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Amanda Bender
Doug Eyman
ENGH 615
May 4th, 2017

Welcome Week: Writing Identities & Processes

Example Course Schedule For Syllabus

Date In-Class Objectives Whats Due?
Week 1 Writing Identities & Processes
August 28th Welcome to ENGH 101: Expectations and Goals NOTHING DUE
o Understanding Rhetoric pp.120-
132
o Short Sentences by Klinkenborg
August 30th Who We Are As Writers, Readers, and Thinkers pp. 36-40
o DB Post #1: Personal
Expectations & Goals
o DB Post #2: What do you think?
o More About "Audience", UNC-
Chapel Hill Writing Center
o Tone is Attitude by Mark Nichol
st
September 1 Audience, Tone, & Voice o Voice in Everyday Writing by
o Voice in Academic Writing, The
University of Melbourne
o DB Post #3: Four Bio Poems
Week 2 Rhetorical Appeals & Modes of Meaning Making
Labor Day NO CLASS NOTHING DUE
o Understanding Rhetoric pp.38-56
The Rhetorical Appeals: Using Logos, Ethos, &
September 6th o DB Post #3: Helping Each Other
Pathos
Out

When it comes to the course schedule I wanted to make sure that students will know what topics
we will be focusing on each day in class. This will hopefully help them begin to make
connections between the in and out of class assignments they are doing. However, I didnt want
to provide them with too much information because I wouldnt want them to start judging
whether or not what is being done in class will be worth their time. I know that some days will
be more stimulating and fun than others. But no matter what making students come to class,
interact with their peers, and practice applying the skills they are learning about is going to play a
major role in the skills and knowledge they not only retain, but also be able to transfer. Hence
why, I plan to have class participation and attendance be a major percentage of their final grade.

My objectives for Week 1 is to get students acclimated to the classroom, encourage them to have
their own goals beyond what the syllabus specifies, and finally to begin learning the skills and
concepts they will need to apply to their first major assignment.

NOTE: For the sake of this assignment and throughout my syllabus drafting process Ive
been working under the assumption that I will be teaching at least one of my classes three
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days a week. After observing Bianca and Lisas classes I discovered that I liked the 50-
minute class sessions more than the 1 hour and 15 minute classes. While the 50 minute
classes may be a challenge some day, I feel like it makes it easier for me to create more
focused lectures, in-class writing assignments, and/or group activities. On the flipside I
feel like the 50-minute sessions may make it easier to keep students attention for the
entire class period although his may be wishful thinking.

Where Were Heading

The first major assignment students will need to complete is a persuasive essay (see Major
Assignment #1 in Major Assignments for specific details). This assignment will ask students to
go to a particular place or event and then they will use their experience(s) to persuade others to
go or not to go to this event. Students will be asked to write their assignment in the form of a
blog post. Therefore, I will need to cover concepts and skills such as audience awareness (in
relation to tone and voice), the rhetorical appeals (logos, ethos, and pathos), crafting an
argument, making claims and using evidence, and citing evidence.

Personal Lesson Plans & Rationale

Prior to Week 1
Since I will be assigning readings from the textbook during the first week I plan to email
students ahead of time to (1) introduce myself and (2) let them know about different
options they have when ordering the textbook. The book is $50, which even for an
English nerds seems a little pricey. So I would want to reach out and let them know about
the eBook options available and then if the student absolutely wants the book in print
how they can rent it and/or buy it used if they are trying to save money. I also feel that
doing this will also show students that Im here as a resource and that I will do my best to
help them out where and when I can.

I would also like to email them prior to class to ask students to bring their laptops or
tablets with them. That way we can do some in-class writing and practice navigating and
uploading assignments to BlackBoard.

Monday, August 28th

Learning Goal(s)
1. Students will learn more about their peers and me
2. Students will have a better understanding about syllabus content
3. Students will think about personal goals for the upcoming semester
4. Students will know how to navigate and use BlackBoard

Game Plan
The class will kick off with me taking attendance and putting names to faces.
After this I will pass out copies of the syllabus and then go over some of the
major contents with students.
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The next step will be to have the students to take a moment to do some in-class
writing. I would ask students to take 10 to 15 minutes to reflect on what their
personal goals are for the semester and/or what questions they have. This in-class
writing will serve as DB Post #1. As a result, I will then have students log onto
BlackBoard and upload the assignment, that way if they have any questions I can
answer them accordingly.

Possible Pitfalls
Overall, I would say this is a fairly straightforward day. One potential problem
though could be that some students do not bring their laptops or tablets to class.
Or perhaps they have difficulty logging into BlackBoard. However, if either of
this problems arise they would make good teaching moments and for me to (1)
further emphasize what Ive already stated in the syllabus and/or (2) help students
figure out what their log in information is.

Homework
The readings for Wednesday will deal with Writing Identities in Understanding
Rhetoric and then the excerpt from Several Short Sentences will hopefully help
students begin to learn that how they think about things is unique and in turn their
writing process are unique.

DB Post #2 will ask students whether or not they agree with the excerpt from
Several Short Sentences, as well as reflect on their writing experiences up until
this point.

Wednesday, August 30th

Learning Goal(s)
1. Students will begin to think about how others come to writing and why
2. Students will explore strengths and weaknesses they feel they have in reading and
writing

Game Plan
This day will be a more general class discussion based on the readings and the
discussion board posts. I think its good for students to hear what each other have
to say about the writing process and share some of their experiences. Helping
students get to know one another and feel more comfortable in the classroom will
be important later on when they create their peer review groups.

(20 minutes) In addition, I want to do a 3-2-1 exercise with them. I will break
them off into groups and have them discuss and write down:
1. State 3 things they learned from each reading
2. State 2 things they found interesting
3. State 1 thing they still have questions about

Before class ends I will have students come back for a large group discussion to
share what they talked about and then I will ask the groups to turn in what they
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wrote for during their break out sessions their questions will become important
for the discussion post that will be due that coming Wednesday (after Labor Day
weekend).

Possible Pitfalls
One potential challenge could be to get students to start thinking more critically
about their experiences with writing and their writing process. I can imagine the
initial conversation we will have based on the readings might be a little
superficial, but hopefully as we go the conversation will open and deepen this
may need to be driven by me, but being a writer I can share my own experiences
and in turn model the sort of mindset I would like them to get into the habit of
getting into when doing work for this class.

Homework
Ive assigned 4 very short articles that talk about audience, voice, and tone. I will
create a bio poem template for students to use while they are reading these
articles. This will be DB Post #3. They are straightforward, so creating the bio
poems shouldnt take them too long to make. I want to introduce the bio poem
activity now because I will be assigning them this activity throughout the
semester especially when we get to our rhetorical analysis unit. So I see this
assignment as a building block to later assignments and concepts we will be
covering.

Friday, September 1st

Learning Goal(s)
1. Students will learn and practice using the relationship between audience, tone,
and voice

Game Plan
On page 151 of Understanding Rhetoric there is an assignment that asks students
to choose a short text (i.e. emails, social media posts, text message, etc.) theyve
written in the past week or two and answer some questions. I took questions 1,2,
and 4 out of the textbook, and then made question 3 on my own.
1. Who is the audience?
2. What tone do you take?
3. How does this demonstrate YOUR authorial/writing voice? Or not?
4. Revise your original piece to address a different audience. Does

Based on their understanding of the readings I would want students to complete

this assignment individually and then break into groups to discuss the piece of
writing they focused on and what they came up with and why.

Bring it back to a full class discussion and reflect on what was talked about during
the break out sessions.
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Possible Pitfalls
One potential challenge could be if students didnt take the time to read the
articles the class discussion may not be so great. In turn I may not be able to
further their knowledge of these concepts. Fortunately though the articles are
fairly short, so they can always skim it in class if they have to.

Homework
Based on the group activities on Wednesday and Friday I will ask students to
complete DB Post #

Next Week

Due to Labor Day Monday classes wont meet, but this actually works out well because I
can have students continue to practice what they have learned this past week and then
begin to get thinking about how it connects to the rhetorical appeals. In fact the in-class
activity on September 1st is geared toward the first minor assignment that students will
have to turn in the following week (see Minor Assignment #1 in Minor Assignments).

Rationale

I chose to do my three-day plan on the first week because it was giving me the most trouble. Ive
been working backwards when creating my course schedule. Ive know when I want my major
and minor assignments to be due and for the most part I know what topics I need and want to
cover to build toward these assignments. However, for some reason the first week was giving me
the most trouble. During many of my undergraduate classes I remember thinking how the first
week was wasted. We went over the syllabus, did some icebreakers, and that was about it. We
didnt start getting into the thick of things until the second week and I always remember feeling
like I was being hit with a ton of bricks. Instead of starting off with a slow jog, the second week
was an all-out sprint. So while I want my classes to hit the ground running I want the overall
pacing to be steady, that way we can slowly build toward each minor and major assignment.

Grading

For class participation and discussion board posts I will use a simple check system.
Participation:
NO CHECK Didnt come to class so theres no attempt to even participate
- Student came to class but wasnt engaged and didnt participate
Student was engaged but didnt really participate
+ Student was engaged and participated
Discussion Board Posts:
NO CHECK Didnt do the discussion post
- Wrote a post but didnt really engage with the question
Student engaged with the question
+ Student engaged with the question and offered thoughtful insights