Thursday, September 13th

Day 8 (Thursday, September 13)

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 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.  They may be uncertain about how to begin writing the letter, and so today’s class will focus on that.

Activities
Attendance and Introduction (2-3 minutes)
Take attendance and introduce class as usual.

Discuss students’ choice of articles (8-10 minutes)
Ask students to share which article they chose, and why.  You might ask a few students to discuss their choice of audience as well.

Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.

Review the assignment goals (8-10 minutes)
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.

Conduct a pre-workshop (15-20 minutes)
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.

Write and discuss outlines (20-25 minutes)
With their rhetorical choices fresh in their minds, students can write an outline that will 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.

Give students 8 or 10 minutes to do this, and ask a few of the first finished students to write their outline on the board.  Then, talk through each outline.  There’s no need to evaluate it; ask the class something like “will this outline help Danny accomplish the assignment goals?” If so, ask them why.  If not, ask what changes Danny might make to his plan.

Transition write a transition here that will connect this activity to the next.

“Plan B”
Think through and write down your “if time” and “if I run out of time” ideas here.

Assign homework and conclude class (5-7 minutes)
Take extra time today to reiterate the importance of 1) being present on Tuesday 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 Tuesday
Draft your letter.  Bring three copies of your draft and (revised) audience description to class on Tuesday for workshop.  Remember that [add your workshop policy here].

Connection to Next Class
Today's class helped students collect ideas or "pre-write." Next time students will workshop the drafts they write for homework based on the outlines they created today.