OBJECTIVE: Give you the opportunity to think seriously about the kind of writing you want to model, and give you an opportunity to practice your presentation skills and discussion moderation in a safe, collegial space. :-)
ACTIVITY: Each of you will be responsible for guiding a 15-minute class discussion on a piece of strong writing.
LABOR INSTRUCTIONS
REQUIRED LABOR: 145-160 minutes.
1. SIGN UP FOR PRESENTATION SLOT.
2. (45-60 MINUTES): Carefully choose a writing excerpt of 600-700 words that you think has something to teach us about the writing and reading concepts we've been working on in class. Make sure that it is formatted, copied, and pasted correctly. Save it as a pdf if you're sending it to me to print for the class.
The goal is for you to bring a piece of writing that we can learn something valuable from. Either this is a work of weak close reading in your own work that you think the class would benefit from unpacking, diagnosing, and improving. Or, this is a work from an outside article that you think does an excellent job at integrating research, analyzing evidence, contextualizing, or close reading. Your writing excerpt can be:
4. (60 MINUTES): Lesson plan for your fifteen-minute discussion, by preparing a printed handout (for yourself that you will then hand into me) with the following:
For the assignment to be considered complete, you must hand in the following:
IF YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO MAKE COPIES OF YOUR EXCERPT FOR YOU, YOU MUST EMAIL ME BY MIDNIGHT THE NIGHT BEFORE YOUR PRESENTATION.
ACTIVITY: Each of you will be responsible for guiding a 15-minute class discussion on a piece of strong writing.
LABOR INSTRUCTIONS
REQUIRED LABOR: 145-160 minutes.
1. SIGN UP FOR PRESENTATION SLOT.
2. (45-60 MINUTES): Carefully choose a writing excerpt of 600-700 words that you think has something to teach us about the writing and reading concepts we've been working on in class. Make sure that it is formatted, copied, and pasted correctly. Save it as a pdf if you're sending it to me to print for the class.
The goal is for you to bring a piece of writing that we can learn something valuable from. Either this is a work of weak close reading in your own work that you think the class would benefit from unpacking, diagnosing, and improving. Or, this is a work from an outside article that you think does an excellent job at integrating research, analyzing evidence, contextualizing, or close reading. Your writing excerpt can be:
- Cultural criticism or an analytical piece you've found online. Try The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Slate, or a well-written blog post. For this, you should be paying attention to the writing: how paragraphs are structured, how the prose flows, the simplicity yet elegance of the style, the introduction and/or conclusion.
- A piece that reflects on writing theories, writing methods, writing processes. For this, you can think about what we can learn by reading about other peoples' writing processes.
- An academic article from a journal.
- A book review with strong summary, analysis, and/or quote integrations.
- An excerpt from your own writing from the previous paper or this paper that you think we can all learn from-- either a moment of weak writing or strong writing works!
- It cannot be something we’ve already read and discussed in class.
- It cannot be poetry or music lyrics.
4. (60 MINUTES): Lesson plan for your fifteen-minute discussion, by preparing a printed handout (for yourself that you will then hand into me) with the following:
- 2 or 3 questions you want to ask the class to help get the conversation started, or to move the discussion forward if it slows down.
- 2-3 specific details that you think are interesting and useful for the class to turn to- quote integrations, analysis, writing style, etc.
- Typed two paragraphs (with no typos) on your final thoughts and conclusions. What can we learn from this piece? What details in the writing are important for us to consider? Why?
- 5 minutes of your class time will be given to students reading the work and commenting on it on their own.
- In the next 10 minutes, you will lead a discussion on the writing. In order to do this effectively, come to class thoroughly prepared:
- Make sure you have read through the piece of writing multiple times.
- Make sure you understand all of it.
- Take notes and make comments in the margins, because you will forget what you want to say!
- Prepare questions.
- Have passages chosen.
- You are welcome to use any of our class discussion strategies— have students free write for 2-3 minutes, ask questions that guide the discussion, put students thoughts in conversation with one another, ask them to speak to people around them for a few minutes.
- To conclude your presentation, you must give us a final summary of the writing. What do you want us to take away from reading and thinking about this piece?
For the assignment to be considered complete, you must hand in the following:
- 18 copies of the writing excerpt (either emailed to me or brought to class).
- The handout (for yourself).
IF YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO MAKE COPIES OF YOUR EXCERPT FOR YOU, YOU MUST EMAIL ME BY MIDNIGHT THE NIGHT BEFORE YOUR PRESENTATION.