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Class Plan -- Unit One, Day 8
Goals Assignment for Day 9
Reading - "The Language of Discretion" Amy Tan, p. 265, EL
"'Nigger': The Meaning of a Word" Gloria Naylor, p. 318, EL
"The Language of Silence" Maxine Hong Kingston, p. 48, EL
"The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl" Elizabeth Wong, p. 26, PHG (if you have not already assigned it) Also, read any of the articles assigned so far in the course that you have not yet read.

Writing - Write a one-paragraph summary of each of the above four articles. Complete the three-column log, listing the following for each article we have read so far this semester: author, title, one-sentence summary, including the four new articles.

Activities:
Daily - Make a list of the 2-4 kinds of style errors that you have the most trouble with in your papers.

Discussion - Grammar/punctuation and/or usage lesson on topics gleaned from Personal Literacy essay. Review for about 20-25 minutes.

I usually discuss why correctness is important yet why we don't spend so much time on it in CO150. I include the fact that many audiences will not give their work a chance if it has lots of surface errors, how surface errors can interfere with communication, and some of the other attitudes audiences have toward correctness. I also talk about how most CO150 students have few problems in this area, but most could use some review of certain rules.

I also use this day to introduce students to the handbook section of the PHG and to outline my program for dealing with style issues (mechanics, grammar, usage, etc.).

I concentrate the lesson on 2-3 areas that many students had problems with on the first paper, referring to PHG as I review.

Editing workshop - Have students exchange drafts with a partner and look at the list the writer wrote for the Daily and concentrate on looking for those errors. They should mark possible errors in pencil using the symbols on the back cover of the PHG. The writer should correct the errors using these symbols. When finished, they should turn in their paper.

If a student discovers they have a lot of problems with style through this workshop, I'll let them take the paper to correct and turn in by the end of the day.

Collect Response essay folders.

Introduce Public Literacy Assignment - Hand out hard copies of assignment. Remind students the assignment is on the Web page with comments. I might ask if anyone has looked up the comments on the previous assignments and what help they've been.

Highlight the goals of the assignment. Ask students to describe assignments in other classes when they have had to write about multiple readings and class discussions of an issue or issues. Connect also to essay tests since the Public Lit essay will draw on the kind of skills they often use in them. We want to emphasize that this essay uses all the skills of the previous two and that it goes beyond them by asking students to analyze an issue in depth and look for connections and relationships among ideas and texts and their own experiences and/or observations.

It is helpful to sketch out the skills we've used to-date and how they will be useful in this assignment.

If time, begin the three-column log. At least show students how to do one.