Class Plan -- Unit Three, Day 27

Class Plan -- Unit Three, Day 27

Goals

Discuss possible organizational strategies for argument, using a sample text.
Work on possible organizational strategies in workshop groups.

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

Writing - Complete a 4-5 page draft of your Arguing Essay for Tuesday's take-home workshop.

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 You might pass around the optional conference sheet again before discussing organizational strategies.

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.)

If you find yourself with extra time, you might open the discussion up to problems that students are having in drafting so far, and try to get students to offer suggestions to one another for the drafting process.