978-0393617467 Lecture Note Part 13

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14 % Teaching with the Tumblr

2. The humor of Wilkinson’s cartoon lies mostly in what the man says, but another critical ele ment

involves his companion— what she is doing and how she responds to his comment. How would the

message or e ectiveness of the cartoon be di er ent if one or more of the ele ments were changed? if

the woman weren’t using her own phone? if the man were talking on the phone instead of to his

The second question involves more imagination and creativity by asking stu-

dents to alter speciﬁ c ele ments of the cartoon in order to construct dif fer ent sce-

narios. These scenarios can then be compared to the original in terms of overall

message and humor. This question is particularly suitable for groups of two or

three, in order to make sure each student is obliged to contribute ideas, but it also

works as a full– class exercise. Have students come up with their own scenarios and

then ask themselves: Are they equally plausible? equally humorous? Why or why

3. Complaining about cell phone users—in cars, on buses, in restaurants, elevators, bathrooms,

and all kinds of other public spaces— has become a new national pastime. Here’s your chance:

write an essay describing your attitude toward cell phone users in public places. Are they too loud?

The third question is a writing prompt, and, of course, it can be used in a

variety of ways. One possibility that may be particularly suitable for very inex–

perienced students is to allot fifteen or twenty minutes of class time for a

three- part exercise in small groups. For the first five or ten minutes, ask stu-

This is just one example of how you could use the Tumblr for an engaging, peda-

gogically sound, yet minimal- prep class session. Of course, it’s best to assign longer

and more substantial Tumblr items ahead of time, and at the time of assignment

[ TEACHING THE READINGS ]

[ 226 ]

Commenting on the Tumblr

Generally, instructors use the Tumblr readings just as they do the readings in the

text, and many establish comment threads or forums on their own course pages

on Blackboard, Moodle, or another LMS, using the discussion questions on the Tum–

blr as springboards. You also have the option of asking students to comment right on

You will register your Disqus account in your own name, but users can post

under a screenname of their own choice so that they can post anonymously, if

they wish, or use a coded nickname that only their friends will recognize. Follow

the screen prompts to open a new Disqus account (it’s free!) or log in to your already

existing account. Once you’re logged in to Disqus, you can post a comment or respond

We included this commenting feature in order to open the possibility of a stu-

dent dialogue across universities, across regions, maybe even across countries. We

think students can begin to feel the thrill of authordom when someone they’ve

never met responds thoughtfully to one of their comments or ideas. We hope you’ll

Additional Tips and Ideas

There are as many ways of using the Tumblr as there are conversations to be had,

so don’t hesitate to get creative and explore alongside your students. Here are a

few ideas to get you started:

• On the ﬁ rst day of class, instructors might choose a se lection (video, image,

website, speech, podcast, blog, or something else) to show students that ﬁ rst–

year composition isn’t just about writing with words. Texts come in many

• Have students be the ones to introduce multimodal pieces from the Tumblr in

class. Ask students to explore the site and see for themselves the range of writ–

ing authors are doing online. Assign them to pick a favorite image, ad, cartoon,

video, or other composition to show the class and to explain why they found

[ 227 ]

• The Tumblr is a good starting point for conversations about the importance

of the rhetorical situation. Choose a visual or verbal text on the site and ask

students to analyze it by considering the intended audience and purpose of

The Tumblr for Every one’s an Author exposes students to a variety of sources that they

might not other wise come into contact with, from the Atlantic and Salon to Cowbell,

This I Believe, and Slate. Our authors update the Tumblr weekly to give instructors

access to fresh, con temporary examples— and again, the site is free and open to all.

14 % Teaching with the Tumblr

[ 229 ]

WHENEVER WE TEACH, designing the course we’re about to teach pres-

ents challenges. If you’re a new teaching assistant, you’ve been given a

general outline of the writing course you’re to teach, along with some intensive

training. When you’ve never taught before, though, organ izing the weeks that

stretch ahead is daunting, even with the help you’ve been given. If you’re a newly

hired adjunct instructor, you may already have experience in the classroom, but

Thinking about Course Design

A writing course is akin to a set of boxes within boxes: the largest, outermost box

is the complete course from start to ﬁ nish. Within that box are instructional units

that typically begin with the introduction of a writing assignment and end with

its completion. Each unit is made up of sequences of assignments that move the

class and the assigned writing along. And each class period includes vari ous activ–

The course as a whole. Determine the writing program’s goals for the course:

What does the program or department or university want students to achieve by

completing this course? Sometimes these goals are clearly spelled out, but you

fifteen

Designing a Writing Course

[ PLANNING A WRITING COURSE ]

[ 230 ]

Use the goals for your course to guide your planning. For example, if a goal is to

“develop ﬂ exible strategies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising,

rewriting, rereading, and editing,” then you need to include those activities in your

course plan. If a goal is to “develop fa cil i ty in responding to a variety of situations and

contexts,” then your plan should include opportunities for students to write in vari ous

Units. Designing a writing course is akin to other complex tasks best broken down

into smaller parts that can be dealt with more easily, rather than trying to think of the

whole at once. A writing course usually consists of a number of units within which

students learn to do a certain genre of writing, such as a narrative, an argument, an

analy sis, or a researched report. As you teach each unit, you lead students through a

sequence of assignments that help students through writing pro cesses from ﬁ nding a

topic, thinking about and researching it, and drafting and revising to polishing a ﬁ nal

An alternative model would take a rhetorical approach designed to help stu–

dents develop an understanding of the major rhetorical considerations— genre,

audience, purpose, stance, context, and medium/design—as they develop their writ–

ing pro cesses. This approach reinforces the idea that writing (especially beyond the

Sample Unit– Based Schedules

14– Week Semester 10– Week Quarter

Weeks 1–2: Introduce princi ples of rhe toric

and argument

Weeks 1–2: Introduce princi ples of rhe toric

and argument

15 % Designing a Writing Course [ 231 ]

The length of a unit is highly ﬂ exible. Some instructors may teach ﬁ ve- or six–

week units to allow students to delve deeply into a subject and write lengthy, exten–

sively researched essays; others may design two– week– long units to give students

beginning to end. This sequencing involves several variables: how many days

your class meets each week, which days you meet, how long your class sessions

are, and what you can expect students to do in class and between classes. Let’s

deal with each one separately:

How many days each week does your course meet, and on which days? Your course

schedule— Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for ﬁ fty minutes each day; Tuesdays

and Thursdays for seventy- ﬁ ve minutes; Monday nights for three hours— determines

the rhythm of your assignments: what you ask students to do, how much you ask

Sample Assignment Sequence: Tuesday- Thursday Schedule

Day In- Class Activities Assignment for the Next Class

Tue Introduce narrative assignment; begin

generating activities.

Read essays in Ch.12; write 1– page

responses to each.

Thu Workshop on choosing vivid,

descriptive details; mini– lesson on

organ izing a narrative.

Read “Or ga nize and start writing” in the

Roadmap for WRITING A NARRATIVE. Write a

complete draft, 3–5 pp. long.

[ PLANNING A WRITING COURSE ]

[ 232 ]

Charting your assignment sequences can help you see how each class relates to

those preceding and following it and how each assignment helps students make

ing Class Activities,” in this Guide provides more detailed advice on structuring

your class meetings, but in general, in an effective class period you will accom–

plish the following:

• Review what the class has done so far.

• Clarify the relationship of students’ previous work and current tasks.

1. Determine the goals of your course and what you must do to achieve them.

2. Decide on the number of units and what each will achieve.

Sample Assignment Sequence: Monday- Wednesday– Friday Schedule

Day In- Class Activities Assignment for the Next Class

Mon Introduce assignment; begin generat-

ing activities.

Read Brideau and Lewis essays in Ch.12;

write 1– page responses to each.

Wed Share responses and discuss essays;

go over characteristic features.

Read Luken essay in Ch.12; write 1– page

response.

Fri Discuss Luken essay; start developing

pos si ble topics through freewriting,

looping; introduce the rhetorical

situation.

Read “Choose a topic” in the Roadmap for

WRITING A NARRATIVE; choose a topic; read

and answer questions in “Consider your

rhetorical situation.”

15 % Designing a Writing Course [ 233 ]

4. Consider how much preparation students will need in order to write a

draft. For example, students might draft a narrative after a day or two of

generating ideas and material, but they might need several weeks to write

a report. Consider also what they will need to do— what assignments you

5. Plot out the unit on a calendar or chart, playing with the placement of the

due dates for each student assignment. Think about how much time each

Ch. 21, “Using Writing Activities in Class”; and Ch. 22, “Using Readings to

Teach Writing,” can help you create appropriate tasks for students to com-

plete on their own. For each unit, consider creating a plan in the form of a

table that provides you and your students with that information.

Below is an example for the ﬁ rst two weeks of a course using Every one’s an Author.

Goals for the Day Class Activities Assignment

WEEK 1: Introduce students to FYC, to each other, to rhe toric, and to daily writing

3. Examine writing

pro cesses and

preferences.

the class.

2. We’ll go over the syllabus

and how this class will

work. Ask any questions

that come to you.

3. Discussion: What is

writing? How have you

used it?

2. A short list of ques-

tions about the book

and how we’ll use it

3. Fill out the Writing

Inventory and the

Writing Groups

Inventory.

(continued )

[ PLANNING A WRITING COURSE ]

[ 234 ]

Goals for the Day Class Activities Assignment

Thu Examine our ideas of

what it means to be an

author, a researcher, a

student— especially in

1. “What is an author?”

• Read aloud your response

to Tuesday’s assigned

Read: Chs.1–2

Writer’s Notebook:

Write out your de nition

WEEK 2: Discuss rhe toric and argument

Tue Mea sure your under-

standing of the reading

and assess the

collaboration in your

group.

• Quiz on readings

• Re ect on Ch.1, in- class

writing

• Share responses

Read: Ch.8

Writer’s Notebook:

Write a page re ecting on

your group meeting

today: What did or didn’t

Thu Establish individual

guidelines and

benchmarks for writing

In– class diagnostic essay and

re ective statement

Read: Ch.12, “Narratives

across Academic Disci-

plines, Media, Cultures

Being Prepared and Flexible

Creating a plan for your course can relieve much of the stress of teaching, espe-

cially the ﬁ rst time you teach a course. Just don’t let it become a straitjacket that

conﬁ nes, rather than enables. Students may need more or less time on a task than

15 % Designing a Writing Course [ 235 ]

your plans. Maintaining ﬂ exibility to meet students’ needs and to anticipate the

unforeseeable is just as impor tant as knowing what you’ll do each day. You can

incorporate ﬂ exibility into your plan in several ways. You can build a couple of

open class periods into your schedule at the end of a unit, so if you need more time

you can use those periods without squeezing the next unit’s schedule. Or you can

Useful Readings

Coxwell- Teague, Deborah, and Ronald F. Lunsford, editors. First- Year Composition:

From Theory to Practice. Parlor Press, 2014.

Deen, Rosemary. “Notes to Stella.” College En glish, vol. 54, no. 5, Sept. 1992,

pp. 573–85.

Yancey, Kathleen, et al., editors. Writing across Contexts: Transfer, Composition, and

Sites of Writing. Utah State UP, 2014.

[ 236 ]

IN MOST CLASSES YOU TOOK IN COLLEGE, the instructor gave you a syllabus

that provided an outline of the course. As an instructor, you may be required

to provide a copy of the syllabus for your own course to your department ofﬁ ce to

Contents of a Good Syllabus

A good syllabus anticipates and answers students’ questions:

• How does this course fit into the curriculum? Why am I taking it?

• What is the content or subject matter of the course?

• What books and materials must I have? What must I purchase? What will be

available through the library, online, in class, or as handouts?

• What are the rules for the course, for attendance, submitting work, and par–

ticipating in class?

sixteen

Creating a Syllabus

16 % Creating a Syllabus [ 237 ]

Building a Course Syllabus

A typical syllabus for a writing course contains much of the following informa-

tion but is unlikely to include all of it. Even if you don’t want to put an item in your

Basic Course Information

• Course title, section number, call number, and number of credits

• Room where the class meets and class time(s)

Your Personal Information

• Your name and title

• Your ofﬁ ce location, with directions if it’s hard to ﬁ nd

• Your ofﬁ ce hours, email address, ofﬁ ce phone number, and website URL, if

you have one

Textbooks and Other Materials

• Each textbook’s title, edition, author, publisher, and date of publication; ISBN

number; clear identiﬁ cation of required and recommended texts; URL of text–

book website

• Other required materials or fees (such as lab, printing, or photocopying fees,

ﬂ ash drive, two- pocket folders)

Course Description

• Can repeat your school’s cata log description, or you may write one (or both)

• Typically includes the major themes, topics, knowledge, and skills to be

addressed in the course

[ PLANNING A WRITING COURSE ]

[ 238 ]

Course Objectives

• Cognitive: what students should understand

Course Requirements

• Summary of assignments and due dates

• Reading assignments

Course Calendar

• Reading assignments with due dates

• Deadlines for drafts and other proj ects

Grading Policies and Procedures

• The course grading system (A– F, pluses and minuses, points, percentages,

etc.)

• Penalties for late work (for example, “All assignments must be submitted

at the beginning of the class on their due date in order to receive credit”)

• Extra- credit policy, if any

• Policy on incomplete grades (for example, “No incomplete grades will

be given except in extreme circumstances”)

• Policy on incomplete portfolios (for example, “Incomplete portfolios will

receive an F”)

16 % Creating a Syllabus [ 239 ]

Academic Honesty Policy

• Your academic honesty policy must correspond with your department’s or

university’s policy. Check with your chair to see if there’s a prescribed ver–

sion to include.

Other Useful Information

• Campus resources such as a writing center, study skills center, technology

help desk, or counseling center

Some Tips to Help Students Do Well

• Most learning takes place out of class. The time students are expected to

work outside class is usually two hours for every class hour.

• Read each reading assignment several times. Once is seldom enough.

Course Rules

• Recording class discussions

• Eating food in classrooms

As you can see, a course syllabus may be quite elaborate—or it may be fairly brief.

Look at syllabuses for other courses like the one you’re teaching to see what instruc-

Useful Reading

Afros, Elena, and Catharine F. Schryer. “The Genre of Syllabus in Higher Education.”

[ 240 ]

WHEN YOU HEAR FACULTY complain that the writing their students sub-

mit to them is horrible, the fault often lies not so much with the ability

of the students but with the quality of the assignment. Vague, incomplete, poorly

Developing Assignment Sequences

When you plan assignments, think in terms of sequences that move students

through a series of activities toward the goal of a ﬁ nished piece of writing. Reading,

working in groups, generating ideas and text, drafting, getting response, revising,

editing and proofreading, and evaluating— each of these activities helps students

Using Every one’s an Author

Every one’s an Author is designed to help you develop clear and effective assign–

ments. Each of the genre chapters (Ch. 11, ARGUING A POSITION; Ch. 12, WRITING A NARRA-

TIVE; Ch. 13, WRITING ANALYTICALLY; Ch. 14, REPORTING INFORMATION; Ch. 15, WRITING A

ples of each, including an annotated reading, so students can see how these fea–

tures function within a piece of writing. The next section is a Roadmap that guides

them from choosing (and researching, if necessary) a topic to forming a thesis,

seventeen

Designing Writing Assignments

17 % Designing Writing Assignments [ 241 ]

drafting, self– evaluating their work, getting feedback from readers, and revising. If

you’re new to teaching, you may ﬁ nd those chapters to be useful models of success–

ful assignment sequences. If you’d like to design your own sequences, the activities

1. Introduce the assignment using representative examples and readings.

2. Identify the characteristic features of the genre (as deﬁ ned in the genre

chapters 11–16 and the Research section, Ch. 23).

5. Ask students to generate ideas and text (with activities in each genre

chapter) and do appropriate research (Chs. 19–22).

6. Have students or ga nize their material, plan their text, and use appropri–

ate writing strategies following the Roadmaps.

7. Ask students to assess their drafts, get a response and revise, and edit and

proofread using the Roadmaps.

Of course, each of these steps may be expanded or contracted to suit the assign-

ment and the needs of your students. For example, you may give students only a

few days to generate ideas and text and or ga nize a memoir, on the assumption that

Making Your Expectations Clear

A good writing assignment gives students all the information they need to com-

lowing (adapted from Lindemann 212):

• Students’ interest in the topic and what they understand about it

• Purpose of the text— what it should try to accomplish

• Intended audience for the text

[ PLANNING A WRITING COURSE ]

[ 242 ]

All of the genre chapters provide questions for each ele ment in the rhetorical

situation as well as a list of each genre’s characteristic features. Here’s an exam–

ple of a good writing assignment:

Take a stand on an issue that a ects your life as a student, a worker, or a citizen.

Your argument should include a thesis declaring your explicit position, a response

to what others have said, appropriate background information, a clear indication

audience, so your stance should be thoughtful, balanced, and reasonable. Your

essay should be 4–6 pages long. You must submit a topic proposal on 5Febru–

ary, have a draft for peer review on 12February, and submit a complete draft by

19February.

This assignment provides students with considerable freedom to choose a topic

of interest to them while giving them a clear indication of the rhetorical situa–

Assigning Topics or Giving Choices

Whether you assign speciﬁ c topics or let students choose their own depends on

numerous factors. If you want students to work together as a class on a proj ect,

you may assign a topic or a cluster of related topics on which individual students

or groups of students might work. When asking students to evaluate a ﬁ lm, for

example, you might provide a list of suitable movies and ask groups of students

risk that your students may not find the topic as engaging or as in ter est ing as

you do. Even if your writing program offers courses identiﬁ ed by their theme,

students more often sign up for courses by time of day and availability than

by course topic. Also you lose variety in your student drafts, something to con-

sider when it comes time to read and respond to twenty or twenty- ﬁ ve drafts—or

17 % Designing Writing Assignments [ 243 ]

encountered. More importantly, you offer students the opportunity to explore

topics in which they have an interest, resulting in more engagement in the work

of your class and better writing. In general, don’t leave assignments completely

open. Stipulate a genre within which students must write, help students narrow

Helping Students Interpret Your Assignments

No matter how elaborately instructors deﬁ ne assignments, students need to

interpret them in order to begin. Part of that interpretation involves making a

judgment about the ease or difﬁ culty of accomplishing the tasks. One student

may understand an assignment as requiring several hours of library research, the

creation of a detailed outline, and a schedule that will permit the writing of sev–

eral drafts. Another student in the same class, interpreting the same assignment,

examples of the amount and quality of work you expect. You don’t want your con–

scientious students spending hours on an assignment you consider a brief learn-

ing tool, and you want to prod your less conscientious students to adopt suitable

work habits.

Doing the Assignment Yourself

Whenever pos si ble, do assignments yourself before you give them to your stu–

dents. You will accomplish two impor tant things: (1) you can ﬁ nd out whether the

assignment works—if it’s doable or leads to unanticipated difﬁ culties— before stu–

dents are led into a swamp; and (2) you develop an example that you can show

[ PLANNING A WRITING COURSE ]

[ 244 ]

Useful Readings

Gardner, Traci. Designing Writing Assignments. NCTE, 2008.

Lindemann, Erika. A Rhe toric for Writing Teachers. 3rd ed., Oxford UP, 1995.

Rankin, Elizabeth. “From Simple to Complex: Ideas of Order in Assignment Sequences.”