Friday, September 25

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CO150

2009-2010 Syllabus

Friday, September 25

Day 14 (Friday, September 25)

Lesson Objectives

Students will

Work on intertextual connections and synthesis
Discuss their blog comments
discuss, practice, and plan their blog entries

Prep

For today, you may want to review all the articles and your film notes so that you can help students keep the ideas straight.

Materials

Issue Matrix Overhead/Handout
Questions for the blog comment discussion

Lead-in

Now that we have all of the resources (articles, films, logistics, etc.) we need to write our blogs for assignment 2, today we’ll focus on specific topics and issues you may want to discuss in your blog.

Activities

Attendance and introduction (2-3 minutes)

Begin class by letting students know that they will begin drafting their blogs after today.

Discuss blogging experience (5-10 Minutes)
Questions about posting comments on the blog:

How did you feel about posting a comment?
Was there any fear involved in taking into account such a public audience?
Were you able to overcome these fears?
What types of thinking did you use while considering what to post?
How can posting a comment help you with your own blog post?
How did posting a comment change how you think about your own writing?
Will you use similar techniques when posting comments on your peers’ blogs?
Will you do anything different when posting on your peers’ blogs?

Group WTL (15-20 Minutes)

Return to the Issue Matrix we used while discussing the 11th Hour Movie. Theassignment asks for a synthesis between ideas from the articles and the films. It’s time students begin making the connections they’ll wish to discuss in their blog. This time, have students work in groups to create the topics & issues that they wish to discuss. Here are a few examples to get the class started.

Topics & Issues:	Article/Film: How is the issue discussed
Topic: Environment and ecoliteracy Issue: How is climate change being taught to children?	11th Hour: Lomborg: Story of Stuff: Lyons: Montenegro: Russell:
Topic: Economy and corporations Issue: sustainable economies/ zero waste corporations	11th Hour: Lomborg: Story of Stuff: Lyons: Montenegro: Russell:
Consumers and media Issue: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle	11th Hour: Lomborg: Story of Stuff: Lyons: Montenegro: Russell:
Students’ turn

Student Freewrite (you determine the time)

Allow some time after today’s activities to give students a chance to work on their own blog entries. Remind students of the assignment expectations and strategies and offer a few ways for them to approach this writing time.

Approach 1: Freewrite. Begin writing down all of the ideas you might like to discuss in your blog. Don’t worry about right or wrong. Juts write! You can go over what you wrote later and pick out any good ideas to revise into your draft.
Approach 2: Outline. Consider all of the parts that make up this assignment, such as an introduction, conclusion, main point for discussion, supporting points for discussion, etc., and begin to fill in the scaffolding of your draft.

Review the grading rubric (if time) and conclude class

To end class today, ask students to reread the assignment sheet and the grading rubric and to ask you any questions they have. If there isn’t time, you could always add this to the homework. Be sure students know that Monday is a workshop day—you might refer them to your policy for attending workshops on your syllabus.

Homework for Monday

Review Assignment 2, including the grading rubric before drafting your blog entry. Make sure you come to class with a complete draft (it has a beginning, middle and an end), prepared for a fruitful workshop.
Print out the Assignment 2 Workshop Guide and bring a copy to class (Materials)
Read about the writing process on pages 34-48 of the PHG. Please bring your PHG to class with you.

Connection to Next Class

Today's class helped students organize their ideas and "pre-write." They should be ready to write a draft for workshop next week.