back Return to Unit Three:MWF
Class Plan -- Unit Three, Day 39
Goals Assignment for Day 40

Reading - Review the section in PHG on MLA documentation (557-66, 576-89).

Writing - Continue drafting.

Activities:

Daily - Take about 10 minutes to sketch out a possible organizational strategy for your essay. Where will your claim be stated? In what order will you be presenting your reasons? How will you begin and end the essay? Where will you be dealing with opposing arguments?

Optional Conference Sheet - Before you launch the following discussion, it might be a good idea to pass around a sheet with times slotted out for optional student conferences. You might find that many students will want to drop in during your office hours in the next week to ask for help in the latter stages of this writing process. Having a conference sheet is a good way to be able to ration out your office hours and perhaps throw a few more in if necessary (depending on the level of student panic).

Discussion - As a class, discuss possible organizational strategies. One way that you might do this would be to throw an outline of the sample essay on the board, discuss it, get a student outline on the board (one that is significantly different from the first), discuss that one, then talk about any other possibilities for organization that people can think of.

Group Workshop: Organizational Strategies - Have students work in groups of three, looking over each other's 1) daily writing from today, 2) Argumentative Brief, and 3) any drafts that writers have so far. Have them comment on one another's intended methods of organization, offering suggestions of alternatives. (Have them leave at least 10 minutes at the end of this workshop for discussion.)