OBJECTIVE

RATIONALE

EXAMPLES of LESSONS

SUGGESTIONS

Active, analytical reading and critical writing

Students need to be guided to close reading skills, exercising critical thinking and critical reading

Select a short text/essay that students have already read at least once. Pose a question such as “How is the author using pathos?” Have them read the text again with a pen or pencil in their hand, noting all instances of pathos.

You can do this with film clips as well, e.g. “Note all the different uses of camera angles and what the director is trying to communicate by using different camera angles.”

At the end of each exercise, the teacher engages in why/how focused questions “Why did the author/director do that? How did those choices affect the audience? Why?”

Practicing writing in various forms (examples include: academic essay, email, speech, web site, blog, video, digital communication)

Across the curriculum students are called upon to create arguments using a variety of genres. These skills will also be an assumed part of most professional paths.

Create an assignment where the format is a typical, traditional academic essay. Then have the students “rewrite” the same argument (for the same audience) using a different genre. You can also ask them to change the audience as well (same argument, but different audience – how will the genre shift to appeal to that audience?).

Engaging in close reading of texts (being able to read a text and comment on it analytically or rhetorically, e.g. audience, context, purpose)

Skills of close reading relate to developing critical thinking skills; these skills will also help students become better researchers by honing skills needed to evaluate sources and do more close reading of sources.

For every text presented during the semester (essay, book, film), students can discuss and identify who the intended audience for the piece is (and why they think so) and the argument, or purpose, imbedded in the text. Students, in discussing films, find this exercise particularly challenging.

Covers of books can also be analyzed in this regard: “Who is the publisher trying to draw in? How?”

Students should also be called upon to analyze ethos, pathos, and logos represented in each text they are analyzing for audience, context, and purpose.

Practicing critical thinking and critical writing activities, e.g. critical response journals, academic essays, blogs, peer responses

Critical thinking is a cognitive skill that takes years to develop. Similar to other cognitive skills (learning to speak, read, write), individuals work towards critical thinking at different rates and in different ways. The more opportunities a teacher presents to students, challenging them to think critically and engage the “how/why?” questions, the more opportunities the student will have to move towards developing the critical thinking skills.

Assigning short (2-3 page) critical response journals moves students beyond an emotional response to a text to a more critical and analytical response. In the critical response journals, students are challenged to focus on one issue they found interesting as they read and sustain an analysis of that topic for 2-3 pages. How does the author use pathos in ways that alienate the audience? Why does the author use “you” instead of “the reader”?

Peer review (critical comments made in response to a peer’s draft) can also hone critical thinking skills as long as the focus in on how the writer can make the text stronger and why the reader believes the author needs to revise.

Locating, evaluating, and using scholarly sources within academic prose; Engaging in research-based argument (attribute, document, and incorporate others’ ideas in one’s own text)

Students need to learn how to integrate quotes and paraphrases effectively to succeed in academic writing across the curriculum. The first step, however, is getting students used to locating credible information, sifting through the information, and citing that information.

Practicing organizational methods in writing

Most college students tend to forget that there needs to be some sort of organizational step before they begin the drafting process, leading to unorganized and unfocused drafts.

Understanding that each writer has their own process (not everyone sits down and writes out an outline before they write) is important. But students should be called upon to be aware of their writing process. Asking students to outline their writing process is useful. “Where do you like to write? How? What works? What doesn’t work? When did you have success? How/why was that different?”

Individual counseling with students, asking them to critically reflect on their process and where they get snagged, can help, too.

Assigning outlines is often an unhelpful exercise in that students often do not see the connection between that and their individual writing process.

Learning Written Standard American English conventions (spelling, grammar, editing, use of a style manual, MLA style)

It is imperative that students internalize the standards of written English in order to succeed in college and careers. That being said, research shows that “drills/skills” exercises do not work to help students internalize the standard. The only thing that does work is reading and writing a lot in the standard.

The teacher needs to pay close attention to error patterns in each individual’s work and give the student one to two areas to “work on” after reading each assignment. Students can be directed towards the style manual, the Center for Academic Support, online tools such as Purdue Universities Online Writing Lab, or individual conference with the teacher. Once the student has internalized the rule for one error pattern, he/she can be given another pattern to work on.

Teachers should regularly ask students to bring style manuals to class and integrate lessons regarding the use of the style manual (where to find things) and how to document using MLA style. MLA style worksheets or citations that students are challenged to “find the errors,” documenting where in their style manual they found the answer work well to familiarize students both the use of the manual and MLA style, specifically.

Learning and practicing a variety of processes including invention, drafting, and revision strategies (multiple drafts reviewed with feedback by peers and/or instructor)

Every writer has a process they tend to follow; students need to be challenged to overtly recognize their own process and what works for them. Students also need to be challenged to see drafting as valuable energy spent, the reward being a stronger argument with subsequent drafts.

Peer review groups are a popular way of getting feedback for a writer, but college-level peers need guidance on how to do this. Worksheets to fill out as they read through their peers’ work are useful tools.

The teacher can also model a good peer review session by role playing it with the class.

Students should see there is value in revision. Many times this means that the teacher will give points based on how significantly the project or paper is revised.

Writer’s Notes, a cover letter to the project/paper that outlines how/why the student revised the way they did offers a site for critical reflection on the work and an overt way to measure how well students revised.

Writing for various contexts, purposes, and audiences (rhetorical writing)

Students need to be taught to be critically aware of their audience and purpose when writing (so they don’t assume self as audience or an audience that is a nebulous “professor person”).

With each writing assignment, the teacher can ask students to define their audience, context, purpose. Or the teacher may define one of these for the student and let the student articulate the rest.

Project proposals, where the student has the write about the project (and get the project approved by the teacher) before they begin are a good way to get students consciously thinking about a focused audience and their purpose.

Attention to audience awareness and the use of language or graphics to appeal to specific audiences (the various tools of persuasion)

Whether writing an email to a professor or writing a resume, students need to be aware of audience to be successful writers.

Students can be asked to analyze others’ texts for effectiveness for audience (the teacher will let the student first analyze who they believe the intended audience is).

Once the students have done this, they can do the same for a peer’s text as part of a peer review exercise.

Finally, students can do this for their own texts and articulate the nuances of how they feel they are constructing a piece that appeals to the intended audience by writing an analytical cover letter to their work.

Understanding and use of rhetorical terms such as rhetoric, ethos, pathos, logos and kairos

Because the focus of the class is a rhetorical approach to writing and language, a common set of terms should be taught across all sections. These terms will also be reinforced in ENG108.

Students can be regularly called upon to analyze any text (commercial, essay, film clip) for ethos or pathos or logos, either as a class or individually.

Bringing in a short clip from a film that the students have likely seen before (e.g. Spike Lee’s He Got Game) and choosing a scene to play three or four times works well. After each viewing, the instructor and students can make a list of pathos that they noticed (color? Music? Costume? Camera angles? Lighting?). With each viewing, students will realize that they are noticing more details, making a more interesting analysis.

Practicing style in order to enhance communication

Understanding how context affects the construction of a text; creating texts with attention to context