CLASS INFO
- Meets Gold Days, periods B6 and B8 in Room 124
- Class Files for Download
- Current Events Virtual Campus Page
College professors frequently lament the poor writing skills of the students who enter their classrooms, particularly straight out of high school. This course is designed to help you succeed in not only a freshman composition course, but in college altogether. To achieve this goal, students must learn to think critically, read analytically, and communicate with clarity and confidence. A basis of this course will be to learn how to read closely and annotate a variety of formats, genres, and topics. While students may earn college credit if they receive a 3, 4, or 5 on the AP English Language and Composition Exam (depending on their chosen college), the ultimate goal of this course is to prepare students for the rigors of college writing.
Tuesday, 2/7
Since we lost Friday to the snow day, I collected the revised SOP/PIPA outlines today. We scored the previous ACT reading tests and then after talking about the four different passages on the ACT reading test as well as some test-taking tips, students took an entire reading test straight through. For the last part of class, we introduced a new Argumentative prompt and annotated and listed defend/refute points on a T-Chart together. Homework: write the thesis statement for a defend, refute, or qualify essay for this new prompt.
Wednesday, 2/1
We continued working through the SOPA/PIPA topic for our first stab at Argumentative Essays. Students outline the other two positions they didn’t take on Monday, and then we talked about the organization of the Argumentative Essay (last couple of slides). Students then chose one of their three outlines and revised it in the new format. Homework: complete these revised outlines which I’ll collect next class.
Monday, 1/30
After a quick review of Thursday’s introduction to SOPA, PIPA, and the Argumentative Esssay, we continued with some quick web research for students to increase their knowledge and understanding of this issue. Students filled out a T-chart with pro- and anti-SOPA/PIPA information they found, wrote a thesis statement explaining their own position, identified their own position as defending, refuting, or qualifying an AP test-style statement I shared with them, and then wrote an outline as if they were going to write the resultant essay.
Thursday, 1/27
Most of the class today was spent in peer review of the Douglass Rhetorical Analysis rough drafts that were due today. Students make sure his purpose was addressed in their theses, examined how they organized their essays (choices for body paragraph topics), and spent time with our old friend claim/data/commentary. Afterwards, I introduced the basics of the Argumentative Essay as well as a brief overview of SOPA and PIPA in preparation for an activity next week. Homework: complete final drafts of the Douglass essays for Monday.
Tuesday, 1/24
As one of our last activities of the Rhetorical Analysis portion of the course, we practiced active reading today with a Dr. Seuss story, and then we read and annotated a passage used on a previous AP test. Homework: using our annotations, please write an essay examining the author’s purpose, what rhetorical devices he used, and how effective he was at achieving his purpose.
Friday, 1/20
Students completed the This I Believe project in class today by recording their essays and sharing the final MP3 file through Google Docs.
Wednesday, 1/18
Students completed a number of drafting and revision activities today, including revisiting Known-New Contract and use of Rhetorical Strategies, Devices, and Effectiveness. We also reviewed the details of the rubric and practiced with the recording software. Clean, ready-to-record final drafts are due at the start of class on Friday. Homework: finish up your essay.
Friday, 1/13
Students completed some drafting and peer review activities today to continue progress on the This I Believe essays. After giving some more specific and focused writing prompts, students traded essays to go over Known-New Contract and Rhetorical Devices, both of which were introduced last semester. Homework: get your essay to a point where you have a fairly polished and complete rough draft ready for further revision and peer review next Wednesday.
Wednesday, 1/11
After beginning our ongoing ACT prep this semester, we dove back into This I Believe. Students listened to one more essay — this time, one that a classmate had listened to but they had not. Students commented on this essay in the document where they found the essay, and then we talked about some of the commonalities among all the essays that were listened to. Students then did some quick writes to 5 different brainstorming prompts to begin developing ideas for their essays. The last 20 or so minutes of class was for continued, less-directed brainstorming and development. Homework: Have your belief and at least some of your possible anecdotes nailed down for next class; begin writing these, at least in a very rough form so you can start thinking about how to string them together effectively using rhetorical devices and known-new contract; thinking ahead, you’ll need to have a really solid rough draft by next Wednesday.
Monday, 1/9
Our first of the next several days in the library/Wired lab, we started the This I Believe project by listening to a few more essays — one together as a class, and then three of each students’ own choosing on his or her own, using a Google Docs template to shape and organize responses to each. Students shared these documents with each other and then began commenting on essays they had in common with their classmates. Homework: finish your listening activity, if you didn’t get it done in class, and then find two essays in others’ response documents that overlapped with yours to comment on.
Thursday, 1/5
To start out second semester, we went over the finals. We then launched into our first project, a This I Believe essay. We listened to a couple of essays and discussed the authors’ purposes an use of rhetorical strategies. We also talked briefly about the essays that students will write.
