First Experiment = Success!

All three sections of my ENG 120 classes are using the same two textbooks:

Kanar, Carol C. The Confident Writer. 5th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print.


Lunsford, Andrea A. The St. Martin's Handbook. 6th ed. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.

(Students are using both the 6th and 7th editions of SMH.)

The assigned reading for today was The Confident Writer, Chapter 1: Becoming a Confident Writer. This chapter deals, in part, with the stages of writing.

To begin class, I gave my students a 2 minute warning until their quiz (they have a quiz at the beginning of every class, unless they are writing an in-class essay--or I forgot!) so they could put their "stuff" away and/or quickly scan the material again. After the students took the quiz and we reviewed the answers, we reviewed the steps in the writing process:

I. Prewriting
II. Outlining
III. Drafting
IV. Proofreading/Revising

I then split the class into groups of 4 students. The students were asked to discuss the 'First Thoughts' questions on pg. 2 of the text. These questions are intended to build background for the subsequent reading; in this case, students then read "Free Expression Gets Smoked" by Stephen Chapman. The two key questions the students discussed were:

1. How much influence do you think celebrities have on people's choices and behavior?
2. What effect do you think watching people smoke in movies has on young people? (Kanar 2)

I gave the groups 5 minutes to discuss these two questions and to review Chapman's essay. When the time was up, each group took turns explaining how they felt about question 1, gave specific examples, and commented and built on their peers thoughts and comments. (The example of Jennifer Hudson's amazing weight loss on Jenny Craig (R) came up and we discussed how important what we don't see is almost more powerful than what we do. Ie: she probably has a personal trainer, cook, etc.) We then did the same for the second question. A student then volunteered to give a 30 second summary of the essay. I asked the class as a whole what the "main idea" or "topic" of the essay was and they responded correctly.

We then moved to pg. 10 of the text. An exercise on this page asks students to write about "A movie or TV program that has had a positive (or negative) effect on viewers" (Kanar 10). I gave the groups 3 minutes to brainstorm the topic and come up with one film or TV title, using brainstorming questions suggested in the exercise.

The groups' results were: Law and Order: SVU, American Pie, Shrek, The Godfather, and Family Guy, just to give you some insight into this particular class' dynamic.

I then wrote "Brainstorming" under 'Prewriting' on the board and acknowledged that this is one form of Prewriting.

I tasked those same groups to take 5 minutes to "Cluster" (or, as I so very often wind up calling it, "Bubble" with their film or TV title in the center bubble. I asked them to consider their Brainstorming questions, as well as the film's/show's genre, etc. You can watch an example here.

As we were nearing the end of our class time, I had all groups hold up their clusters so the rest of the groups could see. I then wrote "Clustering" on the board under "Brainstorming" and pointed out that Clustering is another method of Prewriting. I mentioned that on Wednesday (Monday is MLK Jr. day, so no class), we will review at least one other type of Prewriting called "Freewriting."

I reminded students of their two Journals (Blog entries) due next week, and we adjourned. I never spoke for more than 3 or 4 minutes at a time--if that! Success!