Unit #1--Detailed Unit Plan for the
Literacy Narrative
Laura Ciancanelli and Teri Gil
NOTE: In this section, we have included a detailed
unit plan (including the major essay prompt and lesson plans for classroom activities and
assignments) for the first unit of 101. Working together, we have found that
creating these detailed schedules makes life easier for us; because we know far in advance
what each class session will involve, we avoid those awful moments of trying to figure out
what to teach five minutes before class. These schedules also make life easier for our
students; by receiving a detailed schedule of events and assignments with each prompt,
they know exactly what will be expected of them and what materials should be brought to
class each day, and they can begin to see the methods behind our madness!
Considering the course objectives and the objectives we
have for each individual essay, we plan class activities and assignments which will help
our students to master each of the objectives they will be expected to fulfill for the
essay. Writer's Notebook assignments, readings, and even class discussions are
geared toward the fulfillment of each of the objectives. In this way, we can rest
easy knowing that we have provided our students with every opportunity to master the
skills necessary for writing each essay.
For the first major essay, we chose to build upon the
diagnostic essay, which addresses students' writing histories, and assign a literacy
narrative. A literacy narrative is always a great way to begin the ongoing
discussion of writing that typically takes place in a 101 class. We have found that
the literacy narrative is especially valuable because it allows us to gauge both our
students' writing and their attitudes toward writing.
This particular unit takes a fairly long time to get
through, but we decided that the first unit is always an important, precedent-setting one,
and we were willing to invest extra time in order to lay the groundwork for the rest of
the semester. Instructors should carefully consider how much time they will have
throughout the semester to devote to each unit and plan accordingly. The assignments
provided should definitely be adapted in order to fulfill your particular objectives and
goals.
Finally, it should also be noted that we typically leave
one day of our schedule open (a "TBA Day") near the end of the unit in
order to provide any additional instruction we feel our students may need at that point.
Generally, after the peer conferences we note if several students seem to be having
problems in similar areas and student needs dictate what will be covered on this "TBA
Day."
MAJOR ESSAY #1--LITERACY
NARRATIVE
(Adapted from an assignment presented by Dr. David Blakesley)
For this first major essay, I'd like each of you to explore some of the
important moments in your own encounters with language. First, consider the following
testimony of Mike Rose:
Desire gets confused on South Vermont. There were times when I wanted so much to be
other than what I was, to walk through the magical gate of a television cottage. But
strange blessing, we can never really free ourselves from the mood of early neighborhoods,
from our first stories, from the original tales of hope and despair. There are basic
truths about the vulnerability and power of coming to know, about the way the world
invites and denies language. This is what lies at the base of education--to be tapped or
sealed over or distorted, by others, by us.
--Mike Rose, Lives on the Boundary (240)
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Mission: Write a 3-5 page literacy narrative that re-tells or
analyzes one important scene, incident, experience, or character in your development as a
reader, writer, or thinker. Try to devote equal time to both dramatizing the memory and
pondering its significance. Use all the techniques of an essayist--image, scene, person,
description--to both teach and delight your readers.
Discussion of Prompt: A well-rounded narrative will more than
likely make some reference to what happened, who was involved, when and where it happened,
how it happened, and why it happened. Readers will want to know what you learned, why it's
important to understand your story, and how your experience might help to shed some light
on their own. Your audience for this essay will be a familiar one (your peers and myself);
so, the style should be somewhat informal or familiar, with an eye for cultivating the
good will of the reader.
For this particular assignment, we will really focus on ethos (the appeal to
the credibility of the speaker or writer) and pathos (the appeal to emotion)
and interesting introductions that employ both; so, I'd like you to consider the
importance of presenting yourselves as someone your reader can identify with and to
consider how you can use language to get your readers emotionally involved with the
reading of your narrative. Think about what feelings and experiences your readers will
recognize as familiar ones and how you can use these experiences to foster
trust/credibility, teach, or entertain. You should also consider how you can use a blend
of ethical and pathetic appeals within your introduction, in order to draw your readers
into your narrative.
You've already written a diagnostic essay that dealt with positive and negative writing
experiences, and we will use that as a springboard to get you started thinking about your
history with language. Throughout this unit, we will be working on other invention
methods and ways of using our memories to come up with significant moments in our writing,
reading, and speaking lives. The assigned readings and some sample student literacy
narratives should also help you to see the many different directions your narrative can
take.
Objectives:
- Students will understand the ways that purpose, process, subject matter, form, style,
tone, and diction can be shaped to address a particular audience in a specific situation.
- Students will generate good writing using specific methods of inventing and elaborating
ideas, for arranging these ideas to achieve a specific rhetorical purpose, for producing
good style, for revising, and for editing.
- Students will demonstrate their understanding of ethos by effectively utilizing
ethical appeals in their essays.
- Students will demonstrate their understanding of pathos by effectively
utilizing pathetic appeals in their essays.
- Students will write effective introductions that employ a blend of ethical and pathetic
appeals to draw the reader into their narratives.
Steps in the Process: See detailed calendar below.
Guidelines:
- All essays and drafts must be typed and double-spaced.
- Essays should be at least three full pages in length.
- This essay will be worth 10% of your grade (100 points).
- The first draft of your essay is due Friday, September 10. (Your final essay grade will
be dropped one letter if you fail to turn in your first draft and/or meet with me in
conference.)
- Conferences will be on Monday, September 13 in my office and Monday, September 20 in the
Big Muddy Room.
- Three copies of the second draft of your essay are due Friday, September 17. (Your final
essay grade will be dropped one letter if you fail to turn in a second draft and/or
participate in peer conferences.)
- The final draft of your essay is due on Friday, September 24.
- You must turn in all drafts with your final essay!
Evaluation Criteria:
- The most important thing is that you fully describe your experience and that you fully
explain its significance. It will not be enough to simply relay your experience to us.
Instead, you must go one step further and tell us why that experience was significant.
- I will look to see how well you cultivate ethos.
- I will look to see how well you cultivate pathos.
- I will closely examine the effectiveness of your
introduction.
- Although the style will be somewhat informal, I do want to
see how well you can utilize the standards of American Edited English.
- I am not looking for grammatical perfection, but the essay
must be readable and free of mechanical errors that distract your reader. (Most of your
big mechanical errors will probably be pointed out by me, during your first conference,
and your peers, during peer response.)
Have Fun!
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Detailed Schedule of Events: (Click on links to see
detailed lesson plans)
Day Two (Wednesday,
August 25) |
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Day
Four (Monday, August 30) |
- Have Goldberg's essay read for today
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- Read WIP 45-50 and 53-57 for Wednesday, Sept.1
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- Read in EL: Eudora Welty's "Wordstruck" (30-33) and Malcolm X's
"Homemade Education" (35-37) for Wednesday, Sept.1
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Day
Five (Wednesday, September 1) |
- Discuss readings in WIP (Specifically, ethos, pathos, and logos)
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- Discuss Welty's "Wordstruck" and Malcolm X's "Homemade Education" in
EL
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- Assign Writer's Notebook #1: Answer ten questions on pages 25-26 in WIP--Due
Friday, Sept. 3
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Day
Six (Friday, September 3) |
- Receive and discuss Prompt for Essay #1
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- Essay Evaluation Activity
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- Writer's Notebook #1-- Due Today
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- Read WIP 111-124 for Wednesday
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- Reminder: NO CLASS ON MONDAY SEPT. 6
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- Bring Diagnostic Essay to class on Wednesday, Sept. 8
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Day Seven (Monday, September 6) |
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Day
Eight (Wednesday, September 8) |
- Bring Diagnostic Essays to class today
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- Discuss Invention strategies covered in WIP 111-124
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- In-Class Writing Activity
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- DRAFT #1 is due on Friday, Sept. 10
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- Assign Writer's Notebook #2: Answer questions about rhetorical situation analysis
on 47-48 in WIP-- due Monday, Sept. 13 at conference
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Day
Nine (Friday, September 10) |
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- Sign up for one-on-one conferences
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- Receive Nancie Atwell's segment on "Leads" and "Beginnings" from Models
for Writers
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- "Beginnings: Moving the Reader Forward" (Discussion on Introductions)
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- Assign Writer's Notebook #3: Write three different introductions for your essay using
the different models in your "Beginnings" handout. After writing the
intros, write a brief paragraph in which you rank them from most effective to least
effective and justify why you think the best is the best, the worst is the worst, etc.
These must be brought to class on Wednesday, Sept. 15; we will be using them for an
in-class activity!
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- Reminder: NO CLASS on Monday, Sept. 13--CONFERENCES in my office
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- Reminder: Writer's Notebook #2 due on Monday at conference
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Day Ten (Monday, September 13) |
- NO CLASS--Conferences in my office
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- Writer's Notebook #2 due at conference
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- Remind students about Writer's Notebook #3
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Day
Eleven (Wednesday, September 15) |
- Sign up for peer conferences
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- Peer Response of Introductions
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- Writer's Notebook #3 due today (In order to receive full credit for this notebook entry,
you must include the original introductions and justification for ranking, your peers'
responses and rankings, and your revision.)
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- Reminder: Three copies of Draft #2 due on Friday, Sept. 17
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Day
Twelve (Friday, September 17) |
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- Discussion of Peer Response (Expectations, Requirements, and Procedures)
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- Discuss and assign Writer's Notebook #4: This notebook entry is due on Monday,
Sept. 20 at the peer conference and should include four major paragraphs:
Paragraph #1--Discuss the process you went through when responding to these essays.
Where were you? How did you do it? How long did it take you?
Paragraph #2--Provide a very specific evaluation of the first essay you responded to.
Offer suggestions for improvement. Discuss elements of the essay that did and
did not work and explain why you, as a reader, felt they were or were not effective.
Paragraph #3--Provide a very specific evaluation of the second essay you responded to.
(Including the same information covered in paragraph #2.)
Paragraph #4--Discuss how the two essays you responded to might affect how you will write
your own essay. Address those things you found really effective and/or ineffective
in the essays that you might want to include or leave out of your own essay.
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- Exchange papers with Peer Response Groups
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- Reminder: NO CLASS on Monday, Sept. 20--CONFERENCES in Big Muddy Room
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- Reminder: Commentary on essays and Writer's Notebook #4 due at conference
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Day Thirteen (Monday, September
20) |
- NO CLASS--CONFERENCES in Big Muddy Room
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- Writer's Notebook #4 and commentary due at conference
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- Reminder: Final Draft of Essay #1 due on Friday, Sept. 24
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Day Fourteen (Wednesday,
September 22) |
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- Reminder: Final Draft of Essay #1 due on Friday, Sept. 24
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Day Fifteen (Friday, September
24) |
- Final draft of Essay #1 (and all accompanying drafts) due today
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- Receive and discuss prompt for Essay #2
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