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For Discourse Analysis

In Unit 2, instructors may want to return to some of the Unit 1 readings (suggested above), this time to look at how the authors are expressing their ideas (see Week 9 of the syllabus). Part 3 of the text takes a similar approach to the discourse analysis in the syllabus, using the concept of discourse communities, which could easily be incorporated into the syllabus. The section of the text on voice and audience will work particularly well.

The rest of this part of the book focuses on comparison/contrast. At this point, instructors have two choices. They could depart from the book and follow the syllabus, spending only a few weeks on discourse analysis and then having students write a second summary/response. Alternatively, they could have students write a comparison/contrast discourse analysis for the second portfolio--comparing two works on the same subject written for different audiences, for example. This could easily take up the remaining time: first helping students get a handle on single essays and then developing comparisons. The students would then go straight into the course postscript. In this way, they are immediately applying skills from Unit 2 back to their own writing and using discourse analysis and comparison/contrast to tell the "story" of their development as writers through this course. This second option has the advantage of developing a skill (comparison/contrast) that is not covered in CO150, while arguing from sources is covered in the next course.

Suggested readings for Discourse Analysis:

Week 9: Introduce portfolio 2--other forms of academic writing (discourse communities): pp. 221-239 ("Speech Communities"), pp. 265-273 ("Voice and Audience").

Week 10: Introduction to library research: pp. 489-501 ("Evaluating Sources").

Week 11: Organizational strategies revisited; source analysis: pp. 291-307 ("Structuring Comparisons") if students are comparing two sources for this paper.

Week 12: Drafting a paper that uses sources: pp. 509-515 ("Writing using sources").

Week 13: Revising strategies revisited: pp. 307-324 ("Revision Workshop").