Details about daily assignments will be posted here following class sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. See the schedule posted in the syllabus for the tentative course outline.

Assigned September 1
For Friday, September 3: Read pp. 62-70 from Kittle Ch. 6, “Opportunities in a Writer’s Workshop” to learn the basic structure of Kittle’s writing workshop.  Watch “Elements of a Writing Workshop: Day 1” on the Kittle DVD.  (This segment lasts about 11 minutes.)  Consider:  Kittle outlines the structure for writing workshop in a course that is focused only on writing.  How might you adapt this for a course that blends literature and writing? In that type of course, what would you and your students do on the first day?

Read the Curriculum Design instructions and begin “collecting thinking” for your curriculum design.

Assigned August 30
For Wednesday, September 1: Read Kittle Part II, “Collecting Thinking”; view the Kittle DVD “A Writer’s Notebook” (play all of the sub-segments). As you read and watch, prepare to write and discuss: why is it so important to help writers collect their thinking? What are your experiences with the kinds of structures and strategies that Kittle suggest? How do/n’t these ideas align with your beliefs about learning and teaching writing? What might be the pros and cons of these structures and strategies for students? Practically speaking, what will you do to help student writers to “collect thinking”?

Assigned August 27
For Monday, August 30: For the next few weeks, we’ll focus on writing pedagogy. As you read Kittle, Part I: “Foundations” (pp. 1-19), note (and prepare to discuss) what Kittle believes about writing and the teaching of writing. Then, as a starting point for our study of writing pedagogy, draw from your own experiences, education, and imagination to write an extended definition of the concept of “effective writing teacher.” Here is some sage advice on extended definitions from my colleague at Boise State University, Dr. Jim Fredricksen:

The extended definition is one that does more than a straightforward or formal definition you might find in a dictionary. An extended definition typically includes a formal definition, a list of traits that characterizes the concept, examples that illustrate the concept, and “near-examples”—by which we mean illustrations that seem like they are examples of the concept, but they somehow are just missing the criteria. The best way to understand this may be to look at some examples, such as “A Definition of a Jerk” by Sidney J Harris and “The Meaning of Home” by John Berger. Each of these authors include “near-examples” of the concept they are defining, and it is the near-examples that help to show the boundaries of the definition you are proposing.  

When you write your extended definition of “effective writing teacher,” include:

·        A formal definition,

·        A list of traits or characteristics,

·        Examples that illustrate these traits, and

·        Near-examples of the concept.

Your purpose is two-fold: you are writing to learn, but also writing to share with our class as a way to spark our discussion about beliefs about writing and the teaching of writing. We will share and compare, and then I will collect and keep the definitions until later in the semester when we will revisit them to see how your ideas have/n’t changed—and why.

Assigned August 25
For Friday, August 27: 

1. Review the syllabus.

2. In the Word document that you began at class today, complete the following tasks, and then bring a printed copy to class:

   • a. Finish your paragraph explaining about your visual metaphor for good ELA teaching. As you attend classes, make mental note of the teaching metaphors that you see enacted by your professors and by any other teachers you may observe.

   • b. Explore the websites for NCTE and ReadWriteThink.org, sign up for NCTE’s Inbox, and browse through an issue of English Journal or Voices from the Middle at the Dordt library. Choose a metaphor for NCTE’s vision of what good ELA teaching is like, and write a paragraph explaining how the metaphor fits.

   • c. Explore the English Language Arts section of the Common Core Standards. Choose a metaphor for the vision of ELA teaching that you associate with the standards, and write a paragraph explaining how this metaphor fits.

3. Prepare for discussion: (1) In light of what you noticed in the assigned readings, what would you change and/or emphasize about your own metaphor for good ELA teaching? (2) Given your view of good ELA teaching, what will you do on the first day of the ELA classes you teach?