show students some revision methods. Here are some ideas; draw on your own experience as a writer-who-revises as you decide which activities to do.
You’ll need a bit of time at the end of class to allow students to write out revision plans and to review the assignment sheet.
Transition write a transition here that will help students move from the revision activities into quietly writing their own revision plans.
Allow students time to get their revision ideas onto paper so they can remember them this weekend when they sit down to revise. Revision plans can include whats, such as “connect more with my reader” and hows (read my letter aloud). You might ask a few students to explain their revision plans to the class.
To end class today, ask students to reread the assignment sheet and to ask you any questions they have. Be sure students know what they will need to turn in next time, and remind them to use a folder to contain all of the process work.
Conclude class in a way that keeps students motivated to revise their letters. Also, assign the following:
Homework for Monday
Revise your letter. Print the final version and bring to class in a folder with [insert your requirements here. Remind students of policies regarding late work, grading, etc. ]
Connection to Next Class
Next time, students will turn in their revised letters along with the other materials you specified, and then you will work on developing inquiry questions that students want to explore further in Phase 2. Be sure to take time between now and Monday to clean up the inquiry list and to begin to think of ways to categorize the questions into different disciplines.In the second phase of the course, we expand our inquiry into the question of what we should eat by identifying related issues, developing and refining questions, and investigating those questions. The goals for this phase include not only increasing our understanding of the issues, but also engaging in the conversations on them.
In the first phase, we learned how one writer investigated the "ominvore's dilemma," considered some of the answers he found to "what should we eat?" and began posing further questions Pollan's work raised for us. Now, we will refine some of those questions and investigate them. In the process of doing so, we will build information literacy as we find and select sources that offer a variety of perspectives on the questions we pose as well as credible and authoritative information. Students will work collaboratively to investigate one question and explain their findings to the class. These explanations can serve as initial inquiry for students who wish to pursue these questions further or as an impetus for initiating other lines of inquiry. Students will then join the conversation on a question-at-issue by writing an argument.
Phase 2 builds on Phase I by asking students to continue reading closely and critically. In Phase 2, however, students will refine and expand on the questions raised in Phase I and find and select sources to answer them. Throughout this phase, we will need to work with students to develop focused, significant questions-at-issue relevant to "the ominvore's dilemma." With such questions in mind, we'll guide students through the process of "listening to conversations" on the issue they're investigating and evaluating what they "hear."
Using library resources, especially research databases, comprises a key component of Phase 2. During this phase, you will schedule a time to take your students to Morgan Library for a session with a librarian in one of the Electronic Information Labs. Working with the librarian, you will help your students learn how to search the library's collection using SAGE (the library catalog) and research databases such as Academic Search Premier and Lexis-Nexis for sources that address a question-at-issue their group is inquiring into. We focus on developing critical information literacy in this phase, helping students find, evaluate and select sources that further their inquiry into a question-at-issue. We hope to move students beyond googling and accepting whatever they find to conducting searches of a range of databases and selecting sources that support academic inquiry.
After students are introduced to effective academic inquiry while working collaboratively, they will define individual questions-at-issue to inquire into further and write an argument that responds to their question. Thus, this phase of the course will also focus on writing an argument in an academic context.
By the end of Phase 2, students should be able to
Overview. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen how Michael Pollan inquires into important questions. Also we’ve been keeping a list of questions we’d like to find answers to. In this assignment, you’ll work with a group to find answers to one of those questions. This assignment asks you to investigate by researching and writing an annotated bibliography. In the end, you will explain to the class what you found.
Purpose. The main purpose of your annotated bibliography is to keep track of and share your research with your group; the secondary purpose is to demonstrate your research skills as well as your ability to closely and critically read the sources you find. The purpose of your group’s explanation is to synthesize your research for the rest of the class so that we may benefit from your inquiry.
Audience. You’ll write your three bibliography entries for your group, for your peers, and for your instructor. You and your group will write a collaborative explanation to your peers.
Subject. Your group will focus on one question-at-issue that is related in some way to the Michael Pollan readings from our first unit. We have been working on generating questions and we will work in class to choose manageable questions.
Author. In your annotated bibliography entries, present yourself as someone who has selected sources carefully, read them closely and evaluated them critically. In your group explanation, you should present yourselves as knowledgeable and engaged (though it’s likely you won’t have all the answers).
Strategies. To achieve your purposes with your audiences, consider these strategies:
Details.
Annotated Bibliography Format: Each of your sources needs an MLA bibliographic entry, followed by an annotation that includes: academic summary of the source, an evaluation and response. Please staple each entry to a print-out or photocopy of the source itself. Please be sure your name is on each of your entries.
Explanation Format: Your explanation needs to include the following:
Post your group’s explanation to the discussion forum on the Writing Studio and print out a copy to turn in.
Submission: Use a folder to turn in your annotations and sources along with other materials specified in class.
Due: Week 9
Worth: 15% of your course grade, broken down as follows:
Grading Criteria.
[Note to GTAs: Develop criteria for grading this assignment and add it to your assignment sheet. Samples and options will be discussed in TART and E607.]
Assignment
Overview. Now that you have researched and explained your issue, you are ready to write an argument. The argument you write for this assignment will be an academic, source-based argument. You may use the sources you and your group members found, but you should continue to find new sources to support your argument. Furthermore, your argument should add something unique or new to the conversation, and not just repeat someone else's argument.
Purpose. To convince undecided readers to agree with your argument, or to make opposing readers less resistant to your argument, or to persuade readers who are in agreement with you to take action on your issue.
Audience. The audience for this argument is academic so it includes your instructor, yourself, your peers, and other members of the academic community. An academic audience expects a clear, logical argument that remains focused on proving a thesis. Academic readers expect that an argument is well-researched and that the argument will be supported with evidence. In addition, such readers require full citations for all sources you use. An academic audience also expects writing to be free from errors. You’ll need to consider these expectations, along with your readers’ needs and interests, as you write your argument.
Subject. You should write your argument about the issue you just investigated or on an issue another group in this class just investigated. If you choose your group’s issue, you may use your own sources, your group members’ sources, as well as sources you continue to find. If you choose another group’s issue, you will need to read that group’s explanation to familiarize yourself with the issue. You may use the sources that group found as well as sources you continue to find. Show your readers you have listened to many sides of the conversation on the issue and can effectively address viewpoints that differ from your own.
Author. Present yourself as knowledgeable, fair-minded, credible, and, as appropriate, empathetic person. You do not need to be an expert on your issue to write an argument, but you do need to have confidence in what you do know and believe about it.
Strategies. To achieve your purpose with your audience, be sure to:
Details.
Grading Criteria.
[Note to GTAs: Develop criteria for grading this assignment and add it to your assignment sheet. Samples and options will be discussed in TART and E607.]
You’ve gotten through Phase 1! It’s likely that you are feeling that your class is close to being “your own” at this point. If not, it’ll probably happen soon. Because of this, we have scaled back some of the scaffolding we provided in the Phase 1 lesson plans (yes, this means no more scripted transitions!). Here’s what you won’t find in Phase 2 lesson plans:
Materials
If it has been useful for you to be able to see at a glance what you need to bring to class, keep including this list in your lesson plan.
Prep
If you have found that our explanations of what you need to do to prepare have helped your class sessions remain organized, keep going with this.
Lead-In
Many instructors find that their class sessions make the most sense when they write out what the students have done to prepare for the day’s class as well as what they are expecting to do during the day’s class. If you feel you don’t need to write it out, be sure to conceptualize this before you plan each lesson. Nothing frustrates students more than preparing something irrelevant to class. Nothing frustrates instructors more than a classroom full of frustrated students.
Transitions
We know that you have your own voice and that you probably haven’t been reading our scripted transitions to your students word-for-word. Your students likely appreciate both of those things,but not as much as they appreciate transitions between activities. We’re no longer writing them out here for you, but they’re so important to the continuity of a class session that we heartily encourage you to continue writing them for yourself. It’s easy to assume that students understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, and how it all relates to everything else, but most of the time at least some of your students don’t. Again, nothing frustrates students more than so-called “busy work.” Help your students see that class activities aren’t “busy work” by always explaining the connections between them.
“Plan B”
At this point you might have a good feel for how long certain kinds of activities tend to take for you and your class. If not, and even if you do, it’s not a bad idea to note down on your own lesson plan your ideas for extra activities or for ways to cut activities short.
Connection to Next Class
Like the lead-in, some instructors choose to write out a connection to next class. If you don’t include this section in your lesson plans, be sure you are still looking ahead a few days in the syllabus so that you know what is coming up (and how to modify it to meet your students’ needs).
From Daily to Weekly Lesson Plans
For the first three weeks of Phase 2, we provide daily lesson plans, with the modifications described above. After Week 8, weekly plans are provided. These plans state the objectives and connections to course goals and students own writing for the week, then describe some possible activities to meet the objectives and continue to work toward course goals. You will need to decide which activities will best meet your students' needs as well as the goals and objectives and you will need to structure and sequence each class. Be sure to look ahead so you can prepare to do so!
Day 15 (Monday, September 24)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Reflecting on the just-completed project emphasizes that writing is a process. Academic inquiry requires advanced levels of close and critical reading as well as an open-minded willingness to listen to what others have to say. Such inquiry also asks students to consider their own biases and preconceptions as they formulate their own opinions. Our continued focus on inquiry addresses our goal of initiating students into academic discourse.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Today’s class allows students time to reflect on their writing process; many students use postscripts to express the successes and struggles they had while writing. The rest of class gets students prepared to make a good decision about a subject for the Phase 2 writing assignments.
Activities
Take attendance and introduce class as usual.
Put postscript questions on the overhead and instruct students to answer them, then turn them in with the other things that are due today. Here are some sample postscript questions:
Be sure to explain to students that it may take you a bit longer to grade these letters than it took you to grade the summaries. Remind students that as you grade you’ll use the grading criteria that are listed on the assignment sheet. You might give them an idea of when they can expect the letters back (probably next Wednesday. You'll be doing a grading conference with one of the lecturers, and its timing may affect your grading schedule for this assignment).
Take time to reflect on where you’ve been and discuss how it relates to where you’re going. Bring back the writing as a conversation idea (you likely have an overhead of this from week 1):
We are at the end of the first stage: reading what others have written. That is, we have listened in on the conversation. We have set aside our own biases and preconceived ideas and really listened to what others have said about our question-at-issue. We’ve looked closely at how one writer has looked at the “omnivore’s dilemma” from a variety of perspectives.
Ask students to describe Michael Pollan’s inquiry—what did he do to answer questions about food? Some of this will be review from week 4. Your list might include things such as: he goes out to experience the things he’s curious about, he doesn’t assume he’s an expert until he experiences things (and even then, he often admits that he doesn’t have all the answers), he discusses things with others to help form his own opinions, he really cares about the things he inquires into, etc.
Students probably don’t realize that Pollan also does a hefty amount of scholarly research. If you have a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma you might bring it in to show students the breadth of research he did for that book (the “Sources” section takes up 29 pages). He uses books, popular magazine articles, scholarly articles, newspaper articles, interviews, etc.
Now, we’re moving to the second stage of the conversation model: the stage during which we form our own opinions and find ways to support our ideas to prepare for "entering the conversation" by writing an academic argument. We’ll be working in small groups to
We can take direction from Michael Pollan as we go forward with these inquiries: we should inquire into something we care about, we should remain as open-minded as possible, and we should aim to become as informed as possible as we try to find answers to questions. Also, we need to allow ourselves to leave some questions unanswered.
After the research, each student will write an academic argument based on his/her own inquiry or on another group’s inquiry.
Do this the same way you did for the letter and the summary assignments. Highlight what students will be doing and what they will be asked to produce.
Students will be choosing a question for inquiry based on the inquiry list they created during phase 1. Distribute copies of the inquiry list. Ask students to look it over and talk about which questions are the most interesting to them. Which questions are most urgent? Which questions are they least interested in finding answers to? Do any questions need to be added? Rephrased?
Two criteria for choosing a question for inquiry are:
Are there any questions that have little to no exigence? Another way of asking this question is: are there any questions on the list that have been written about so much that there’s not much to say about them that hasn’t been said many times before?
It’s inevitable that some questions will have to be left unanswered. Ask students to suggest the questions that they are most motivated to inquire into, and that seem to be the most urgent and that seem the most manageable in scope.
Try to narrow the list down to the top 6-8 questions. These questions will be the ones students pick from for homework (you’ll create a separate discussion forum for each question).
Wrap up class as usual. Be sure students understand that you will be organizing groups based on the homework, so they should give it a lot of thought and complete it by Tuesday night.
Homework for Wednesday
By Tuesday night, choose three of the inquiry discussion forums to post to: write about what interests you about the question and what existing opinions you have (if any) about the subject.
Your instructor will use the forum postings to organize groups for the investigation and explanation project, so please give your postings a lot of thought and complete them by Tuesday night. Email your instructor about any concerns/preferences you have so that he/she may consider them while organizing groups.
Day 16 (Wednesday, September 26)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
We are adding collaboration and research skills to the close and critical reading skills we have already established. Today, individual students negotiate adding their voices to a group conversation on a question-at-issue. These activities move students toward the goal of entering academic discourse.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
During today’s class groups will generate/collect material that they can use when they write their explanations.
Activities
To minimize confusion, put the list of groups and inquiry questions on an overhead transparency. Direct each group to a particular part of the classroom, and give students an opportunity to introduce themselves.
Have students write about their initial opinions about their group’s inquiry question. A WTL will ensure that every student gets to voice his or her ideas. This is important for establishing group dynamics. Put these or similar questions on the overhead:
Write-to Learn
- If you had to answer your group’s inquiry question now, how would you answer it? Why?
- What keywords would you use to research your inquiry question?
- What other questions might your group need to find answers to in order to answer your inquiry question?
Ask groups to share their initial opinions through the following interview activity (if you have large groups (4 or more students), consider cutting down on the number of questions):
Inquiry Interview
Goals: Your aim here is to learn about your own and your group members’ frames of reference regarding your topic.
Interview:
Take turns interviewing each other. You may ask any of the following questions and any others that you think of. Take notes as you talk so that you can refer to these initial thoughts as your group drafts an explanation at the end of this project.Possible Questions:
- What interests you about this question?
- How much do you know about this subject?
- How do you answer your group’s inquiry question right now?
- Where do you think your views on this subject come from?
- Where did you grow up? When did you grow up? How might this background affect how you think about your subject?
- What do your family and friends think about this subject? Do their opinions influence you at all?
- How do you identify yourself politically? How do your political leanings affect how you view your subject?
- What sorts of values do you hold that might influence your opinions on this subject?
- What else about you might influence what you think?
Just doing this activity will help students get to know each other and assess their starting point. Students should hold onto the notes they take during these interviews so they can do the homework for Friday and so they can incorporate them into the explanation’s introduction.
Wrap up class as usual, making sure each student has chosen another student to write about for homework. Each student should be written about once.
Homework
Type up a summary of one of your group member’s inquiry interview. Read back over the notes you took during the interview, and recall the discussion you had so that you can write a fair and accurate summary of your group member’s interests in the subject, their opinions, and frame of reference.Bring this summary to class next time.
Day 17 (Friday, September 28)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Today, students plan out how they will look at the whole conversation about their subject.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
During today’s class groups will negotiate research strategies that will lead them to sources they may use in their explanations and their arguments.
Activities
Ask students to give their homework to the group member about whom they wrote. Each student should read the summary of their own interests, opinions, and frames of reference. If they feel there is something to add, they may note it on the back of the summary. Also if they feel they have been misrepresented, they may discuss that with their group. You might ask one person from each group to hold on to the summaries so that the group has access to them as they draft the explanation.
Now that groups have had time to share their opinions and learn about each other, groups can begin to research. Because inquiry means to open-mindedly look for answers, it’s important to set aside opinions for the time being to be able to inquire. It’s important, then, that as groups research they aim to listen to the whole conversation. They need to be finding what different kinds of people say.
Ask groups to read over a description of one of the colleges at CSU (Agricultural Sciences, Applied Human Sciences, Business, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and Natural Resources; you can access descriptions of each of these colleges, which include descriptions of majors, at http://admissions.colostate.edu/AdmWRBlk.aspx?PgID=185). Provide instructions on the overhead such as:
Read a description of one of the Colleges at CSU.
As a group, discuss the ways in which scholars in this College would be interested in your subject. Also, discuss the ways in which they would be interested in other groups’ subjects:
[ADD A LIST OF YOUR GROUP’S SUBJECTS HERE]On an overhead transparency, list one or two questions scholars in the College might ask about each subject.
Prepare to present your group’s work by:
1) Summarizing the College you read about
2) Presenting your overhead transparency
Next, demonstrate how this information can help plan out an inquiry by using an example:
Inquiry question: “Does fast food advertising work?”
Interested disciplines: Psychology, business, marketing, food science
Related questions: What kinds of advertisements feature fast food? What do marketers do to sell food? What are the economic risks and benefits to businesses when they advertise? How do fast food advertisements affect viewers? Who pays for fast food advertising? (etc.)
Search terms: fast food, advertising, marketing, commercials, convenience foods
Give groups time to plan their inquiry using this heuristic. Once groups have compared ideas about all of the above, they can designate responsibility (perhaps each student will research the inquiry question from a different perspective, or perhaps groups will divide up the related questions).
Part of students’ homework will be to find one source, which they will most likely do through google. Explain three basic criteria for a source for this project: relevance, reliability, and currency. The source needs to help answer the inquiry question, it needs to come from a credible author or organization, and it needs to be current enough that its contents still matter. In addition, the source needs to be useable in an academic paper (therefore, no Wikipedia).
Revisit the assignment sheet and the annotated bibliography sample to remind students of what they should do once they have found the source (they should read it closely to write the summary and they should read it critically to write the evaluation and the response). Tell students that you will collect bibliography entries next time to provide feedback.
Wrap up class as usual, reminding students to meet in the library next time.
Homework
Read pages 611-623 and 630-642 about research processes and strategies.Complete the research log tutorial on the library's web site.
Find one source that can help your group answer your inquiry question. As you search, remember the criteria we discussed in class: reliability, relevance, and currency. Keep track of your search using the research log. Bring your log-in-progress to class.
Read the source you find closely and critically.
Write a bibliography entry for the source. Bring the source and your annotated bibliography entry to class on Monday. Use pages 658-665 in your textbook as you write the MLA bibliography entry.
Please remember to meet in the library on Monday.
Day 18 (Monday, October 1)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Library instruction is a key part of students’ initiation into the academic world. It not only gives students practical search skills but also encourages students to understand differences in the reliability of texts, an extension of Phase 1’s critical reading work.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Library instruction will help students find reliable, relevant, and current sources that they can use for three major writing assignments: the annotated bibliography, the collaborative explanation and the academic argument. Without library instruction, many students risk being unable to accomplish the goals for all three of these assignments.
Activities
Begin class by reminding students why you’ve brought them to the library today. You might preview the homework (bring at least one library source and one new annotation to class next time) to encourage involvement today.
Keep tabs on your students as the librarian works with them, and circulate when the librarian gives students chances to try out searches.
Ask students to turn in the annotation they brought to class today. Remind students to check the writing studio for specifics on homework.
Homework
Bring at least one library source to class next time as well as at least one new annotation.
Day 19 (Wednesday, October 3)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Research and collaboration are essential skills within academic communities (as well as within many other contexts).
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Today’s class is a CSOW smorgasbord. Since each group (and, probably, each student within each group) will be at a slightly different stage than the others, you’ll be offering a number of activities for groups to choose from, all of which are designed to help students with their research, their annotations and/or with the collaborative explanation. In other words, the class will engage directly in composing processes today.
Activities
Now that your students have attended library instruction and attempted searching their topics, they will doubtless have new questions and concerns about researching their topics. Choose an activity that will allow you to respond to their needs and reinforce the lessons of the library session. Few if any of your students will have prior experience with a large research university library, so they will need ongoing help to make the most of Morgan Library's offerings. You may want to ask students about their searches, soliciting both successes and failures. Focus on troubleshooting individual problems in a way that is instructive for the whole class. For example, if students "couldn't find anything" on the topic, ask a volunteer which keywords she used in her searches. List these on the board and engage the class in refining or adding keywords.
Determine which groups you will meet with today (meet with any groups that are already behind and with groups that seem likely to fall behind). Explain that while you meet with each group, the rest of the class needs to work on one or more of the following activities (put the instructions on an overhead or make handouts—students need to be able to see the instructions for the activities they choose):
Annotation workshop
Trade annotations with your group members, and give feedback by answering the following questions (explain all yes/no responses, please):
- Is the source relevant, reliable, and current?
- Does the annotation represent the source objectively, accurately and briefly for members of the group and the class?
- Will the evaluation convince the group and the class that the source is worthwhile?
- Does the response show how the source influenced the annotation-writer’s opinions, thoughts, and ideas about the subject?
- Will the MLA bibliography entry enable others to find the source? Will others be able to use the entry as is for their academic argument Works Cited page (i.e. is the entry 100% accurate?)? (Use the PHG to help answer this question.)
Assess your inquiry
What answers have you already found? What answers do you need to find? What perspectives have you found? What perspectives do you need to find? Share your sources with your group members. Help each other out by suggesting good databases, search terms, and other search strategies.Draft your explanation’s introduction
Reread the assignment sheet to remind yourselves of what your explanation’s introduction needs to accomplish. Use your WTLs and your inquiry interviews from last week to draft the introduction. Be sure to hold on to whatever you draft today, as you will be able to use it later.
As students work, you can conference with groups (aim to conference with about one third of the groups today. Aim to help them assess their inquiry: are they finding relevant, reliable sources? Are they finding a range of perspectives on the subject? Is anyone behind (if so, how can you and the group help the person catch up?)? Are there group dynamic problems that you can ease? Aim to leave each conference having helped the group formulate a plan for being ready to finish their research by next Wednesday. Also, be sure you have communicated that you understand where each individual student is with his/her research. This should help motivate anyone who is lagging behind, and it should ease any concerns that the best-prepared students may have.
Homework
Find another source. Bring allof the sources you have found so far and at least one new annotation to class next time.
Day 20 (Friday, October 5)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Research and collaboration are essential skills within academic communities (as well as within many other contexts).
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Today’s class is another CSOW smorgasbord. The class will engage directly in composing processes today.
Activities
Determine which groups you will meet with today. Explain that while you meet with each group, the rest of the class needs to work on one or more of the following activities (put the instructions on an overhead or make handouts—students need to be able to see the instructions for the activities they choose):
Annotation workshop
Trade annotations with your group members, and give feedback by answering the following questions (explain all yes/no responses, please):
- Is the source relevant, reliable, and current?
- Does the annotation represent the source objectively, accurately and briefly for members of the group and the class?
- Will the evaluation convince the group and the class that the source is worthwhile?
- Does the response show how the source influenced the annotation-writer’s opinions, thoughts, and ideas about the subject?
- Will the MLA bibliography entry enable others to find the source? Will others be able to use the entry as is for their academic argument Works Cited page (i.e. is the entry 100% accurate?)? (Use the PHG to help answer this question.)
Assess your inquiry
What answers have you already found? What answers do you need to find? What perspectives have you found? What perspectives do you need to find? Share your sources with your group members. Help each other out by suggesting good databases, search terms, and other search strategies.Draft your explanation’s introduction
Reread the assignment sheet to remind yourselves of what your explanation’s introduction needs to accomplish. Use your WTLs and your inquiry interviews from last week to draft the introduction. Be sure to hold on to whatever you draft today, as you will be able to use it later.Read and evaluate sample explanations
Take out your assignment sheet and review the strategies and criteria for the collaborative explanation. Read the sample explanations and discuss their strengths and weaknesses (using the grading criteria as a guide). As you discuss the samples, also discuss your plans for the explanation you will write later this week.Work on drafting explanations
You can begin drafting your explanation even if your research is not 100% complete. Reread the assignment sheet to remind yourselves of the explanation’s purpose and audience. Begin drafting. Be sure to hold onto what you write today so that you can use it as you draft the rest of your explanation.
As students work, you can conference with groups (aim to conference with about half of the groups today). Aim to help them assess their inquiry: are they finding relevant, reliable sources? Are they finding a range of perspectives on the subject? Is anyone behind (if so, how can you and the group help the person catch up?)? Are there group dynamic problems that you can ease? Aim to leave each conference having helped the group formulate a plan for being ready to finish their research by Wednesday. Also, be sure you have communicated that you understand where each individual student is with his/her research. This should help motivate anyone who is lagging behind, and it should ease any concerns that the best-prepared students may have.
Homework
Continue finding sources and working on your annotations. All of your annotations need to be complete by Wednesday, October 10.
Day 21 (Monday, October 8)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Research and collaboration are essential skills within academic communities (as well as within many other contexts). Students continue to use close and critical reading skills as they negotiate answers to inquiry questions. Discussing strategies for writing the explanation requires considering rhetorical situation.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Today’s class is another CSOW smorgasbord. The activities engage students in composing the annotated bibliography and the collaborative explanation.
Activities
Determine which groups you need to meet with today. Explain that while you meet with each group, the rest of the class needs to work on one or more of the following activities (put the instructions on an overhead or make handouts):
Negotiate answers to inquiry questions
If your group is finished with research, take time to share what you found by reading sources and/or bibliography entries. Discuss your opinions—now that you have researched, how do you answer your inquiry question? Compare your answers now to what they were when you started. What changed them? How did they change? If they seem unchanged, why is that? Are there subtle changes you’re not considering? Make notes about all of this, as you’ll need to use them as you write your explanation.Try to negotiate a group answer to your initial question and write it down (you’ll need this as you write your explanation). If you can’t come to a consensus, write down the differing opinions and try to explain why they differ.
Read and evaluate sample explanations
Take out your assignment sheet and review the strategies and criteria for the collaborative explanation. Read the sample explanations and discuss their strengths and weaknesses (using the grading criteria as a guide). As you discuss the samples, also discuss your plans for the explanation you will write.Work on drafting explanations
You can begin drafting your explanation even if your research is not 100% complete. Reread the assignment sheet to remind yourselves of the explanation’s purpose and audience. Begin drafting. Be sure to hold onto what you write today so that you can use it as you draft the rest of your explanation.
As students work, you can conference with the remaining groups. Aim to help them assess their inquiry: have they found relevant, reliable sources? Are they finding a range of perspectives on the subject? Is anyone very behind (if so, how can you and the group help the person catch up by Wednesday?)? Are there group dynamic problems that you can ease? Aim to leave each conference having helped the group formulate a plan for being ready to draft the explanation on Wednesday and Friday. Also, be sure you have communicated that you understand where each individual student is with his/her research. This should help motivate anyone who is lagging behind and it should ease any concerns that the best-prepared students may have.
Take time to revisit the assignment sheet and to reiterate the purpose, audience and strategies for the collaborative explanation. Ask students who chose to read and evaluate sample explanations last time and/or today to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the samples as well as to offer any advice about how to draft the explanation.
Finish reading your sources and writing annotated bibliography entries. Bring all of your sources and all of your bibliography entries to class next time.
Day 22 (Wednesday, October 10)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Collaborative writing presents students with a unique challenge to consider the writing process from a new perspective.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Today’s class allows for planning and drafting of explanations.
Activities
Since students have brought all of their sources and their annotations to class today, they have everything they need to draft the explanation. Since each group member needs to be familiar with the whole body of research, they should read each others’ annotations.
Especially if you will not be meeting your class on Friday, revisit the assignment sheet. You might read and discuss a sample explanation with the class as a whole.
Once you have answered lingering questions about the explanation, groups should begin drafting. Some groups may have begun already and some groups may need to begin now. Therefore, this activity may appear chaotic. It’s important to let groups negotiate how to write collaboratively, as many students have not done this before.
Wrap up class as usual, emphasizing the importance of making it to all group meetings that occur between now and Monday. Allow groups a few minutes to agree upon a meeting location for Friday’s class (a time when everyone is available).
Homework
Meet with your group during class time on Friday to continue writing your explanation (we will not meet as a class in our regular classroom). You may not finish your explanation during class time, in which case you should make appropriate arrangements. Post your explanation to the discussion forum by the beginning of class on Monday (October 15). To class next Monday (October 15), bring all of your sources and your annotations in a folder to turn in.
Day 23 (Friday, October 12)
Today is an English Department Reading Day and you are not required to hold class. The Reading Day is designed to allow students the opportunity to meet with their instructor individually, to work collaboratively outside of class, and/or catch up on reading and research. Your students should meet their groups to write their explanations. If you think your class needs to meet as a whole (for whatever reason), you might hold class in a computer lab in the library (contact Cathy Cranston or Sari Keilman to reserve an EIL). You will need to accompany your students if you choose this option.
Week 9
(Oct. 15, Oct. 17, Oct. 19)
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Reflecting on inquiry and reporting on it builds understanding of critical reading, information literacy, writing processes and rhetorical situation. Discussion of differences between explaining and arguing furthers students' grasp of academic discourse and writing for varying rhetorical situations. The argument assignment is the culmination of many CO150 skills as students add their voices to existing conversations.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
This week clarifies the purposes for writing an academic argument and how they differ from the purposes of writing an explanation. Also, students begin making choices about argument topics and learning about argument structure as they work toward writing their own arguments.
Suggested Activities
Prompt students to reflect on the inquiry assignment by giving them postscript questions to answer. Collect the postscripts along with annotations, sources, and any other work you asked students to turn in today. Here are some sample questions:
1. Did you find the answers you set out to find? Why/why not?
2. Are you satisfied with what answers you did find? Why/why not?
3. What did your group do to find a range of perspectives on your subject?
4. Have you ever written collaboratively before? How did your group members negotiate the collaborative explanation?
5. Is there anything else you would like me to know as I grade your work?
Now that students have inquired, they are ready to write arguments. Because of the collaborative nature of the inquiries, students have many options. They can use any of their group members’ sources to write an argument about their inquiry subject, or they can use another group’s explanation and research to write an argument about a different subject, or they can draw from several inquiries to write an argument about a subject that is relevant to more than one inquiry.
It’s important that students understand that they will be working within a new writing situation which means that their argument should “feel” different from their explanation (sometimes students say “it feels like I’m writing the same paper” when they write an argument about a topic they have just explained; it shouldn’t).
Show the differences in writing situations by prompting students to describe the writing situation for the explanation and then asking how it might be different in an argument. You might end up with a 2-column list like this:
| Explanation | Argument |
| Writer: somewhat informal groups | Writer: somewhat formal individuals |
| Purpose: describe your research process | Purpose: convince others to agree with you |
| Audience: this class | Audience: wider academic community |
| Text: forum post | Text: MLA-style academic paper |
| Subject: your group's chosen inquiry question | Subject: individually chosen inquiry question |
Before students choose a subject, they need to understand the assignment itself. Distribute the assignment sheet and discuss it in the way your class has become accustomed to. Be sure to allow time for students to ask questions.
If students aren’t already sitting with their groups, ask them to shift so that they are. Put instructions on the overhead that will prompt groups to prepare a short report about their inquiry. For example:
Inquiry reportsHelp your peers decide on a subject for their argument by telling the class about your inquiry. Talk among your group to answer the following questions. In a few minutes, someone from your group will report your group’s answers to the class.
What was your inquiry subject?
What questions did you find answers to?
What questions are left unanswered?
What’s the most controversial aspect of your subject?
What needs to be discussed further?
Are you considering writing your argument about your inquiry subject? Why/why not?
Part of students’ homework will be to read each group's explanation and to decide on two potential topics for the argument. They’ll also read about claims in the textbook so they can come to class next time with some possible claims in mind. So that students understand why they need to think about claims, take time at the end of today’s class to introduce argument structure. Remind students that they saw this structure in "The Meatrix" summary lesson and as they looked at the thesis and reasons of the Pollan articles.
Since the purpose of many arguments is to convince readers to agree, it’s important to have a central idea for readers to agree with. An argument’s central idea is its claim (think back to the summary assignments in which students looked for the claim (or thesis) in the short essays from The Nation). Writers build arguments off of claims by providing reasons; statements that show why the writer believes the claim to be true. Since reasons often are opinions, they need evidence to show that they can be considered valid. The claim à reasons à evidence structure is the foundation for most academic arguments.
Show students an example like this one:
Claim: The U.S. government should subsidize organic food. . .
. . .because organic farming is good for the environment (reason 1)
. . . because organic food is better for people (reason 2)
. . . because if organic food costs less more people could buy it and it would lose its stigma as a “crazy hippie fad.”
Each reason needs to be supported with evidence (which can include firsthand observations, examples from personal experience, statistics, facts, quotations from your reading, results of surveys and interviews, etc.). Remind students of the kinds of evidence they found convincing in Pollan's articles and your discussions of how his choices of evidence reflect his purpose, audience and context.
At this point, students mainly need to be concerned with coming up with possible claims.
You will to allow some time to prepare students for individual conferences. You’ll need to explain and schedule conferences. Also your students need to see an example of a zero draft so they understand what they need to bring to their conference.
Explain to students that they will not meet for class on one of the days in Week 10 but instead they will meet you for a 10-15 minute conference at your office to discuss progress on the academic argument. Show students an example of a zero-draft (link to Zero Draft Samples in appendix] and explain that a zero-draft is an early attempt to get thoughts on paper. [link to Zero Draft Directions handout in appendix] Students’ zero-drafts should be about one double-spaced page and should include the claim the writer intends to make, reasons the writer hopes will support the claim, and opposing arguments the writer plans to refute. Rather than a list, students should write it as a summary or condensed version of the argument they would make if they had to write it now.
Send around a sign-up sheet that has at least a few more conference times than you have students. When you create this sheet, remember to leave yourself a few breaks here and there. Even though you will cancel a class in order to hold conferences, you can spread conferences out over several days. Ask students who don’t have to meet during class time to leave those times available for others who don’t have any other time to meet. Assure students that you will find alternative times to meet with anyone who cannot find a workable time on the sign-up sheet.
Ask students to write about their responses to “The Argument Culture" (assigned for homework due today). Prompt students with questions on the overhead:
Write-to-Learn
- How does Tannen define “argument”?
- Do you agree with her definition of argument and her idea that the “sports and war” metaphors don’t help us solve anything? Why/why not?
- How might you use Tannen’s ideas about argument as you write your own argument?
Ask students to share some of their WTL ideas and point out that while the academic argument’s purpose is to convince readers, students do not necessarily have to set out to “win” or bully their readers into agreeing. Tannen’s idea that we need to look at “all sides” will help students write well-rounded arguments that consider multiple perspectives.
Start by talking with your class about the explanations (posted by groups on Writing Studio) they read for homework. This will reinforce the idea that the explanations were written for a real audience. You can ask students to talk about what surprised them the most as they read the explanations, which explanation(s) turned out to have the most exigence (urgency), etc. Also you can ask students to talk about how the explanations helped them choose their top two topics.
Ask if anyone is certain of the topic they want to pursue for the academic argument. Ask, “why will this be a good topic for you?” Hopefully, answers will be about occasion (“it really matters to me” or “I’m really interested in it”) and exigence (“it really matters to others” or “it really needs to be addressed”). This will help you establish criteria for choosing topics:
Occasion: students need to be motivated to write about it.
Exigence: there needs to be some degree of urgency.
Complexity: it needs to be complex enough that students can “look at all sides.”
With these criteria, students should be able to decide on a topic now, or soon.
Once students have settled on a topic, they need to decide on a debatable claim. The claim will become the focus of the argument, so it is worth taking time to develop one that will work. Claims for arguments need to be debatable and of an appropriate scope (neither too narrow nor too broad). To help students understand these concepts, present a few sample claims on the board:
Sample claim: Food assistance programs are necessary in the U.S.
What kind of claim is this? [claim of fact]
Is it debatable? [yes, people could argue against it.]
To determine if the claim is appropriate in scope, test out reasons and opposing arguments. If the writer needs more than a few reasons to prove that the claim is valid, the claim might be too broad in scope. If the writer can prove the claim with just one reason, the claim might be too narrow. If nobody would disagree with the claim, it may be too narrow (or it may have no exigence). If there are many legitimate opposing arguments, the claim might be to broad in scope.
What reasons could the writer give?
What opposing arguments would the writer need to refute?
If the writer can support the claim by proving a few reasons and by refuting a couple of opposing arguments, the claim is appropriate in scope.
Show a few more examples on an overhead transparency (include at least one that won’t work—in these examples, the claim about value is somewhat moot while also being too broad in scope):
Claim about cause and effect: Fast food advertising increases obesity.
| Possible reasons: | It makes over-eating seem normal. |
| It manipulates people into wanting fast food. | |
| It encourages children to eat unhealthy food. |
What other reasons could the writer use to support the claim?
What opposing arguments will an academic audience be most likely to bring up?
Claim about value: The U.S. has a bad relationship with food.
| Possible reasons: | Many of us eat anxiously |
| Many of us eat too much |
What other reasons could the writer use to support the claim?
What opposing arguments will an academic audience be most likely to bring up?
Claim about policy or solution: Happy Meals should be abolished.
| Possible reasons: | They include unhealthy food |
| They establish bad eating habits in the very young | |
| They make it too easy for parents to ignore their child’s nutrition |
What other reasons could the writer use to support the claim?
What opposing arguments will an academic audience be most likely to bring up?
Ask students to “test” one of the claims they've written by brainstorming reasons and opposing arguments for it. Once the class has had time to work on their own for a bit, ask a few students to write a claim, reasons, and opposing arguments on the board. Talk these through with the class just as you did with the examples. Be sure to point out any problems you see if the class is being “too nice.” Likewise, if the class is finding fault with everything, show them the ways in which the examples could work.
This work could get students started on a "zero-draft," i.e. a very early attempt to articulate their argument that they don't have to commit to.
Homework
Read each of the explanations and decide on your top two topics for the academic argument.
Read about argument and claims on pages 471-478 of the PHG. Write four different possible claims for your argument: a claim of fact or definition, a claim about cause and effect, a claim about value, and a claim about solutions or policies. Bring these claims to class next time. You won’t have to use any of these claims for your argument, so don’t worry if they’re not “perfect.”
Read “The Argument Culture” by Deborah Tannen on pages 436-443 of the PHG. Be ready to talk about Tannen’s definition of “argument” and how it does or doesn’t coincide with your definition of “argument.
Write a zero-draft for your academic argument.
Week 10
Oct. 22, Oct. 24, Oct. 26
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Conferencing with individual students holds each student accountable for being an active member of an academic community. Conferences will focus on the writing process and on the rhetorical choices students plan to make as they continue working on their drafts. Developing an argument is a way of meeting readers’ needs. A lot of CO150 students don’t have a lot of practice shaping their writing with an audience in mind which may be why so many CO150 students struggle to develop their papers.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
Conferences are all about each student’s own writing. This may be the one time all semester that some students have your undivided attention; focusing this time on a particular writing assignment will make the conference as useful as possible. Examining other writers' argument strategies will give students ideas for ways to develop their zero-drafts into academic arguments.
Activities
The primary goal of each conference is to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the student’s zero-draft; that is, to talk with the student about how his/her claim and reasons may help him/her accomplish his/her purpose as well as the purposes of the assignment itself. Secondary goals of each conference are numerous; it’s important to be flexible (it’s very likely that some students will show up with no draft at all), so you can make each conference productive for each student. Since you’ll only have 10-15 minutes with each student, try to keep the conference focused; but be willing to accept that you may not have time to address every student’s every need. You can always recommend that a student schedule another (perhaps longer) conference with you if there is too much to discuss at this one.
Consider where you’ll hold conferences as well as where you and each student will sit. If you don’t want to use your office you can meet students in the library by the coffee cart or at a table in the 3rd floor Eddy hallway. Since you will be talking about a draft, it may help to be able to sit next to the student so you can both look at the draft at the same time. This sets up an informal atmosphere that can be conducive to a productive conference. However, some instructors and some students need more formality for various reasons. You might set up the conference space so that the students sit across from you instead.
Here are some possible conference starters:
Tell me about your zero-draft.
What topic have you chosen? Why?
What claim have you chosen? Why?
When you read the student’s zero-draft, give yourself time to think it through, and don’t hesitate to ask the student for clarification. You do not need to evaluate the draft on the spot; rather, discuss the ways in which the student envisions the argument accomplishing its goals. Give suggestions as appropriate, but keep in mind that many students benefit most from talking about their own writing.
Wrap up each conference as you see fit, aiming to motivate students to keep working on their drafts. You might suggest that students make notes on their drafts about what they want to do with it next (it’s easy for students to walk out of your office with tons of great ideas, then to forget them all once they leave the building). You might make your own notes about what you discuss with each student, too.
Activities
Take some time to talk with your class about their reactions to "Is Welfare Still Necessary…?" Your discussion need not be scripted, but try to work in the following:
Development is one of the aspects of writing that CO150 students struggle with most, so they can benefit from guided practice on how to use evidence to support reasons to support a claim. Start by showing an example of sufficiently relevant evidence for a reason that supports the claim that the U.S. government should subsidize organic food:
Claim: The U.S. government should subsidize organic food.
Reason: Organic food tends to be healthier for people.
Evidence: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported “that the superior management practices of organic agriculture reduce E. coli and mycotoxin infections in food.”Evidence: A 2003 John Hopkins study found that “Use of chlorinated pesticides among applicators over 50 years of age was significantly associated with prostate cancer risk.”
Evidence: The UK-based Soil Association reports that “antibiotic additives routinely added to animal food to speed animal growth are linked with bacterial resistance in humans to the same or closely related antibiotics.” Also, they say that “No hydrogenated fats are allowed in organic food.” Also they say that “No food has higher amounts of beneficial minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins than organic food.”
Be sure students understand that three isn’t a “magic number;” some reasons can be supported with just two pieces of evidence and some need four or five. This might lead to a discussion of how to decide how much evidence is enough, based on reasons, audience, context, etc.
Next, show an example of the above written in paragraph form:
Organic food tends to be healthier for people. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported “that the superior management practices of organic agriculture reduce E. coli and mycotoxin infections in food.” A 2003 John Hopkins study found that “Use of chlorinated pesticides among applicators over 50 years of age was significantly associated with prostate cancer risk.” The UK-based Soil Association reports that “antibiotic additives routinely added to animal food to speed animal growth are linked with bacterial resistance in humans to the same or closely related antibiotics.” Also, they say that “No hydrogenated fats are allowed in organic food.” Also they say that “No food has higher amounts of beneficial minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins than organic food.”
This paragraph is typical of CO150 writing. While it starts out with the reason and then presents evidence for the reason, it does not explain how the pieces of evidence connect to each other nor how they support the reason. This paragraph asks readers to make the logical connections between the evidence and the reason. This compromises the purpose of the argument; if a reader is already skeptical or even just indifferent, how likely is it that he/she will be willing to do the work to understand how the evidence supports the reason?
Present another example that uses the same reasons and evidence much more effectively:
Though the USDA refuses to verify that organic food is healthier than conventionally-grown food, there is a lot of evidence that shows that organic food does tend to be healthier for people—both the producers and the consumers. Firstly, organic farmers do not use chemical pesticides. A 2003 John Hopkins study found that chemical pesticides can increase the risk of prostate cancer. The study concluded that the “use of chlorinated pesticides among applicators over 50 years of age was significantly associated with prostate cancer risk.” An organic farmer is not at this increased risk because he does not use chemical pesticides. Other studies need to be conducted to see if there are links between chemical pesticides and other types of cancer, but it is clear that avoiding chemical pesticides is not bad for human health, and in some cases at least, can be very beneficial.
Organic food is also good for the health of the consumer. While our society is concerned about food safety and food-borne illnesses, we can take comfort in the fact that organic food is more likely to be safe. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported “that the superior management practices of organic agriculture reduce E. coli and mycotoxin infections in food.” Organic food is inspected much more carefully than conventionally grown food, and organic food producers have to adhere to strict guidelines. This leads to much safer food.
Many people in the U.S. ask: “is organic food really healthier? As the UK, Germany, and other European countries have embraced organics for a long time, we can look to them for some answers. The UK-based Soil Association reports that “antibiotic additives routinely added to animal food to speed animal growth are linked with bacterial resistance in humans to the same or closely related antibiotics.” Many people in the U.S. would agree that antibiotic resistance is a problem; organic farming can help slow this problem. Also, the Soil Association points out that “No hydrogenated fats are allowed in organic food.” This should pique the interest of a country mired in obesity problems. Finally, the Soil Association concludes that “No food has higher amounts of beneficial minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins than organic food.” Nobody can argue that these nutritional benefits are bad.
This second example is much more effective in showing how the evidence supports the reason. The writer has done the work that the first example asks readers to do. It directs readers to the writer’s preferred interpretation of the evidence, thus making readers much more likely to agree with the reason and with the argument as a whole. If your students need more of a push to see the benefits of the second example, point out that the first example is 120 words long while the second example is 377 words long (half a page vs. a page and a half). This can help students who tend to say what they have to say and then fill in the rest of the required length with “fluff.”
Use these examples (and come up with a few more of your own) for the following activity in which students will practice providing evidence and showing how evidence supports reasons.
Reason: Organic farming is much easier on the environment.
Evidence: The FDA says that, “Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations.”Evidence: Whole Foods Market lists these environmental benefits of organic food:
- Organic farming practices help protect our water resources.
- Organic production limits toxic chemicals in our environment.
- Organic farmers are less reliant on non-renewable fossil fuels.
Evidence: A 2006 study at Stanford found that organic farming reduces groundwater contamination and nitrogen gas emissions while being the most sustainable method of agriculture.
Reason: If the price of organics decreases, demand will go up (resulting in a healthier population and environment).
Evidence: I used to have to pay $5.00 for a gallon of organic milk at the local food co-op. I could only afford to do this now and then. Now, I can find organic milk at Whole Foods for less than $4.00 and at Safeway for around $3.00. I buy organic milk a lot more now.Evidence: According to Chip Wilson, author of Principles of Economics, “the law of demand states that, in general, price and quantity demanded in a given market are inversely related. In other words, the higher the price of a product, the less of it people would be able and willing buy of it.”
Evidence: The USDA reported that in 1997, consumers spent 3.6 billion dollars on organic products. In 2003, consumers spent 10.4 billion dollars on organic products. During that time, the price of organics decreased.
Break students into small groups and give each group a handout that includes a reason and a few pieces of evidence. Also give each group an overhead transparency and pen. Present the following instructions on the overhead:
When groups have finished, collect transparencies and pens, and call on groups to present their work.
Homework
Work on your argument draft.
Read “Welfare is Still Necessary for Women and Children in the U.S.” on pages 540-543
of the PHG.
As you continue working on your draft, apply the development strategies we discussed in class.
Read “The Damnation of a Canyon” by Edward Abbey on pages 499-504.
Read about audience appeals on pages 478-483.
Week 11
Oct. 29, Oct. 31, Nov. 2
Lesson Objectives
Students will
Connection to Course Goals
Students learn about how to make rhetorical choices that will help them achieve their purposes with their audiences. Workshop sessions encourage students to see their writing as a process by promoting critical thinking and revision. Gaining peer feedback helps remind students to keep their audience in mind while writing.
Connection to Students’ Own Writing
By drawing on previous writing experiences and using their own topics to think about audience appeals, students gather ideas to apply to their academic arguments. In the peer response workshop, students have the opportunity to get several readings of their drafts while they consider their peers’ rhetorical choices.
Activities
Ask students about how drafts are coming along. Address any concerns or questions while encouraging students to share strategies that are working well for them. Remind students of what you’ve already talked about in class: how to remain focused on a claim and how to develop a claim with reasons and evidence.
Start with what students already know about argument, prompting them with questions about what Abbey says, such as:
Move the students into a discussion of how Abbey says what he says by adding in questions such as:
Present the following on an overhead transparency. As you present each type of appeal, ask students for ideas about how they can use the appeal in their papers. Also ask for examples of how Abbey uses each kind of appeal. You might also discuss how context influences the use of appeals. Ask students to consider how authors they've read--Pollan, of their sources, of PHG readings, etc--used appeals. This could lead to a discussion of the use of appeals in academic contexts, emphasizing the privileging of appeals to logos and ethos over appeals to pathos in academic discourse.
On the board, keep a list of ideas for each appeal. Give students time to jot down ideas for their own arguments on their drafts.
Audience Appeals
Appealing to your audience means using language and presenting your argument in deliberate ways, so that you have a good chance of achieving your goals with as many members of your audience as possible. Appropriately used appeals help support your claim.
Appeals to Character (Ethos): Showing that you are a reliable, trustworthy person can help give your readers confidence in your argument. Establishing common ground with your readers can make them more likely to agree with your ideas.
Appeals to Emotion (Pathos): Getting readers emotionally involved can increase the likelihood that they will feel that your argument is important. If emotional appeals are used in place of credibility or logical reasoning, however, they can make readers feel as though you are trying to manipulate them or that you have something to hide.
Appeals to Logic (Logos): Since most all of your readers will value logical reasoning quite highly and will have very similar ideas about what is and isn’t reasonable, it is important to provide sufficient evidence to support enough good reasons to support your claim. Additionally, it is important that you explain how the reasons support the claim, how the evidence supports the reasons, and how the pieces of evidence relate to each other.
Be sure that students understand how to write logically: present enough support for your claim, and explain it thoroughly.
Next, point out that there are common logical errors, or logical fallacies (distortions of rhetoric to make an argument seem more convincing). Fallacies happen when a writer manipulates a reader’s emotions, when a writer misrepresents someone’s character, and when a writer distorts an argument’s logic. Sometimes fallacies are intentional (as is often the case in political speeches and in advertising) and sometimes they aren’t. In either case, they can weaken an argument.
Students should be aware of common types of fallacies, so they can avoid them as they make their own arguments and so that they can identify them in opposing arguments (thus making the opposing arguments easier to refute).
There are many options for a logical fallacies activity; here is one:
Ask students to use pages 532-535 in their textbooks to identify fallacious statements you put up on the overhead projector one at a time. Here are a few examples; be sure to create more of your own (8-10 work well):
From pages 532-533:
Vegetarianism is just a naïve, urban idea. [Genetic fallacy]
Johnny ate a happy meal for dinner every day until he was 12. Now he has diabetes. [Post hoc ergo propter hoc]
From pages 534-535
Taxing junk food would be un-American. [Ad Populum]
If a person refuses to wear fur, they must also refuse to wear leather. [Faulty comparison]
Next, ask students to create their own examples of fallacies. Call on a student to share a fallacy and then ask the class to identify it. Encourage students to use their own argument topics, so they can become aware of possible fallacies to look for in opposing arguments as well as ones to avoid while drafting.
Design a workshop activity that will enable students to read and respond to at least two drafts in the allotted time. Use the workshop activity bank in the syllabus appendix for ideas, keeping in mind that the workshop activity should reflect the assignment sheet, grading criteria and classroom instruction. Also, remember that the goal of workshop need not be for students to “pre-grade” others’ papers.
Students’ will revise these drafts of the paper, so talk for a few minutes about how they might do that. You can share some of your own revision strategies and/or ask students to share some of their own. Remind students that revision means more than proofreading.
Homework
Finish drafting your argument essay. Bring 2 copies to class for workshop. [Add a reminder of your workshop policy here.]
Read about revising arguments on pages 530-532 of the PHG.
Use your workshop feedback as you revise your argument. Consider going to the Writing Center for further revision ideas [add Writing Center hours here].
Prepare your argument to turn in next time, along with your process work.
In Phase 2, students have had a chance to see how conversations about significant issues occur in layered contexts that are interrelated, much like an ecosystem. Phase 3 places students in an exploration of the local ecosystem of the CSU campus and surrounding community, focusing on sites of academic, social, cultural, recreational, political or personal interest to new students at the university. In this unit, we ask students to investigate a site of interest--a course, an academic program, a service, an activity, an organization—and explain the results to inform new students about it. Based on their investigation of the site and evaluation of its value to students, students will then write an argument to promote the site to students, to address a problem with the site, or to effect change.
Students will apply inquiry strategies practiced to-date by choosing a site of interest, formulating inquiry questions, and finding and selecting sources of information. While they may use library resources in some cases, their inquiry will focus on field research, such as interviewing, observing, and surveys. In Phase 3, we will help students develop effective field research skills, such as developing questions, gathering information, and note-taking. As the explanation of their investigation will be written for new students, we will also help students define and address yet another audience.
Writing the Public Audience Argument will give students the opportunity to solve a complex rhetorical problem, i.e. they will need to identify a debatable issue, determine the purpose for the argument, and target an appropriate audience as well as choose effective strategies for achieving their purpose with their intended audience. Focusing on a problem or concern discovered during the investigation of the site or on the need to raise awareness about it, students can build on the strategies for academic argument they learned and practiced in Phase 2. By asking students to take their concerns public, we hope they will have a positive experience of writing as engaged and informed citizens of the CSU community to address matters of local concern.
By the end of Phase 3, students should be able to
Assignment
Overview. We began the semester reading about issues of food and have broadened those issues to look at their agricultural, philosophical, sociologic, medical, and journalistic dimensions. There are many more dimensions we might have looked into, had we enough time to do so. Our fundamental question: “what should we eat” has led us in so many directions that it is impossible to say that there is a simple answer to that question. Often, this is the case with seemingly simple questions—they lead to many other branches of learning and knowledge.
A University highlights the interconnectedness of these branches of learning and knowledge. More complex than any of us probably realize, our University is like an ecosystem in which individuals and communities interact and depend upon each other in the pursuit of learning, knowledge, research, socialization, creativity, and discovery. Therefore, in our final two assignments we will investigate different aspects of this “ecosystem” in order to better understand how it functions and to make suggestions for change within it.
In the two previous projects, you worked with a group of peers to investigate, explain, and argue about a debatable topic. In this project, you will work on your own to investigate and explain a particular aspect of CSU. You’ll choose a function of the University such as a course, a major, an association, a service, an aspect of campus culture, an organization, a department, etc. You’ll investigate what it is, how it works, and how it functions within its larger context (CSU). To do this, you’ll conduct field research: observation, interviews, surveys, etc. Then you will write an explanation of your findings to incoming first-year students.
This project will prepare you to complete the last assignment for CO150, which will be an argument that evolves out of your investigation—you might raise awareness about a problem you uncovered, you might write a letter to a CSU official asking for a change to be made, etc. There will be at least as many possibilities for this assignment as there are functions of the University; as you work on your investigation and explanation, keep an open mind and take notes on any ideas you have.
Purpose. Your goals for your investigation are to conduct field research in order to learn everything you can about your topic so you can tell your readers about it in your explanation. Your goals in the explanation are to use your research to summarize the aspect of the university you investigated—that is, explain its who, what, where, when, why, and how to your audience—and to explain how it functions within its larger context(s).
Audience. The audience for your research is mainly yourself—you will be observing, interviewing, etc. to broaden your own understanding of your topic. When you write your explanation, you should imagine incoming students as your audience.
Subject. Explore an aspect of the local ecosystem of the CSU campus and surrounding community. This could be a site of academic, social, cultural, recreational, political or personal interest to you and to new students at the university. You might choose a course, an academic program, a service, an activity, an organization, etc.
Author. Present yourself as part of the “ecosystem” you are investigating. Show that you have, as objectively as possible, conducted an open-minded inquiry.
Example and Strategies.
Say you chose this course, CO150, as your topic. Your issue for investigation could be: why is CO150 a required course? To research, you could:
Your explanation could then explain to incoming freshmen why they have to take the course and how it develops needed academic competencies. Your subsequent argument could then be written either to the University Curriculum Committee arguing to change the requirement or to an incoming student convincing them it's a useful course.
To choose a topic, ask yourself:
Details.
Sources: You need to have five to seven sources in the investigation part of your portfolio. You need to have at least three different genres in your portfolio. We will discuss these possibilities in class.
Length: Your explanation should be around 3 pages in length.
Due: Week 14
Worth: 15% of your course grade.
Assignment
Overview. This assignment asks you to synthesize the fundamental skills taught in CO150, namely, the ability to use writing to communicate clearly and concisely with an awareness of your rhetorical situation. You’ll use the topic you investigated and explained, and you’ll write an argument for a specific audience. You’ll make your argument “public” by getting it as close to your intended audience as possible. You’ll make all the rhetorical choices in this assignment, including purpose, audience and genre.
Purpose. You will determine what you want to accomplish in writing this argument. You may want your readers to agree with your ideas, you may want your readers to do or not do certain things, you may want to facilitate change, etc. It’s up to you, and it depends on your opinions regarding your topic.
Audience. You will determine who needs to hear your argument. Your audience needs to be specific (i.e. not “general audience” or “academic audience”). It may be one particular individual or it may be the CSU community or it may be something else entirely. Your audience and your purpose should be clearly linked.
Genre. You will determine the genre through which you can best reach your audience. You might choose to write a letter to an individual, an email to several people, a letter to The Collegian to reach the entire CSU community, a brochure to target a specific group of people, etc. You might make a website that’s accessible to particular individuals (i.e. myspace or facebook).
Subject. You’ll write about the topic you just investigated, though it might shift some since you are writing to a new audience and through a new genre. For example, if you wrote your explanation about what it means to be an interior design major, and during your research you realized that you don’t agree with the testing methods used to admit (or deny) applicants, you might write a letter to the Dean of Applied Human Sciences arguing that portfolios are a much better measure of a student’s potential than are rigorous tests.
Author. Present yourself as a concerned member of the CSU community. Show that you have thought through your ideas from a number of different perspectives (especially the perspective of your audience).
Strategies.
Details.
Format: follow the formatting conventions of your chosen genre.
Length: follow the conventions of your chosen genre, and consider what will work best given your audience and purpose.
Worth: 10% of your course grade
Due: at the final exam.
The beginning of phase three marks a new stage in your lesson planning. You are now responsible for creating and sequencing nearly all activities to accomplish course goals. While we do provide some weekly suggestions and ideas, most of the development and implementation of these activities is up to you. We encourage you to integrate the PHG, the Writing Studio and other resources (from E607, TART, peers, etc.) in your lesson planning.
You should continue to write detailed lesson plans, beginning with a description of the lesson’s objective. Also be sure to include a statement about how the lesson connects to course goals and to students’ own writing. Be sure to think through the sequence of activities and how to transition between them so that students understand the rationale for how you structure each lesson.
As a general rule, it’s effective to present course material in this sequence: 1.) Explain the concept or material to students. 2.) Model the concept or material for students. 3.) Have students practice the concept or material by applying it to their own writing (ideally to the writing they do for each major assignment).
If you need assistance developing lesson plans for this final phase of CO150, feel free to talk to one of the lecturers and/or to the Composition faculty.
Your goals for this week are to transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3 as you help students choose topics for the local inquiry. Since Phase 3 branches off in new ways, it’s important to show students how it connects to Phases 1 and 2.
Phase 3 assignments give students more freedom to make their own rhetorical choices, as well as more responsibility for doing so. By the end of CO150, we want students to be able to navigate a writing situation independently. At this point some of your students will be more ready to do this than will others; keep in mind this range as you design activities.
Assign a postscript for the academic argument
Write postscript questions that will allow students to reflect on the writing process and to explain their rhetorical choices.
Return to the writing as a conversation model
Show students that they have completed the circle—with the academic argument students added their voices to existing conversations. Now, others can read the academic arguments as they engage in the first stage of the process. This is especially true for any students who pursue publishing opportunities such as “Talking Back” (see https://writing.colostate.edu/gallery/talkingback/).
Have students reflect on the entire process by choosing from one of the following activities or designing your own:
Introduce the local inquiry project
Present the assignment sheet and point out that students will be engaging in another circle of writing, another conversation. They will find out what others know and think as they become informed about a topic, they will explain what they know, and, in the last assignment, they will add their voices to the conversation about the topic, perhaps initiating a new conversation about the topic.
Point out the ways in which the issue of food ethics is highly interdisciplinary, and that this is why we are now going to look at how the university functions. Design an activity that will help students see this.
You might have students list discipline represented in sources they used for their arguments by looking at their works cited page. You could also have them brainstorm how classes they are taking have or might address the issues in their arguments.
Brainstorm topics for the local inquiry
After introducing the assignment, ask students for initial ideas about topics. Construct criteria for topics (occasion and exigence should be in there somewhere—the writer needs to be motivated, and the topic needs to be somewhat important and relevant to incoming students).
Since this is an inquiry, students need to develop questions they want to find answers to. Show students how to go from a topic to an inquiry question by modeling it a few times:
If my topic is psychology majors, my inquiry question might be: "what jobs will a psychology major prepare students for?" or "why do so many students major in psychology?"
If my topic is roommates, my inquiry question might be: "how does CSU determine which students will room together?" or "how are conflicts between roommates handled?" or "what are the pros and cons of choosing a roommate instead of having one assigned?"
Have students practice creating questions out of topics they are interested in.
Introduce and practice field research
Topics need to be researchable. Few, if any, topics for this assignment lend themselves to database searches in the library. ("University news" searches on Lexis-Nexis, however, can be used to find out information about other higher education sites for comparison to CSU.) Therefore, students will need to conduct field research. To introduce the concept of field research, use pages 279-282 in the PHG and/or the field research handout in the appendix.
Next, allow students time to practice field research. To underscore the idea of going out to find answers to questions, you might take some class time to have groups of students leave the room to go find answers to questions you design. If you are teaching in Clark, you might use the following questions:
All of these questions are answerable within 10 or 15 minutes. Groups of students can go out of the classroom to find answers and then come back to report on what answers they found. It’s important that students explain what kinds of texts they found, too: some groups will bring back brochures, fliers, etc.; some groups will have observed and made notes; some groups may have brought back answers to questions they asked others, etc. Explain to students that this is the kind of research they will do for the local inquiry project. When you design your questions, be sure you keep in mind the building you teach in so that students don’t have to trek all the way across campus.
Homework for Week 12:
Your goals this week are to facilitate students’ field research and to discuss strategies for writing the explanation. Remember that next week is fall break and that when students return from fall break they will be workshopping their explanations. Because of this, you might devote some class time to drafting introductions. Otherwise, students may return from fall break having forgotten about their research and having to draft their explanations rather hastily.
Introduce interview and questionnaire techniques
Discuss the advantages and potential pitfalls of interviews and questionnaires using pages 279-282 in the PHG to guide a discussion. See if students can produce or add to the following points:
Interviews
- Provide you with more control because you’re there to guide the discussion (you can ask interviewees to elaborate on their answers and you can clarify confusing questions for more accurate responses).
- Provide a more comfortable atmosphere for raising personal questions
- Lend themselves to witnessing body language (you can note which questions interest your interviewees and which make them nervous).
Questionnaires
- Produce more responses
- Are easier to tabulate numerically
- May lead to more honest responses since writing is more anonymous than talking.
Discuss audience. Students should question a range of people in order to make their interview or questionnaire results the most meaningful. If, for example, a student is inquiring into how students incorporate church into their lives as college students, they need to talk to people from a variety of churches as well as people who don’t attend church regularly if at all.
Discuss effective questions. Use the PHG and the points below to guide this discussion:
Effective survey questions will:
Most importantly, effective questions will address the writer’s purpose, which in this case is to find out what people know and think about the topic at hand. In other words, interviews and questionnaires will give students a sense of the conversation surrounding their topic.
Be sure students understand the importance of a questionnaire’s design: if it looks confusing or overwhelming, or if it is difficult to understand where and how to respond, it probably won’t work very well.
Practice interview and questionnaire techniques
Allow students time to draft potential interview questions or questionnaires. As students work, offer to address their questions and concerns one-on-one.
After students have completed a draft of their questions, have them exchange drafts in pairs or groups. Refer them back to the criteria established earlier to provide some useful feedback. Put some workshop questions on the overhead to guide students’ feedback. Before students provide feedback, they need to tell each other what their purpose is for the interview or questionnaire.
Interview and Questionnaire Workshop
- Will these questions lead the writer to a better understanding of the existing knowledge and opinions about their topic?
- Which questions will most effectively help the writer accomplish his/her goals for this interview or questionnaire? Least effectively?
- Are there more questions that you think the writer should include?
- Where might the writer improve tone or clarity?
- For questionnaires, comment on the overall design: would this questionnaire overwhelm you if you were asked to take it?
Discuss the explanation’s writing situation and brainstorm explanation strategies
Show the assignment sheet for the Phase 2 explanation on the overhead, and ask students to take out the assignment sheet for the explanation they’re working on now. Compare the writing situations. You may end up with a list like this:
| Phase 2 Explanation | Phase 3 Explanation |
| Subject: food ethics |
Subject: CSU |
The purposes are very similar: students need to write objectively, explaining what questions they asked and what answers they found. The major difference is audience. Ask students how they will write differently for incoming students than they did for their peers. Student have a choice of genre here—they may write letters, make informational brochures or posters, etc. They need to decide what will work best given their topic, research and audience. If a lot of their research is visual, for example, they may choose a more visual genre.
The point of this discussion is to prompt students to make some of their own deliberate rhetorical choices. They should be ready to do this, given all of the emphasis on rhetorical situations in phases 1 and 2. They’ll need to make even more of their own choices in the public argument, so it’s good to practice some now.
Read and discuss sample explanations
There are pros and cons to this activity. Discussing samples with your students can help as you brainstorm strategies for the explanation. Be careful about letting the samples become “templates” for students, though. At this point students should be able to talk about samples in terms of the writers’ rhetorical choices. Try to keep the discussion focused on rhetoric, and remind students that the strategies the samples use aren’t the only way to accomplish assignment goals. You might ask students to propose alternative audiences or genres that the sample writers might have considered.
Draft explanation introductions
Once students have had a chance to gather strategies for writing the explanation, give them time to begin a draft. Encourage students to stop at a place where they know what they want to say next, so when they come back to the draft, they’ll be able to get right to work.
Homework for Week 13:
Your goals this week are to workshop letters to incoming freshmen, to collect letters to incoming freshmen and to introduce the public argument. If you teach on MWF, it will be best to hold the workshop on Wednesday. If you teach on TR, you might send a reminder email on Monday morning, so students remember that they need to bring a draft to Tuesday’s class. The week’s chronology, then, heavily depends on your students’ needs. As you choose from the following activities, be aware that your students may need alternatives.
Conduct an explanation workshop
Design a workshop activity that reflects assignment goals, grading criteria and classroom instruction. It has been a while since students did a workshop, so it may be useful to do a practice workshop before you ask students to provide feedback for each other.
Assign a postscript and collect explanations
As usual, before you collect the explanation (and any accompanying work), assign a postscript that allows students to reflect on their writing process and their rhetorical choices. You can get students thinking about the next project by including a postscript question such as, “what needs to change about the aspect of CSU you have inquired into?”
Introduce the public argument assignment
Distribute and review the assignment sheet. Allow time for students to ask questions.
Discuss possible approaches to the public argument
Start by asking students to share any problems they uncovered as they researched. Perhaps something needs to be made more visible, perhaps students need to use an organization or service more, or perhaps something needs to change in another way. You might assign a WTL to prompt students to gather their opinions on their topic.
Point out that students have a lot of choices to make for this assignment—they choose their argument’s purpose, its audience and its genre. Ask students to offer their ideas about who needs to hear their opinions about their topic, encouraging them to be as specific as possible.
Take time to brainstorm genres. Here’s a sample list of different kind of texts that aim to convince or persuade people:
Would any of these not work for this assignment? The only one that wouldn’t is the "academic argument" because students need to target a specific audience, and an academic audience is very general.
The choices of purpose, audience and genre are interrelated, and they have to make sense together. If you have time, you might allow students to work in small groups to brainstorm their own ideas, or, if you have a lot of time, you might go around the room and talk with each student, asking the class to offer their ideas.
Homework for Week 14:
This week, your students need you to help them make rhetorical choices for the public argument. Also this week, you’ll conduct a public argument workshop, wrap up the course and administer course evaluations. The chronology of this week will depend on what you did last week as well as your students’ needs. Adjust the following suggested activities according to what will work best for your class.
Compare academic and public argument strategies
Take time to underscore the differences between the academic argument and the public argument. Audience and genre will likely be the most changed elements of the writing situation; how will that impact the rhetorical choices students make as they write this argument? (You can use the rhetorical hierarchy to prompt discussion—how might the focus change? organization? development? tone? voice? genre conventions? etc.)
Discuss visual rhetoric
Since many of the students’ genre choices will require some visual elements, take time to discuss how visual choices can contribute to logos, ethos and pathos. Give students the following as a handout or on an overhead. This is adapted from a full-length handout that can be found in the appendix.
Visual Rhetoric
“Visual Rhetoric” has been used to mean anything from the use of images as argument, to the arrangement of elements on a page for rhetorical effect, to the use of typography (fonts) and more.TEXT ELEMENTS Questions to consider when choosing fonts:
1. What kinds of expectations does my audience have regarding fonts? Are they scholars or soccer fans? Church-goers or movie-goers?
2. What am I representing in my font choices? Am I a job applicant? A student writing a seminar paper? A club officer making a poster to advertise a formal dinner?
3. At what distance is my text being viewed? On a greeting card or a bumper sticker? A poster or a flyer?
4. What fonts are commonly available on people’s computers that I can use for the Web?COLOR Questions to consider when choosing colors:
1. Does the combination of colors I'm using lend itself to easy reading, either on-screen or on paper?
2. Are the cultural associations, if any, accompanying the colors appropriate?IMAGES Questions to consider when choosing images:
1. How will the image relate to my ethos (credibility)?
2. Do illustrations and diagrams offer clear, selective representations of reality?
3. Have I chosen the right kind of graph to represent your information? (Pie charts help show parts of a whole (percentages); Bar graphs show comparisons between a number of different variables; line graphs plot changes in one variable over time).
4. Are digital images of high quality? Is there anything irrelevant in the shot?DESIGN Consider these things as you bring all of the above factors together:
1. How will a reader/viewer will experience my design: what will they see first, and what will they notice later?
2. Organize according to importance: important information gets large text, special fonts, color.
3. Organize according to consistency: certain kinds of information appears in similar places, in similar style.
4. Organize to surprise—rotate text, use images as background, leave space around different elements, etc.
5. Step back to see how the design affects you. Ask yourself: would I read this? Does the design clarify my information, or make it more confusing? Is the design unique enough to make it stand out? Is the design readable from its intended distance? What is the tone of the overall design? Does this tone work for my purpose and audience?
Discuss each of the elements—text, color and images—and how they relate to overall design. Practice answering the questions with sample visual arguments such as advertisements. Ask small groups to choose an advertisement in a magazine and to discuss the ways in which the visual elements are working. Then, groups can explain their findings to the class. As groups explain how the ad works, you can prompt the class to answer questions about rhetoric, such as: how does the design draw readers in? How do design elements contribute to credibility? Does the ad attempt to get you emotionally involved at all? What claim is the ad making? etc.
You can then move on to discuss student work (you can find sample public arguments in the appendix) [link to sample public arguments here] to look at the ways in which students have applied design principles to the assignment at hand. Also you can have your students brainstorm ways in which they may use the design principles in their own arguments.
Conduct a public argument workshop
Design a workshop activity that reflects the goals of the assignment, the grading criteria and classroom instruction.
Homework for Week 15:
CSU and the English Department require instructors to meet with their classes during scheduled times during finals week. Given the nature of CO150, we do not administer an exam; instead we conduct an activity that wraps up the semester in a meaningful way. Here is one option for a final exam activity:
Since students will be turning in their Public Context Arguments at the final exam time, you might have students write an extended postscript that explains their rhetorical choices. Asking several questions can encourage students to explain their rhetorical choices thoroughly:
Alternatively, you could provide students with these questions ahead of time and ask them to prepare a short presentation for the class that explains their argument and their rhetorical choices.