Tag: reading writing connection

Ken Bruffee’s Short Course on Writing

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Pedagogy3 Comments

In Reading Rhetorically, Bean et al cite Ken Bruffee’s A Short Course on Writing as their source for the “Descriptive Outlining” activity. The first edition was published in 1972. I started teaching writing around 1979, and I had a copy. I don’t think I ever ordered it for a class, but I may have. It is still in print in a 4th edition, but it is from Pearson now, so it costs $95. I found a copy of the 3rd edition from Amazon for $5. The forward to the 4th edition, by Harvey Kail and John Trimbur, was published separately as an article in Writing Center Journal. It provides a good summary of the history of the book and the influence it has had.

BruffeeCover3rdEd

This is a book that has origins similar to Mina Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations. Bruffee found himself in the early ’60’s teaching writing with no clue about what to do or how to respond. He had trouble filling the class time productively and was spending inordinate hours marking every error, but seeing no improvement. We have all been there, I think. His solution to filling class time was to organize the course as a writing workshop with students helping students, the collaborative learning for which he is famous. His solution to the response problem was to teach simple forms of organization and insist that the paragraphs accomplish specific rhetorical tasks. He talks about the “Short Course Form” which is a three-paragraph essay, and he has a four-paragraph form, and others. These can be expanded and adapted. He also teaches “propositions” “assumptions” and support. It is pretty Aristotelian, but not overtly so. The theoretical background for the collaboration is the usual collection of social constructionist suspects.

Two things struck me as I started revisiting Bruffee: 1) This is very similar to the approach to writing we are developing in ERWC (I was probably retaining stuff from the 1st edition without remembering it consciously) and 2) Bruffee’s approach is sort of timeless. One of his goals was “to find out what the students are thinking.” That strikes me as an excellent goal for a writing class!

The course starts out with exercises in storytelling, brainstorming, focused freewriting, and generalizing. Then he begins to work on turning generalizations into “propositions” that can be defended. The next exercises and writing assignments work through proposition plus two reasons, “Nestorian” order (putting your best reason last), strawman plus one reason, and then “concession.” You can see that this gently introduces opposing viewpoints. Along the way, he works on transitions and coherence. He does not allow students to write conclusions until later in the course because the students have a tendency toward unnecessary summarizing and saving their main proposition until the end.

Descriptive outlining is introduced as a way for the student writer to “know exactly what is going on” in his or her own essay. They are to create one for every essay they write, and if there is a discrepancy between the essay and the outline, they are supposed to revise the essay to make it do what they want it to do. However, example essays are included with both “basic” and “detailed” descriptive outlines, so the technique also serves as a way to analyze other texts. It is an essential part of the course, something they apply to everything they read and write.

Section Four is about creating a “meaningful ending.” It is about conclusions. Students don’t write conclusions until page 153 of the book. Section Five is about research writing.

In summary:

  • Students write in class about topics of their own choosing.
  • Students help each other improve their writing through questions and structured activities similar to ERWC activities.
  • Students mostly write essays that take a “proposition plus two reasons” three-paragraph form.
  • Opposing arguments are introduced first through a “strawman” paragraph, then later by presenting a more valid argument and conceding its validity.
  • Students write basic descriptive outlines of each essay they read or write. In some cases they write “detailed” descriptive outlines. Descriptive outlines are a normal part of the revision process.
  • The simple formats allow the instructor to respond easily to the ideas in the paper, saving much time and making comments more productive.
  • When students are more fluent, they can begin writing conclusions and otherwise expanding the format.

It seems to me that there is much here that could be adapted to ERWC. The spirit of Bruffee’s approach is quite consistent with our own principle of respecting the student’s intelligence and being interested in what they think. And what we are principally struggling with right now is the form of the essay: five-paragraph essay, Roman six-part speech, or more organic structures. Bruffee solves the formula problem by teaching a reasonable, but incomplete format that builds skills that will be very useful later. He even says that it is good if students strongly feel like writing a concluding sentence because that means they are developing a rhetorical feeling for the essay. They can write that sentence, he says, but they shouldn’t turn it in with the essay. I have often said that if we teach a formula, it should contain the seeds of its own destruction. Bruffee’s certainly does.

Bruffee still seems fresh to me–practical, doable, principled, grounded.  And his question, “What are the students thinking?” asked in a course that helps them communicate their ideas but leaves them pretty much in charge, seems consistent with both the psychoanalytic approaches and the postprocess/postpedagogy anti-theory that is prevalent in composition these days. Definitely worth a look.

The Arc Revised

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Pedagogy, Writing an ERWC Module1 Comment

The ERWC Steering Committee met on 10/16/15 at the CSU Chancellor’s Office. Among many issues that were discussed was the language of the ERWC Arc. There were two main points of contention:

  • Is “selecting” the right word for the stage of the process that is between reading and writing, what the ERWC template calls “Connecting Reading to Writing”?
  • Does the arc misrepresent what is a recursive and complex process as a linear, stage-driven one?

We had an extended conversation about the word “selecting.” This is a crucial turning point in the student’s relationship with the texts and many different things are going on. It is a Janus-like doorway that swings both ways, looking backward and forward. We tried many words–engaging, framing, connecting, taking a stance, aligning, joining the conversation, positioning (selecting is part of positioning), composing meaning through reading and composing meaning through writing, formulating, aligning, reconsidering, and answering. We considered for a moment adding a seventh term, but because one of our considerations is to create metcognitive terms that students can transfer to other situations, we decided that six terms is already a lot.

We finally decided on “responding.” It is general enough to contain the other processes, and it captures the backward and forward gaze of the moment. “Selecting” was too narrow. You can download a revised version of the “ERWC Arc” Handout.

Here is an image of what it looks like.  The .pdf version in the link above looks better.

RedARC

The second issue was about the linear nature of the model. Here we need to think about the purpose of the representation. Back in the early days of composing process research, a four-stage model–pre-writing, composing, revising, and proofreading–was proposed. Protocol analysis quickly determined that the actual writing process was recursive, that writers did not simply complete one stage and move on to the next. A difficulty in composing might send the writer back to some kind of pre-writing activity, and revising might lead to further composing. The four-stage model was abandoned as simplistic and naive. However, if I am talking to engineers about teaching writing, the four-stage model makes a lot of sense to them. If I then point out that in reality the process is more complex, they just nod. Of course it is. Everything is recursive.

The concept of the arc came out of teacher comments and observations that we did as part of our i3 study. Teachers were not finishing the modules. They were spending too much time on the reading and running out of time for the writing. We are not proposing the arc as an accurate cognitive model for designing research. It is more about the design of modules. As with any simplification, it has its limitations, but as a tool for delivering a quick understanding of ERWC practices, I think it works well.

The arc is also for students. It shows them that there is more to a writing assignment than reading a text and summarizing it. “Responding” encompasses the complex process of having a dialogue with a text and joining the conversation. I think it is a good choice.

ERWC Arc Handout

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Pedagogy, Writing an ERWC ModuleLeave a comment

I think that the concept of the ERWC “Arc” is important to help teachers understand the fundamental pedagogical concepts of ERWC and to help students internalize the concepts so that they can transfer them to other rhetorical situations.  To promote this concept, I created a handout, which has been formatted and enhanced by my wife HeeJung.  Here is an image of it:

ERWC-Arc-Handout ImageThe handout illustrates the concepts of “Text to Text” and the progression of tasks built in to every ERWC module.   Download a .pdf version here: ERWC Arc Handout.

The Gatsby Module: A Draft

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Pedagogy, teaching literature6 Comments

I have finished a draft of the Gatsby module (Note: new ERWC 3.0 draft here, as of 10/12/17). This is a complete student version that is ready for feedback and perhaps piloting. It has not been put into the official format, nor has it been edited for consistency. It has not been aligned with standards, though I think the alignments are easy to see.

I need to create a teacher version, so some feedback from teachers on what is unclear would be helpful. This is the first module that prominently features the “arc” language–preparing, understanding, questioning, selecting, writing, revising–so feedback on how that works would be much appreciated. Also, there are some activities here that have not been used before.

Module Description

This module is designed for 11th grade, probably near the end of the first semester. It is designed to allow students to explore multiple critical perspectives and develop their own approach to the novel. There are five possible writing prompts. Each asks students to take a position, write a thesis statement, and support their arguments with evidence from the text. The module does not require students to read secondary sources or do any research. The focus is entirely on the novel itself.

Module Background

The Great Gatsby is among the recommended texts for 11th grade in the CCSS and has been in the 11th grade curriculum for decades. It is a superbly written novel with a complex, multi-faceted structure, flawed but interesting characters, and engaging themes and issues. It is also short. Much is packed into its 180 pages.

The novel is bristling with symbols, metaphors and other literary devices, carefully deployed, but also easy to find and interpret. It is common in teaching this novel to focus on these devices. This module includes those discussions, but also enables other approaches. The overall approach is something I call “Guided Reader Response.” The activities invoke a possible perspective, focus on particular aspects of the text, and allow students to draw their own conclusions and make their own interpretations, building up to their own reading of the novel, which they will express in the final paper. As they work through the novel, they will write down vocabulary, make predictions, create summaries at various points, and share their interpretations with others.

This module has been designed to be significantly shorter than previous literary modules in ERWC, such as 1984 or Brave New World. It should take about four weeks to complete.

Literary Devices in Gatsby

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Pedagogy, teaching literature, Writing an ERWC ModuleLeave a comment

As I write the module on The Great Gatsby, one of my concerns is how to deal with the issue of literary devices.  I don’t want the students to be intimidated by “hidden meanings.”  I don’t want them to go figure hunting as if they are bird watchers logging sightings of rare specimens.  However, I do want them to be able to interpret the novel, to appreciate the language, and not to be put off by Fitzgerald’s indirect ways.  My first move in this direction was the introduction for students which I posted earlier.

In the section below I am trying to explain how symbols, metaphors, similes, and irony work.  Many of the definitions I found on the web were too complex or confusing, even contradictory.  Others went too deep into semiotics or linguistics, attempting to describe cognitive processes or to create a host of types and sub-types.  I just want students to have a basic working understanding of figurative language so that they can read the novel with pleasure and understanding.  I want to empower them rather than intimidate them.

Please give feedback in the comments.

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Although reading literature is not like an Easter egg hunt in which the reader is looking for hidden meanings buried behind symbols and metaphors, such devices are part of the novel and do have meaning. For example, automobiles are common in this novel. At this time, the automobile is a fairly recent introduction into American culture. Traffic lights to control intersections were introduced around the time the novel was written. In the novel, automobiles are meticulously described. Characters drive them, buy them, sell them, repair them, crash them, and sometimes the wheels fall off. People are killed by them. Is the automobile a symbol of some aspect of American culture? Is steering a car a metaphor for a new kind of American life? It is up to you, the reader, to decide. Maybe a car is just a car. Maybe it is more. Symbols take on their meaning from context and from the evolving value that they have for the characters and the reader. It is never a simple matter of “Symbol X equals Meaning Y.”

Let’s say that the automobile is a symbol of American technological progress. What is implied if the wheels fall off? What is implied if the automobile kills someone?

Some definitions:

A symbol is something concrete (like the automobile) that represents or stands for an abstract idea (such as progress). Symbols are usually related to major themes in the work and may reoccur several times. The symbol does not necessarily resemble the symbolized idea or share any of its qualities. For example, the American flag is a symbol of the United States, but it does not look like the country. The stars on the flag may symbolize the individual states that are the current components of the union and the stripes may symbolize the original states that joined at the beginning, but the states are not like stars or stripes in any way.

A metaphor causes us to see one thing in terms of something else. On page 2, Nick Carraway talks about “the foul dust” that “floated in the wake of Gatsby’s dreams.” There are two metaphors here. First, the dust is not literally dust, but at this point we don’t know exactly what it is. We will find out what dreams Gatsby has and what the foul consequences are as we continue reading. Second, the dust floats in the “wake” of Gatsby’s dreams. As a boat travels through the water it creates a turbulent track behind it which is called the “wake.” So Gatsby’s dreams are being compared to a boat that leaves foul dust floating behind it. But wait a minute! “Wake” is also another word for funeral. Could that be what it means here? It seems unlikely because the word “floating” is associated with water, which triggers the association with a boat. Note that these are not “hidden meanings.” The metaphors are just part of the way that the sentence creates meaning.

A simile is a type of metaphor that uses “like” or “as” or other comparison words to connect the ideas. The most famous simile ever is probably by the poet, Robert Burns, who wrote, “My love is like a red, red rose,” comparing a woman to a flower. In The Great Gatsby, when Nick is criticizing Jordan’s driving he says, to the reader, not to Jordan, “I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires” (58). This statement compares his “interior rules” to the “brakes” on an automobile. Similes such as this are very common in fiction.

Irony is also common in this novel. The word “irony” comes from a Greek word that means to pretend. There are many types of irony, but in all types the surface meaning is different, often the opposite, of what is intended, creating a humorous effect. For example, if a person walking in pouring rain meets another person and says, “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” that would be an ironic statement. Another common form of irony is understatement. Say a woman who is very afraid of spiders finds a spider in her sink, rolls up a magazine and in a panic hits the spider 20 times. Her roommate says, “Do you think that’s enough?” In Gatsby, irony often takes the form of exaggeration, such as when Nick arrives at Daisy’s house and she says, “I’m paralyzed with happiness” (8).

You will find many examples of these and other literary devices in the novel. Take note of these, discuss them with your classmates, and think about how they influence your reading of the novel.

Teaching Literary Texts

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Pedagogy, teaching literature, Writing an ERWC Module1 Comment

I have been working on writing a module based on The Great Gatsby.  I started out thinking that I would take a fresh approach that would avoid standard literary criticism altogether.  I wanted to ignore standard themes such as the “American Dream” and avoid looking at well-worn symbols such as the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock and the enormous eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg.  However, when I re-read the novel I found that my original plan was impossible.  The elements that teachers have been pointing to for several generations are just too prominent, and too much a part of Fitzgerald’s design, to ignore.

I decided to take a multi-pronged approach that ran on several tracks at once, including the standard themes but also including some new perspectives.  My critical approach might be called “Guided Reader Response.”  As is typical in ERWC, the emphasis is on what authors are trying to do and how their decisions affect the reader.

First, I felt I had to neutralize some of the assumptions that students often have about reading literature.  I also wanted to argue against the use of “notes” publications such as SparkNotes and Cliff’s Notes.  What follows is a draft of an introduction to the module for students.

Note: I have updated this introduction based on feedback from teachers at the latest meeting of the Module Writing Institute.  I moved the last paragraph of the original draft to the beginning and reordered the other paragraphs.  I added a new conclusion.  Thanks to those who gave me feedback! 

Further note: I have revised this again to soften the polemical attacks I was making on figure hunting as an approach to literature and on the use of “notes” publications.  I have also introduced the “arc” language–prepare, understand, question, use, write, and revise–for students to think about.

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Introduction

Novels are tools for thinking about life in new ways. Characters face problems, make decisions, commit errors, deal with relationships, succeed or fail. Fictional worlds tend to be more focused and selective than the real one, so it is easier to see what the issues are and how to think about them. However, novels, even fantasy and science fiction novels, are ultimately about our own lives and what we make of them. Reading a novel allows the reader to experience someone else’s life, think someone else’s thoughts, and compare those fictional lives and thoughts with his or her own. Thus, reading literature is not just about extracting some meaning left behind by the author. It is ultimately about making meaning in your own life.

People often think that authors who write literature take big ideas and encrypt them in symbols, metaphors and other literary devices to hide them from casual readers. From this perspective, the reader’s job is to find and interpret the literary devices, decode them, and extract the correct meaning. It is true that literary language often includes symbols and metaphors. It is also true that when authors write they have meanings in mind and intentions for the reader. However, literary texts often have meanings beyond what the author intended, and every reader has a different emotional and intellectual experience. Literary devices are only a part of that experience.

This learning module is designed to help you read The Great Gatsby from a number of different perspectives. As you do the activities, you will go through a series of steps: preparing, understanding, questioning, using, writing, and revising. We call this the “arc” of the module. “Preparing” refers to thinking you do before you start reading—thinking about the title, reading the cover, skimming some pages, making connections to your own experiences. Then you read for understanding, making sense of the text. After you understand the text, you begin questioning it, looking for contradictions, unsupported claims, and faulty arguments. At that point, you begin to think about selecting words and ideas from the text to support your own claims and arguments. All of these processes are the basis for writing about the text. You will create a thesis, then explain and defend it using material from the novel. Once you have a draft of your essay, you will get feedback from peers and from your teacher so that you can begin revising your work, taking the feedback and your audience into account.

This sequence of preparing, understanding, questioning, selecting, writing, and revising can be used with any reading and writing project, in any discipline, at any level. It will serve you well in college.

We recommend that you avoid using any of the popular “notes” publications when working through this module. A good novelist or short story writer causes the reader to ask questions, then delays answering those questions (or answers the questions in ways that generate more questions) in order to keep the reader engaged and reading. The “notes” products answer all the questions you might have, short-circuiting engagement with the story and preventing you from having a real experience of the novel in the way the author intended. You will know many things about the novel, but you will not have read it, experienced it, or enjoyed it. If you think novels are boring, it might be because you are reading these published “notes,” which tend to drain the life out of the experience.

The Great Gatsby is one of the most widely-read and interpreted novels in American literature. Critics are still coming up with new interpretations of it. Lois Tyson, in a popular introduction to literary theory called Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, offers 14 different interpretations of Gatsby from 14 different critical perspectives. We will explore some of these perspectives in this module. There is no single correct interpretation. However, this does not mean that all interpretations are equally good. Good readings are rooted in evidence from the actual text. Good readings are also persuasive to readers other than the critic who wrote the interpretation.

This module is designed to help you engage with the novel, experience the lives of its characters, think about the issues it raises, and make connections to your own life. You will create your own interpretations, based on the text, and share them with your fellow students and your teacher. Reading the novel is only part of the experience. Writing and discussing the ideas, trying to persuade others to interpret it the way you do, and experiencing the way your ideas change as you discuss them with others, are all important parts of the experience of reading literature.

The ERWC Arc and Terms for Transfer

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Pedagogy, Writing an ERWC ModuleLeave a comment

In Writing Across Contexts: Transfer, Composition and Sites of Writing by Kathleen Blake Yancey, Liane Robertson, and Kara Taczak design a composition course specifically for transfer of concepts and practices to other writing situations.  Because research on transfer of writing skills shows that students have trouble finding language to describe what they learned in their writing courses, part of their design is the teaching and reinforcing of eleven key terms chosen “to help students describe and theorize writing,”  These key terms, organized into four groups, are:

  1. Audience, genre, rhetorical situation, and reflection
  2. Exigence, critical analysis, discourse community, and knowledge
  3. Context, composing and circulation
  4. Knowledge and reflection (57)

Each set of terms is taught and reinforced in a particular writing assignment. “Knowledge” and “reflection” are repeated in the last assignment. “Exigence” could be defined as the situation that gives rise to the need for writing.

Yancey et al argue that “students would understand writing differently and better were a course organized through key terms or concepts rather than through a set of assignments or processes” (40). They cite Bransford, Pellegrino and Donovan, How People Learn:Brain, Mind, Experience and School who say, “The ability to monitor one’s approach to problem-solving–to be metacognitive–is an important aspect of the expert’s competence. Experts step back from their first, oversimplistic interpretation of a problem or situation and question their own knowledge that is relevant.”

Terms represent concepts and bringing concepts learned in prior situations to bear on current situations is an indication of transfer of knowledge. Knowing the right terms allows the concepts to be recalled and used. But what are the right terms?

The terms embedded in the “Teaching for Transfer” course designed by Yancy et al are a mixed bag. Some are elements of the rhetorical situation–audience, genre, exigence, context–while the umbrella term “rhetorical situation” is also part of the list. Others are cognitive: knowledge and reflection. “Composing” is part of the writing process, part of another list of terms that has been part of composition research since the 1970’s: pre-writing, composing, revising, and proofreading. “Circulation” (by which I think they mean the way texts circulate in a community; they do not define it) and “discourse community” are sociolinguistic concepts. In the context of the assignments and the course, these may be memorable concepts, but as a list, not so much. Given that terms are so important, I wonder if a better selection could be made.

ERWC, as currently expressed, has a similar problem. Our template, while it guides students through a well-defined process of prereading, reading and re-reading for different purposes, and repeats and reinforces this process until students have internalized it, doesn’t provide a convenient list of terms. Students may have internalized these processes so well that they do not need terms to recall them. However, a list of memorable terms certainly could not hurt.

After many conversations with ERWC committee members and teachers participating in the ERWC Module Writing Institute that is currently underway, and especially with Mary Adler, who is co-facilitating the Institute with me, I would like to propose the following set of terms to describe the intellectual processes embedded in the ERWC:

Prepare–>Understand–>Question–>Select–>Write–>Revise

Of course, there are many complexities lurking under each one of these terms, which I will discuss in a subsequent post.

The Organization of a Roman Speech

On By guitarsophistIn Classical Rhetoric, ERWC, Writing an ERWC ModuleLeave a comment

In the Module Writing Institute today we were talking about a metalanguage for commencement addresses. I suggested that it was worth looking at the six-part organization of a classical Roman speech as described by Cicero in De Inventione and De Oratore. This pattern has lasted for thousands of years.

  • Exordium–An introduction in which the speaker states the subject and purpose of the discourse and establishes his or her ethos.
  • Narratio–A narrative of the facts of the case.
  • Partitio or Divisio–A statement of what is to come, consistent with the point at issue.
  • Confirmatio–Arguments in favor of the case. Oriented toward logos.
  • Refutatio–A refutation of the arguments against the case.
  • Peroratio–A conclusion, often oriented toward pathos.

I argued that if we were still teaching this pattern, instead of the five-paragraph essay, our society would be much more advanced. All of the requirements of good logical argumentation are built into this pattern, though it also addresses ethical and pathetic appeals. And it is still in use in sermons and other ceremonial discourse.

More can be found at the Silva Rhetoricae site.  Click on “Canons of Rhetoric/Arrangement” in the column on the left side.

Writing An ERWC Module: TOC

On By guitarsophistIn ERWC, Writing an ERWC ModuleLeave a comment

In a series of posts, I am working through the ERWC Assignment Template step-by-step as if I were writing a module around a short article by Michael Kinsley about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban of Big Gulp sodas.  These posts appear below in typical reverse-chronological blog format.  If you want to read them in the right order, click on the “Module Projects” tab to find a Table of Contents page with clickable links.

Assigning Reading at the University

On By guitarsophistIn Pedagogy5 Comments

When I do faculty workshops, I sometimes ask, “What are your biggest complaints about students?”  Usually at the top of the list is “They don’t do the reading until after the in-class discussion.”  This leads to a lackluster and frustrating discussion session with a lot of awkward silences in which the instructor finds him or herself answering all of his or her own questions, thinking all the while, “Maybe I should just go back to lecturing.” Attempting to lead a discussion that just won’t take off is one of the most frustrating of all teaching experiences, and for new instructors a recurring teaching nightmare.  It gets lonely in front of a classroom of unprepared students.

One common solution is to form small groups and assign each group a set of discussion questions to explore.  The students are now reading the assigned text in class looking for answers and trying out different perspectives with the group members.  After several minutes, the groups report their thoughts about what they have found to the class.  This usually works well.  Everyone comes away with a good sense of what the text is about, what issues it raises, and what the others think.  However, class time that could have been used for other activities has been spent reading the assigned text..  Perhaps more importantly, the students have now been given a powerful disincentive to reading the assigned text before class.  If they just wait, instead of a difficult solitary reading they can participate in an engaging group discussion and come away with a good sense of the text with minimal personal effort.  Their lack of reading actually results in an easier path toward understanding, and the class is now on a slippery slope that leads to all reading being negotiated in class.

When I first started asking this question and getting this response from faculty, I was deeply engaged in developing the first version of the CSU Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) and I knew from  that experience that students were telling us something important with this behavior.  They were saying that they did not like reading difficult texts cold.  They wanted to know why they were reading the text, what the instructor thought was interesting in it, and what they should pay attention to when reading.  The easiest way to know these things is to wait and see what the instructor does with the text.  However, the ERWC Assignment Template outlines activities that ensure that students know a lot about the purpose, structure and content of a text before they even begin to read it.  Applying some of these ideas to university assignments seemed like a good idea.

Of course, the ERWC Assignment Template goes beyond prereading activities.  In addition, it sets up activities that can occur during the reading and rereading of the text, connections to writing assignments, and strategies for productive revision.  The whole package may be overkill for the university environment, but it is clear that the basic pedagogical moves would address at least some of the causes of students not reading the assigned text before class.

I have written and revised a fair number of ERWC modules.  The ERWC Assignment Template is more than 25 pages long and I found it unwieldy to consult when I was in the process of writing a module, so I developed a two-page “cheat sheet” that included the first, second, and third-level headings along with questions designed to prompt a module writer about what kinds of things might be done at each stage.  I think of it as my inspiration machine.  A version of this cheat sheet eventually became “Appendix A” of the actual template, but I still use my original minimalist version.

The original ERWC Assignment Template “Cheat Sheet” can be downloaded here.

I also created another version of the cheat sheet that has been adapted for use at the university level.  I call this a “Reading Assignment Checklist.”  This is a similar list of pedagogical moves that might be used for prereading, reading, postreading, writing, revising, and responding.  It is does not describe specific activities, which would vary from discipline to discipline, but suggests factors that an instructor might think about when assigning a reading or sequence of readings, especially if the readings will lead up to a writing assignment.

The “Reading Assignment Checklist” can be downloaded here.  This version has been improved by feedback from my graduate students in English 589, “Pedagogies of Reading” seminar.

Implementing even a few prereading activities should be enough to avoid those awkward discussion days that never ignite.  Designing and implementing an entire sequence of reading, rereading, and writing activities around a text will help students engage with the issues of the text and the course, and use the words, ideas, facts, and arguments of the text for their own purposes.  Good assignment design leads to better reading, better writing, and more learning, as well as fewer awkward moments in front of the class.