Course Outline – Fall 2017

The Digispace is open. It is staffed with peer consultants to help with all WordPress/Eportfolio assignments.

Daytime: 10:00-12:30 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday in Decary 051
Evening: 5:00-8:00 pm Monday-Thursday in Decary 051

On this page, you’ll find due dates for major assignments and the daily schedule for College Reading and Writing I, Fall 2017.

The daily schedule will develop over the term, with updates taking place here on the course website. Be sure to use the course website schedule as your reference for assignments and due dates!

The process approach of College Reading and Writing allows for flexibility. We can – and will – make adjustments over the term. I’ll let you know what’s coming, but you’ll need to refer to this page each time you sit down to prepare for class.

Expect to have both reading and writing assignments for each class meeting. After all, this is a reading and writing class.

Due Dates for Major Assignments

First Week Writing Assignment – Sept. 7

Literacy Narrative Draft – Sept. 26

Literacy Narrative Revision – Oct. 3

Occupational Discourse Draft – Nov. 7

Remediated Literacy Narrative – Nov. 16

Occupational Discourse Revision – Nov. 21

Draft Eportfolio – Dec. 7

Daily Schedule

Plan to keep an electronic or paper notebook with all homework assignments, drafts, revisions, and printouts of readings in it. Bring your notebook with all assignments and readings in it to class every time.

Please bring Habits of the Creative Mind, They Say/I Say, and all other assigned readings to class each time. Students will be required to print articles on paper for the purpose of annotating them. I recommend that you print at the library or a computer lab since most articles will be multiple pages.

Please bring a laptop or tablet to class with you each time. If you don’t have access to one, please let me know, so that I can provide one for you to use in class.

PRO TIP: Follow the links in this schedule. They contain helpful tips, advice, information, and resources to help you get the most benefit from the assigned tasks.

Week 1 – Introductions

August 31 – Welcome to College Reading and Writing

Who are we, and what are we going to be doing, writing, saying, valuing here?
Ice Breaker: What’s one thing you’re anxious or concerned about taking ENG 122? What’s one thing you’re excited about taking ENG 122?
Setting a baseline: First Week Writing Assignment (prompt distributed in class on Thursday).
In class writing activity: Send an email from your UNE email address to edrown@une.edu telling me a story about a memorable reading or writing experience you’ve had – including IRL, online, or any where/when else.
For next class: Estimated time-on-tasks: 2.5 hours
- Spend 90 minutes writing on UNE Docs in response to the First Week Writing Assignment prompt distributed in class on Thursday. Prof. Michael Cripps has written a Google Docs Quick Start guide if you haven’t used Google Docs before.
- 30 minutes: In Habits of the Creative Mind, read “On Habits of Mind: A Letter to Students and Other Readers.” As you read, think about what Miller and Jurecic mean by “writing-to-learn.” Take some notes towards figuring out what “writing-to-learn” means, and why it matters? Also, what is creativity? And why does cultivating creativity matter to us as a society? Be prepared to show me your notes in class.
- 30 minutes: Read my How to Thrive in ENG 122 infographic. Which pieces of advice on it do you think will be easy to live up to? Which will be challenging to live up to? Be prepared to show me concrete evidence of your thinking in class.
- Bring your laptop to class.

Week 2 – Getting Going

September 5 – Review and Revise; Why You Must Believe You Can Improve

Ice Breaker: Introduce yourself to more of your peers by describing one thing you have learned (or learned how to do) that was difficult or challenging to learn. How did you do it?
Peer Review: First Week Writing Assignment
Party Talk: Describe a boring moment in a high school class; what could you have done at that moment to be more engaged and learn? PRO TIP: Use what you’ve learned from reading “On Habits of Mind” or the “How to Thrive in ENG 122” infographic to help discuss the question about how to be more engaged.
~~View and take notes on Carol Dweck’s TED Talk, “The Power of Believing That You Can Improve“~~
For next class: Estimated time-on-tasks: 2 .5 hours
- View and take notes on Carol Dweck’s TED Talk, “The Power of Believing That You Can Improve“
  - Print the Interactive Transcript of the Dweck video, read and take notes on it, and bring it to class and Writing Lab.
- Make a new copy of the draft of your First Week Writing Assignment UNE Doc, share the copy with Eric (edrown@une.edu)
- Spend 60 minutes making your revisions on the new copy of the First Week Writing Assignment – Please do not hide or resolve peers’ comments.
- Print (on one side of the paper) both the draft and revised versions of your First Week Writing Assignment to bring to class.
  - To get the comments to print, use the “Download as…” [Microsoft Word] dialogue on the Docs File menu. Then print from Word.
- Spend 15 minutes commenting on my Rules of Writing post – be sure to respond to the prompts in my post, but feel free to add more.

September 7 – Defining a genre; Defeating Writer’s Block Once and For All

Due at the start of class: Draft and Final Version of the First Week Writing Assignment
- share UNE Docs with Dr. Drown: edrown@une.edu
- bring printouts (printed on one side of the page only) of both docs
- send an email to edrown@une.edu with the URL of your UNE ePortfolio.
Introduction to UNE Portfolio: Logging In, Creating a Post, Compressing and uploading photos
- Free online tool for compressing photos: http://www.imagesmaller.com/
In class:
- Using your experience and what you learned from viewing the Dweck video, post a comment on my Growth Mindset post: To what degree do you think you currently possess a growth mindset for writing? What’s your best advice to someone seeking to develop a growth mindset?
What is a Literacy Narrative? View the Assignment Here.
Using PreWriting for Inquiry
For next class: Estimated time-on-tasks: 2.75 hours
PRO TIP 1: Spread this work out over 4-5 days for best results and least stress.
PRO TIP 2: For help with any ePortfolio assignments visit the Digital Literacy Consultant in the DigiSpace. The DigiSpace is open Monday-Thursday from 5-8 pm in Marcil 217 A/B. It is staffed with peer consultants to help with all WordPress/Eportfolio assignments. So plan ahead.
- 30 minutes: Visit the Norton Field Guide’s “Writing a Literacy Narrative” page to get a better understanding of what a literacy narrative is and to see some examples. Student Written Sample 1 | Student Written Sample 2
- Do 30 minutes of prewriting towards your Literacy Narrative. Here’s a descriptive list of prewriting strategies. Be prepared to show me your prewriting in class.
- Estimated time-on-task: 30 minutes. In Habits of the Creative Mind, read “On Unlearning.” As you read your notebook, list all of the habits of the creative mind in your notebook (there are 6); then, once you’re done reading, return to your notebook and define three habits as you understand them from your own experience. What does it look like, for example, when you are being open to new ways of thinking in your life? Be prepared to show your notebook to me in class.
- On my Rules of Writing post, create a comment and write for 15 minutes about how the habits of mind you defined in “On Unlearning” relate to the “Rules of Writing” you wrote about on Sept. 5. In what ways do and don’t the “Rules of Writing” you wrote about foster the habits of the creative mind?
- Print Sherman Alexie, “Superman and Me,” Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1998.
- Preview Practice Session 2 (Habits, p. 19). Then read and mark up “Superman and Me” in a way that helps you identify evidence of the habits of mind in this short piece. Then spend 30 minutes doing the “Reading” activity part of Practice Session 2 on “Superman and Me.”
- Estimated time-on-task: 30 minutes: Create a new post (not page) on your ePortfolio site called “Reading Superman and Me.” Take photos of a few marked up pages of “Superman and Me” that demonstrate your best mark ups. Post these photos on your ePortfolio site (you may need to use http://www.imagesmaller.com/ to compress them). Explain at least two of the comments you’ve made on that page. If you feel stuck, use this stem to get started: In the (first, second, etc.) paragraph, I noticed __________, so in the margins I wrote ________, which will help me ________. Then answer these reflection questions: What is your annotation helping you notice that you might otherwise have missed? What connections can you make between Alexie’s school and literacy experiences and your own?
- If you’d like to learn more about Sherman Alexie’s boyhood and books, view this short video:

Week 3 – Telling Stories About Reading and Writing; What Else Can Be Said?

September 12 – Unlearning; Swapping Stories

25 minutes: Discuss: In light of “On Unlearning,” how have your ideas about the “Rules of Writing” changed? Start your discussion by pointing to specific passages, reading them aloud and explaining them to one another. Consider the passages from the chapter that explain why writing is different from other kinds of complex activities, why the governing assumptions behind the five-paragraph essay and other simple writing formulas should be questioned, and why you should replace most simple writing rules with creative habits of mind. How do these ideas about writing make you feel?
25 minutes:Turn on your voice recorders: Discuss: Where does Sherman Alexie, the writer of “Superman and Me,” display the habits of the creative mind in his piece? Take turns pointing to specific passages in “Superman and Me” that display one or more of the habits, and explain what you see in them; ask one another questions, build on one another’s insights, push each other to dig deeper. As a group, use your literacy narrative pre-writing as seeds to exchange stories about your own literacy experiences that relate (for better or worse) to some of these habits of the creative mind. While you’re talking with one another, listen for patterns in your experiences. Have the members of your group had similar experiences? What accounts for those similarities? Does anyone in the group have a really unique experience?
Create a new post on your ePortfolio titled “Swapping Literacy Stories.” Write freely for 15 minutes, describing the similarities and differences in your groups’ literacy stories. What questions or conclusions emerge from noticing these similarities?
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 2.75 hours.
PRO TIP: Spread this work out over 2 days for best results and least stress. That means you need to finish some of it today (Tuesday)
- Do 45 minutes of new pre-writing towards your Literacy Narrative.
- 35 minutes: In Habits of the Creative Mind, read and mark up “On Confronting the Unknown.” Be sure to find the reasons Gonzalez thinks Koepcke survived, and the essential challenges of this kind of writing. In your notebook, write for 10 minutes about how this kind of writing can enable you to confront the unknown, and what characteristics such writing tends to have. Be prepared to show me your marked up text and your notebook.
- Total estimated time-on-tasks for these items: 75 minutes. Read and mark up pp. 25-37 (pp. is an abbreviation for “pages”) of Mike Rose’s “I Just Wanna Be Average” with the aim of writing for 20 minutes about how Rose confronts his experience to find meaning in it. Then, in your notebook, write freely for 20 minutes about the moments, in “I Just Wanna Be Average,” where Rose displays the characteristics Miller and Jurecic (the Habits writers) say are needed to confront experience and find meaning in it. Then write freely in your notebook for 10 minutes about the questions your own literacy experiences raise, and what they might mean to you and others interested in literacy. Be prepared to show me your marked up text and your notebook.
- Create a post on your ePortfolio site called “Literacy Narrative PreWriting” and display a selection of your best prewriting this week, using photos, cut-and-paste, or any other way of getting your prewriting into your ePortfolio.
- For help with any ePortfolio assignments visit the Digital Literacy Consultants in the DigiSpace. The DigiSpace is open Monday-Thursday from 5-8 pm in Marcil 217 A/B. So plan ahead.

September 14 – Making Meaning from Experience 1

25 minutes: Discuss: Using your notes and writing from your reading of “On Confronting the Unknown,” respond to the question on my “On Confronting the Unknown” post. Then, discuss with your group concrete ways you can use writing to “bring you to the edge of your understanding” (Miller and Jurecic 23) and therefore figure out what you want to say about your literacy experiences. What attitudes about writing and the world do you need to bring to this “confrontation.” What existing writing habits or beliefs about writing do you have that might make it challenging to confront the unknown in writing?
25 minutes Discuss:Turn on your voice recorders: Take turns pointing to specific passages in “I Just Wanna Be Average” where you see Rose trying to make sense of his experiences, and explain what you see in them. Ask one another questions, build on one another’s insights, push each other to dig deeper. Notice the conceptual, interpretive words he uses to make sense of his experiences, as well as the sentence structures he uses to express his ideas. As a group, use Rose’s approach to explaining his experience as a model for explaining your own experiences; borrow and adapt his sentence patterns and vocabulary to exchange theories about the meaning of your own and one another’s literacy experiences that might tell us something about the complex ways we come to be literate. Try to make text-to-self or text-to-text connections.
Create a new post on your ePortfolio titled “Interpreting Our Literacy Stories.” Write freely for 15 minutes making connections between the various theories of literacy that arise from your group’s experience. What do you now know about literacy having read Rose and discussed your experience in light of his?
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 3 hours
- Write for 60-80 minutes towards your Literacy Narrative. Try to move beyond listing, freewriting, and other prewriting activities and try to write some connected story telling paragraphs in dramatic scenes. Read the “Moving from Prewriting to Exploratory Drafting” section of the Literacy Narrative Assignment Guide for suggestions on how to move on from pre-writing. See if you can figure out a way to use summary, quotation or paraphrase to connect your experiences to those in the Literacy Narratives you’ve read over the last few weeks.
- Make a comment responding to the prompt in my “Excerpting ‘I Just Wanna Be Average’” post.
- In Habits of the Creative Mind, read “On Looking, and Looking Again.” Starting today, Sept. 14, do the “Writing” section of the Practice Session on p. 44, but instead of writing about an organic object, write for at least 10 minutes every day for 5 days about one important event in your literacy history. In order for this exercise to do its work, you must write about the same event each day. Compose each day’s 10 minutes of writing as a separate blog post (not as a page) on your ePortfolio.

Week 4 – Home Languages; Introduction to Constructive Feedback

September 19 – Making Meaning from Experience 2

TBA
30 minutes: Read and annotate Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” with the goal of reflecting on the idea that there is not just one variety of English and making a text-to-self connection about the specific range of Englishes you use and the different situations you use them in. Look for the different varieties of English Tan uses and give a name to each of them. Think about what events or situations prompts her to switch from one variety of English to another one. Consider moments when there may be tension or conflict among two or more Englishes in the same moment or place. Think about how different varieties of English might shape our life prospects in the present and for the future, and the ways different varieties of English might help us make stronger sense of the world.
20 minutes: Discuss: Take turns pointing to specific passages in “Mother Tongue” where you see Tan making a point about having more than one variety of English, and explain what you see in them. Ask one another questions, build on one another’s insights, push each other to dig deeper.
20 Write: Create a new post on your ePortfolio titled “My Home Tongues.” Write freely for 15 minutes about a non-school based English variation that you use in daily life. Explore what makes it distinctive, where and when you use it, and how it shapes the ways you see things in those situations.
For next time: Estimated time on tasks: 1.5 hours
- Write for 90 minutes towards your Literacy Narrative. Write some connected story telling paragraphs in dramatic scenes using setting, action, description, dialogue, and narrator commentary. Write at least one paragraph in which you use summary, quotation or paraphrase to connect your experiences to those in the Literacy Narratives you’ve read over the last few weeks (Alexie, Rose, and Tan).
- Prepare to come to class with whatever you need to write towards a draft of a Literacy Narrative. Earbuds, computer, notepads…. We’re going to create a single-tasking environment. So, please, set your phone on “Do Not Disturb,” turn off notifications on your computer, close all tabs and windows not related to your projects, and settle down to write. If you’re one who fiddles around with fonts and spell-check instead of writing, try downloading Focus Writer, a free, no-frills piece of writing software that will help you keep your focus on your writing. If you’re going to try Focus Writer, please download and install it before coming to class.

September 21 – Writing Day; Intro to Peer Review

Writing Workshop
Peer review practice using the guide here and the sample here.
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 4.5 hours
- Over at least three days and four writing sessions, each lasting at least 60 minutes, write a complete draft of your Literacy Narrative, upload it to UNE Docs, print out a copy (double-spaced, one-side only) and bring it to class. Consider making a text-to-self connection in your literacy narrative.
- If you don’t already have one, sign up for a YouTube account, and explore the “Creator Studio” to learn how to upload short videos. If you are reluctant to post video of yourself on the internet, you may choose to make audio files instead of videos. You’ll need an audio hosting/distribution service like SoundCloud to allow you to embed audio files in your ePortfolio.
- Bring Habits of the Creative Mind to class.

Week 5 – Every Piece of Writing Can Be Improved

September 26 – Literacy Narrative Draft Due; The Gift of Feedback

Read, comment on, and, after turning on your voice recorders, discuss the Literacy Narratives in your group using the questions in the peer review guidelines to guide your discussion. Be sure to talk about global concerns first, and discuss how you might solve them. Decide which one or two local concerns are most important to address.
In-class writing activity: In Habits of the Creative Mind, read “On the Miracle of Language” (pp. 133-135) and respond to the prompt on my On the Miracle of Language post.
For next class: Estimate time on tasks: 2.25 hours
- Review the comments on your draft, and listen to the advice you received in discussion; in a short video, summarize the global and local feedback you received during class, and your plans for addressing them. You might want to make some notes before shooting the video. Post the video to your YouTube account using the “unlisted setting,” then embed it on a “Revision Plan” page of your ePortfolio site.
- Create a copy of your Literacy Narrative draft on UNE Docs and add the word “revised” to the filename. Do your revisions on this document from here on out and preserve your draft intact for portfolio purposes. Please, do not resolve or delete your peers’ comments in the draft. You’ll need them for your portfolio.
- Start the work of revising your Literacy Narrative. Spend at least 70 minutes revising your draft before coming to class on Wednesday.

September 28 – Writing Day

Finish your On the Miracle of Language comment. Consider weaving some of these ideas into your literacy narrative.
Come to class with whatever you need to revise your Literacy Narrative. Earbuds, computer, notepads…. We’re going to create a single-tasking environment, so, please, set your phone on “Do Not Disturb,” turn off notifications on your computer, close all tabs and windows not related to your projects, and settle down to write. If you’re one who fiddles around with fonts and spell-check instead of writing, try downloading Focus Writer, a free, no-frills piece of writing software that will help you keep your focus on your writing. If you’re going to try Focus Writer, please download and install it before coming to class.
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 2.5 hours
- finish revising your Literacy Narrative over at least two sittings of at least 70 minutes each spread out over at least two days.
Bring The Little Seagull Handbook to class on Monday.

Week 6 – Writing is Meant to Be Shared; Learning to Read as a Writer

October 3 – Revised Literacy Narrative Due

Revised Literacy Narrative Due: Create a Page on your ePortfolio for your revised literacy narrative. Copy and paste the text of your literacy narrative in and clean up the formatting, add the Category “Literacy Narrative” to your page.
Download a copy of your archived draft of your literacy narrative in MS Word or RTF format, include comments in the download. Name the file using this protocol: YourLastName_LiteracyNarrativeDraft. Email it to Eric at edrown@une.edu.
Bring The Little Seagull Handbook to class
Clean and Polish: Use The Little Seagull to help you improve one or more of the following stigmatizing errors: a) subject-verb agreement (S-5), b) plural/possessive mixups (P-5), c) sentence fragments (S-2), d) run-on, comma-splice, fused sentences (S-3, P-1).
Share: Visit a classmate’s portfolio and read their literacy narrative, leave some text-to-self, text-to-world, or text-to-text comments.
Reflect/Conference signup.
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 2 hours
- Print James Paul Gee, “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics: An Introduction” (this page is password protected: you’ll need the password to access this page) and bring it to class.
- In Habits of the Creative Mind, read and markup “On Reading as a Writer” with an eye towards understanding how experienced writers, like Susan Sontag, read. As you read, make a list in your notebook of the strategies that experienced writers, like Sontag, use to get the most out of their reading time. Be prepared to show me your notebook at the start of class.
- Print Francine Prose’s essay “Close Reading: Learning to Write by Learning to Read.” In our next class, we’re going to do the reading and writing activity in the “Reading” section of Practice Session 1 (Habits, p. 189) on Prose’s essay (not Sontag’s). So you’ll need to read in a particular way to prepare for class. Look at the October 5 discussion prompt below. Use some of the reading strategies you identified from “On Reading as a Writer” to read and mark up Prose’s essay. As you read, pay attention to how Prose tries to draw you in and mark the places where she’s successful. Notice and mark where you’re confused and try to explain to yourself why you’re confused. Notice and mark the sections where you find yourself re-reading and figure out why you’re re-reading. Be prepared to show me you marked up pages in class.**Note: Prose’s essay was printed in The Atlantic, one of the most interesting magazines about ideas being published today. If you’re interested in culture, politics, sports, or current events, I encourage you to visit The Atlantic frequently. You can find more fascinating things to read at Longform, FiveThirtyEight, Vibe , and Longreads. There’s some really smart sports writing at The Ringer, The Undefeated, and Sports on Earth.
- Bring They Say/I Say to class.

October 5 – Pre-Reading and Reading Strategies; How to Approach a Complex Text as a Writer

Bring They Say/I Say to class.
Discuss: Start your voice recorder: What reading strategies did you use to read “Close Reading?” What was striking about the ways Prose chose to approach her topic? Which parts drew you in? Why? Which parts confused you? Why? What can a writing class teach writers? What can’t it teach writers? How do writers really learn how to write? What reading strategies does Prose argue are essential for writers learning how to write? Reread closely (meaning, attending to and understanding every word) the paragraph about a third of the way through the essay that begins: “In the ongoing process of becoming a writer….” Then ask yourself, what adjustments in her reading strategy recommendations would you need to make to account for the fact that you’re not learning to write fiction? What do your answers to these questions mean for you as you try to learn the kind evidence-based writing experts and professionals write?
~~Voice markers, Ventriloquy, and Identifying Who is Saying What: They Say/I Say, “And Yet” (p. 68).~~
Pre-reading Gee, “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics.”
For next time: Estimated time on tasks: 3 hours
- Use your internet search skills to compile the information you’d need to write a profile of James Paul Gee. Who is he? What are his credentials? What problems, issues, phenomena, behaviors or objects does he study? What does he usually write about? What are some of the key terms that keep showing up in search results that include his name? What kinds of things are his ideas used to explain? Be prepared to show me your notes with this information in it.
- Scan, don’t read, pp. 5-8 (remember, pp. is an abbreviation for “pages”) of “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics.” In your notebook, compile a list of keywords, passages that caught your eye, questions that pop up in your head, and problems you encounter as your scan. Write for 5 minutes: What seems to be interesting about this piece of reading? What difficulties do you have making sense of it?
- Read, don’t scan, pp. 5-8 of “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics.” As you read, make notes in the margin summarizing the gist of his ideas, defining key terms in your own words, answering or asking questions, coming up with your own examples for his ideas, making text-to-text (T2T) or text-to-self (T2S) or text-to-world (T2W) connections, and anything else that seems to help. Be sure to mark any passages that seem to be important to Gee, but which you don’t yet understand. Ask about these in class. Do NOT use a highlighter to highlight passages.
- Make a Reading Gee page on your ePortfolio. Take photos of your marked-up pages of Gee, and post them to your Reading Gee page. Explain your markup strategies and how the pre-reading strategies you experimented with worked for you.

Week 7 – Making Sense Of and With Gee; Learning to Read as a Writer II; Learning to Write as a Reader

October 10 – Making Sense of/with Gee

Use the information you discovered, to work with a partner to write a one paragraph profile of James Paul Gee. Here is an example of a typical author profile. Yours needn’t be quite so long and detailed, but you should try to give your profile readers a good sense of Gee’s authority and the substance of his ideas. Post your profile of Gee on your Reading Gee page of your ePortfolio. Be sure to credit your co-author.
Mark-up strategies: Chunking, annotating, gisting, paraphrasing, noticing a writer’s moves (claims, support, explanations, forwarding and countering) and habits of mind (curiosity, persistence, openness, reflection, engagement, responsibility, flexibility, and creativity). Making connections: T2T, T2S, T2W.
Discuss: Start your voice recorder: Use specific passages on pp. 5-8 to work your way through these questions. Make sure that you do more than identify the correct passages, be able to explain what they mean to someone who hasn’t read Gee: What passages were hard to understand? What is a Discourse? What examples does Gee give to help explain the concept of Discourse? How do those examples work? How do we acquire Discourses? Make a text-to-self connection: What Secondary Discourses have you acquired? How? Which passages in Gee help you answer to these questions?
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 2 hours
- Re-read Gee, pp. 5-8. Add to your mark-up in light of class discussion and your re-reading. Use a different color pen to distinguish “first-read” notes from “re-read” notes. Work on improving your understanding of complex passages: try summarizing and paraphrasing ideas, defining key terms, coming up with your own examples, and connecting two or more passages to one another. Est. time: 60 minutes. Be prepared to show me your marked up reading pages in class.
- After re-reading, make a short video explaining which of Gee’s ideas were clearer or more understandable this time through. Explain the difficulty you had on your first read, and what exactly you understand better on a second read. You might also explain what you noticed this time through that you overlooked last time. Finally, explain what remains harder to understand. Est. time: 30 minutes. Video length: 3-5 minutes.
- Post the video to your YouTube account using the “unlisted setting,” then embed it on your Reading Gee page.

October 12 – Making Sense of/with Gee; Re-reading

Review reading strategies practiced so far.
As a group, work with one another to improve your collective understanding of these pages of Gee. Experiment with paraphrasing key passages in your own words, noticing and defining key words, coming up with your own examples, looking up Gee’s sources and examples, “talking back to the text,” playing the doubting game or the believing game, and other slow-reading strategies to improve your understanding of the text. Also, discuss the benefits of re-reading and discussing your reading with others. Focus on understanding what Gee means by Discourse, what Discourses do for us, and how we aquire them.
On a post on your ePortfolio, explain in your own words what Gee means by Discourse, what Discourses do for us, and how we acquire them. The vast majority of these three paragraphs should be done in paraphrase, however, you may quote very short concept words or phrases only. Be sure to use signal phrases and parenthetical page references to cite the ideas you’re paraphrasing from Gee. Illustrate your explanations with examples drawn from your own experience.
For next class: Estimated time on Tasks: 2.5 hours
- Finish your Gee paraphrase paragraphs. Post them on your Reading Gee page.
- Pre-read Gee, pp. 9-13 (including the end of the paragraph that finishes on p. 14). Create a list of keywords, passages that catch your eye, questions that pop up in your head, and problems you encounter as you scan pp. 9-13 of “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics.” Use metacognitive reading strategies and tools (Metacognitive Bookmark and Word Detective strategies) to help you read actively and meet the challenges of this complex reading. Post your pre-reading list to your Reading Gee page.
- Read, don’t scan, pp. 9-13 (including the end of the paragraph that finishes on p. 14) of “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics.” As you read, make notes in the margin summarizing the gist of his ideas, defining key terms in your own words, answering or asking questions, coming up with your own examples for his ideas, and anything else that seems to help. Do NOT use a highlighter to highlight passages.
- Take photos of your marked-up pp. 9-13 of Gee, and post them to your Reading Gee page.
- Bring They Say/I Say and The Little Seagull to class on October 17.

Week 8 – Reading, Focused Informal Prewriting

October 17 – What is Literacy and Why Does it Matter?

Bring They Say/I Say and The Little Seagull to class.
30 minutes: Compose a response to my Using Gee’s Keywords post. [Framing quotes, signal phrases.]
40 minutes: In a group, compare your pre-reading lists and reading notes for Gee, pp. 9-13. As you compare, take notes to identify shared understandings and shared areas of difficulty. Then turn on your voice recorders and work with one another to improve your collective understanding of the these pages of Gee. Experiment with paraphrasing key passages in your own words, noticing and defining key words, coming up with your own examples, looking up Gee’s sources and examples, and other slow-reading strategies to improve your understanding of the text. Try to explain these aspects of Gee:
- Primary v. secondary Discourses (and how we get them)
- “Each of these social institutions commands and demands one or more Discourses and we acquire these fluently to the extent that we are given access to these institutions and are allowed apprenticeships within them” (8).
- Dominant v. non-dominant Discourses (and the benefits that come along with them)
- The range of possible relationships among two or more Discourses (8, also 9)
- “Dominant groups in a society apply rather constant ‘tests’ of the fluency of the dominant Discourses” (8).
- The range of options apprentices have when they need to use a Discourse they haven’t yet mastered (and the potential outcomes of each of those options).
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 2 hours
- Re-read Gee, pp. 9-13. Add to your notes on those pages. Use a different color pen to distinguish “first-read” notes from “re-read” notes. Est. time: 45 minutes
- Est. time: 75 minutes: Focused informal prewriting: Choose one of the prompts below, and for 75 minutes write a sequence of chunky/long paragraphs that a) introduce readers to Gee and the passage(s) in the prompt, b) “translates” the passage for readers, using paraphrase and well-chosen, well explained examples to illustrate Gee’s ideas, and c) makes a text-to-self connection that uses Gee’s ideas to reflect on your own experiences trying to acquire Discourses. Be sure to re-read the passages in their original context to get a better ideas of what Gee means. Here’s a sample of the kind of thing you’re trying to achieve. Remember choose one of these passages to work on.
  - Gee explains that “Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (6-7). They “come complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize” (7).
  - Gee writes that “Some degree of conflict or tension…will almost always be present [between any two of a person’s Discourses]” and that “when such conflict or tension exists, it can deter acquisition of one or the other or both of the conflicting Discourses, or, at least, affect the fluency of a mastered Discourse on certain occasions of use” (8).
  - Post the results of your focused informal prewriting on a new post on your ePortfolio called “Gee Prewriting 1”

October 19 – Making Connections

Read and mark up the Entering an Occupational Discourse Assignment prompt.
In a group, turn on your voice recorders and work with one another to improve your collective understanding of the these pages of Gee. Experiment with paraphrasing key passages in your own words, noticing and defining key words, coming up with your own examples, looking up Gee’s sources and examples, and other slow-reading strategies to improve your understanding of the text. Try to explain these aspects of Gee:
- “Someone cannot engage in a Discourse in a less than fully fluent manner” (9-10).
- “All primary Discourses are limited” (10).
- The unexpected benefits that comes to apprentices from being “unable to accommodate or adapt” to a Discourse that they nevertheless must to try to acquire to gain access to “social goods” (12-13).
- “Mushfake Discourse” (13)
For next time: Estimated time on tasks: 3 hours
- In They Say/I Say, read “Introduction: Entering the Conversation,” “Her Point Is: The Art of Summarizing,” and “As He Himself Puts It: The Art of Quoting.” Est. 30 minutes.
- Est. time: 75 x 2 minutes: Focused informal prewriting: Choose two of the prompts below, and for 75 minutes each write a sequence of chunky paragraphs that a) introduce readers to Gee and the passage(s) in the prompt, b) “translates” the passage for readers, using paraphrase and well-chosen, well explained examples to illustrate Gee’s ideas, and c) makes a text-to-self connection that uses Gee’s ideas to reflect on your own experiences trying to acquire Discourses. Be sure to re-read the passages in their original context to get a better ideas of what Gee means. Use some of the templates from the summarizing and quoting chapters of They Say/I Say in your writing. Be sure to use compelling and appropriate signal verbs from the lists on pp. 39-40. There are more signal verbs in The Little Seagull, p. 113.
  - Gee explains that apprentices often have to use Discourses before they’re fully fluent in it (9). He also explains that no one can “engage in a Discourse in a less than fully fluent manner…[without] announcing [that] you don’t have that identity, that at best you’re a pretender or a beginner” (9-10).
  - Gee explains that the “superficial features [of a Discourse] are the best test as to whether one was apprenticed in the ‘right’ place, at the ‘right’ time, with the ‘right’ people. Such superficial features are exactly the parts of Discourses most impervious to overt instruction and are only fully mastered when everything else in the Discourse is mastered. Since these Discourses are used as ‘gates’ to ensure that the ‘right’ people get to the ‘right places in our society, such superficial features are ideal” (11).
  - Gee writes that unexpected benefits that comes to apprentices from being “unable to accommodate or adapt” to a Discourse that they nevertheless must to try to acquire to gain access to “social goods” (12-13). Yet, he suggests that apprentices are not without resources when faced with this situation (9, also 10, also 12). PRO TIP: Explain a scenario where an apprentice might need to use a particular Discourse while being “unable to accommodate or adapt to it. Show readers what options apprentices have to cope with this scenario, and demonstrate the benefits that they gain as a result.
  - Post each result of your focused informal prewriting separately on a new post on your ePortfolio. Call them “Gee Prewriting 2” and “Gee Prewriting 3”

Week 9 – Gathering Materials; Making and Testing Connections: Text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world

October 24 – Gathering and Evaluating the Materials You’ll Use to Build your Paper

Preread the readings in one or two of the Occupational Discourse Narrative groups
Synthesis Table/Reading Map
For next class: Estimated time on tasks: 2 hours
- Est. 45 minutes: Choose, print, read, and markup one Occupational Discourse narrative reading. As you read, make text-to-text connections to Gee. Look in the narrative for Discourse acquisition situations and scenarios that Gee’s text can help you explain. Build Synthesis Tables or Reading Maps to connect Gee and your Occupational Discourse narratives.
- Focused informal prewriting: 75 minutes: Gee explains that “Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (6-7). They “come complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize” (7). In what ways do you see your apprentices working to acquire new “ways of being” or “forms of life”? How well are they managing the requirement to “integrate” words, acts, values of the new Discourse? What kinds of people are they interacting with? Do you see signs of “enculturation…into social practices through scaffolded and supported interactions” (7)?
- Post the results of your focused informal prewriting on a new post on your ePortfolio called “Gee Prewriting 4”

October 26 – Evaluate Materials

TRIAC and Barclay’s Formula
Practice using the TRIAC and Barclay’s Formula paragraph structures by working on this focused informal prewriting prompt:
- All of the personal narratives in our collection involve people in the midst of acquiring a new secondary Discourse. Many Discourse apprentices in these stories worry that they are not yet competent at the Discourses they’re trying to acquire. In his first theorem, Gee writes that “Discourses are connected with displays of identity; failing to fully display an identity is tantamount to announcing you don’t have that identity, that at best you’re a pretender or beginner” (9-10). Which parts of the occupational Discourse seem to be giving your apprentices the most difficulty to acquire? How are more fluent members of the Discourse reacting to your apprentices’s difficulties? What would Gee say about the occupational risks or costs associated with apprentices’ lack of fluency in the secondary Discourse? How does your Discourse apprentice cope with those risks as he or she develops fluency in the discourse? To what degree does Gee’s concept of “mushfake” provide counter-balancing benefits or “social goods” to people not-yet-fluent in the Discourse?
- Post the results of your focused informal prewriting on a new post on your ePortfolio called “Gee Prewriting 5”
For next time: Estimated time on tasks: 2.5 hours
- In Habits of the Creative Mind, read “On Working with the Words of Others” (pp. 119-127). In your notebook, record the different kinds of “work” sources and citations do for experienced writers; there are 6. Be prepared to show me your notebook in class. Est. 30 minutes
- Est. 45 minutes: Choose, print, read, and markup one Occupational Discourse narrative reading. As you read, make text-to-text connections to Gee. Look in the narrative for Discourse acquisition situations and scenarios that Gee’s text can help you explain. Build Synthesis Tables or Reading Maps to connect Gee and your Occupational Discourse narratives.
- During your Focused informal prewriting session on the prompt below, practice using your sources the ways experienced writers do (try at least 3 kinds of “work”): 75 minutes:
  - Go back to one of the earlier prewriting prompts that you missed or underdeveloped over the last week or so and work on it.

Week 10 – Writing Workshop; Drafting Gee

October 31

Writing Day: Power outages resulted in canceled classes. The prewriting below remains an important part of preparing to write the draft.
- Focused informal prewriting: Gee explains that “The various Discourses which constitute each of us as persons are changing and often are not fully consistent with each other; there is often conflict and tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of language, and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses represent” (7). Do you see any signs of Discourse tension or conflict in your apprentices? How does it show up in their effort to acquire their desired occupational Discourse? He later asserts that “some people experience more overt and direct conflicts between two or more of their Discourses than do others…. [He] argues that when such conflict or tension exists, it can deter acquisition of one or the other or both of the conflicting Discourses, or, at least affect the fluency of a mastered Discourse on certain occasions of use” (8). What problems face apprentices seeking to acquire social goods through the acquisition of a dominant secondary Discourse when that Discourse might be in conflict or tension with another of their secondary Discourses, or their primary Discourse? What Discourse-related strategies might apprentices use to overcome these problems and gain fluency in their desired occupational Discourse?
- ~~Post the results of your focused informal prewriting on a new post on your ePortfolio called “Gee Prewriting 6”~~
- In lieu of the above activity, students were asked to write a drafting plan following the guidelines here.
For next time:
- Read “Skeptics May Object: Planting a Naysayer in Your Text” and “So What? Who Cares?: Saying Why It Matters” in They Say/I Say.
- 60 minutes: Work more with your Occupational Discourse Narratives and Gee.
- Write for 75 minutes in a draft of your Occupational Discourse paper. Plant at least one Naysayer in your draft, and be sure to say in at least one spot in your paper who cares and why about your ideas.

November 2

Writing Day
- Introductions
- Transitions, conjunctions, subordinating words
For next time:
- Read “As a Result: Connecting the Parts” in They Say/I Say.
- Read The Little Seagull p. 318 on coordinating words, and p. 348 on subordinating words.
- Work for at least two 80-90 minute sessions to finish your draft of your Occupational Discourse paper.
- Spend at least 30 minutes looking for sentences in your paper that could be connected with the transitions on pp. 109-110. There are more transition phrases in The Little Seagull on pp., 26-8. Look for opportunities to use pointing words to connect ideas backward to previous sentences. Try the repeating key terms and phrases strategy for building coherence across paragraphs. Experiment with coordinating words (The Little Seagull, p. 348) and subordinating words (The Little Seagull, 318) to build clearer and stronger connections between clauses (see The Little Seagull p. 316 for a definition of independent and subordinate clause).

Week 11 – Drafting and Peer Review

November 7. Draft of Paper 2 Due

Draft Occupational Discourse Paper Due: Create a Page on your ePortfolio for it. Post it to your page.
Peer Review
For next time: finish reviewing your peers’ drafts

November 9 – Peer Review NOTE: Class starts at 1 due to the University of New England’s observance of Veterans’ Day between 11 and 1.

Insufficient work on comments and drafts to proceed with plan.
~~Peer Review Meetings~~
~~Intro to Post-Draft Outline~~
For next time: Time on tasks: 3 hours
- Read “On Revising” and “The Post-Draft Outline” in Habits of the Creative Mind
- ~~Make a Post-Draft Outline of your draft, post it to your ePortfolio.~~
- ~~Using your post-draft outline, and feedback from your peers, find~~ at least two paragraphs in your draft that could use some “rethinking” of the kind Miller and Jurecic describe. Look also for at least two opportunities to restructure your essay by filling a gap in it or moving paragraphs to new locations. Make and post a revision plan explaining where and how you’ll rethink and restructure some parts of your paper.

Week 12 – Rewriting

November 14

~~Framing Statements for ePortfolio~~
~~Self-Assessment: Peer Review~~
Collective Feedback/Introductions: Anticipating Readers’ Needs; Framing Projects, Establishing Conversation
For next class: continue revising your Discourse paper. Consider:
- Global Concerns
  - Improve your introduction: look to better frame the project, establish the conversation and sources in play, and articulate how your claims contributes to that conversation
  - Rethink
  - Restructure
  - Go beyond the gist: add new sentences and paragraphs that develop an idea from your draft or introduce a new, relevant idea that advances the project of your paper
  - Clarify your perspective/voice/I Say
  - Improve your translation, explanation, and illustration of source material
  - Draw conclusions about entering an occupational Discourse and ways of coping with the challenges of getting in and becoming fluent. Minimally, a reader leaving your conclusion should know what the essential combinations an apprentice must acquire to be seen as fluent, the most significant challenges apprentices are likely to face, and the best strategies for coping with them – build on Gee but use reasonable speculation to go beyond the cases he presents. But be sure to check out these other expectations that come with conclusions in academic writing.
- Local Concerns
  - Signal phrases and parenthetical citation
  - Voice markers
  - Transitions
  - Pointing words
  - Key term and phrase repetition strategy
  - Coordinating words
  - Subordinating words
  - Multi-clause sentences
  - Try the Paramedic Method

November 16

~~In class: Sign Up for a Medium account.~~
Writing Day: Revise your Occupational Narrative Draft
For next class: continue revising your paper
- Global Concerns
  - Improve your introduction
  - Rethink
  - Restructure
  - Add
  - Go beyond the gist
  - Clarify your perspective/voice/I Say
  - Draw conclusions
- Local Concerns
  - Transitions
  - Pointing words
  - Key term and phrase repetition strategy
  - Coordinating words
  - Subordinating words
  - Multi-clause sentences
  - Try the Paramedic Method

Week 13 – Polish, Publish, Reflect

November 21. Revised Paper 2 Due

Partner Read Aloud: Polish and Proofread
- Efficiency
- Wrong Words
- Compelling Title
- In Text References: signal phrases + parenthetical references with page numbers
- Works Cited
Publish
- Email a copy of your paper to me at edrown@une.edu
- Create a new Post for your Occupational Discourse paper on your ePortfolio site. Copy and paste your paper into the body of the post, use your paper title as the post title, and be sure your post is available on your ePortfolio.
Reflect
- Create a new post on your ePortfolio titled “Progress Report – Occupational D.” Use the criteria on the Evaluation Report Form to assess your growth on a selection of the course learning outcomes. Besides circling pieces of the bullet points on the form and marking your self on the Novice-Master scale, write a paragraph or two explaining why you placed yourself where you did. The paragraphs you write should use and expand on some of the language you’ll find in the bullet-pointed “markers” of learning for each learning objective. Please assess yourself in paragraph form on the following learning outcomes.
  - ~~Writing as a Recursive Process~~
  - ~~Integrate Ideas with Others~~
  - ~~Engagement~~
  - ~~Document Work Using Appropriate Conventions~~

November 23 – No Class – Thanksgiving Break

Week 14 – ePortfolio – Collect, Select, Reflect

November 28.

Paper feedback
ePortfolio: How to Prepare for End-of-Semester Conferences
Medium work
- Getting Started with Medium
- Remediating your Literacy Narrative: formatting, picture & tag: collreadwrite
For Next Time
- In Habits of the Creative Mind, read “On Self-Curation”
- Work on your paper as necessary to create evidence of your learning
- Work on your ePortfolio (2 hours min.)
  - Expectations:
    - Publish your draft and final Occupational Discourse papers on separate pages on your ePortfolio.
    - Evidence of Learning – F2017 page created, published and added to your main menu
      - Level 3 headings for each learning outcome inserted
      - Summaries of LO 1, 2, and 3 that incorporates, paraphrases, and selectively quotes, but doesn’t simply reproduce, the descriptions and markers of fluency on this rubric.
      - Evidence for LOs 1, 2, and 3 selected and digitized

November 30

ePortfolio/Medium work
Reflection: Lessons from The First Semester: Write about one thing you have learned or changed about yourself since coming to college.
For Next Time
- Read pp. 342-344 of Bronwyn T. Williams, “Heroes, Rebels and Victims“
- Put together a full “draft” of your ePortfolio.
- Expectations:
  - menu structure in place, logical and functioning
  - “near-final” text and evidence on each of the learning objectives pages
  - draft and final pages for each of the writing projects have all text in place

Week 15 -Categorizing the Archive

December 5

Literacy Narrative Tagging work
- #collreadwrit, #success, #hero, #victim, #rebel, #prodigy, #sponsorship