Welcome

1. Welcome 100 • WELCOME • Intro to RWS100 and the lower division writing program • TA Introductions; photo session(indoctrination, mind control & false flag operations revealed) 9.00:

2. Overview of RWS100 • 9.30: The program, RWS100, ITC, Fall students, expectations, assignments, and options.

3. RWS 100 and the lower division writing program • See the handout for contact info • A lot of material on the wiki (let us know if you need help finding)

4. RWS 100 and the lower division writing program • We ask students to interpret, analyze, evaluate and produce written arguments because this is central to academic literacy, critical thinking, and civic life • - Lasch: “argument is the essence of education,” and “central to democratic culture”;- Norgaard: Universities are “houses of argument.” - Graff: “Argument literacy is key to higher education.”

5. RWS 100 and the lower division writing program • We want students to be able to identify claims, evaluate evidence and reasons, locate assumptions, identify argumentative moves, pose critical questions, and produce strong arguments. • We do this not only because it’s good for their souls, critical thinking, ability to reason, deliberate, be engaged citizens, etc. But also because it’s key to their professional futures – every gateway requires it.

6. Why We Fight!(4 your right to Compose, argue & analyze well) • These skills are central to business, law, professional life, and to academic study (including graduate school). • Students tested for these skills in the WPA, the LSAT, GMAT, and GRE – all the gateways to professional life. • Consider the LSAT…

7. Sample LSAT Question • FIND THE MAIN CLAIMPediatrician: “Some parents have decided not to have their children receive the MMR vaccine because they fear that it may cause autism. They cite a study that found a possible link between the vaccine and the disease. However, two other much larger studies have found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. These parents have, therefore, willfully put their own children and many others at risk of catching measles, mumps, and rubella, while failing to do anything to prevent their children from becoming autistic.” Which most accurately expresses the main claim of the pediatrician’s argument?(A) Parents should not pay attention to medical studies because they can’t understand them; instead, they should get advice from their pediatricians.(B) The study that found a link between autism and the MMR vaccine was unsound because the doctor who conducted it was being paid by a group of trial lawyers who wanted him to find a connection so they could carry out a lawsuit.(C) Public health needs require that parents have their kids vaccinated regardless of their fears about the procedure.(D) Parents’ refusal to have their kids take the vaccine is both medically unjustified and dangerous, because the vaccine has known disease-preventing benefits and refusing it will have no effect on whether their kids become autistic.(E) Despite the results of the two large studies, there is still some possibility that the MMR vaccine might cause autism.

8. Analytical Writing Tasks • Present Your Views on an Issue (45 minutes, choice of 2 topics) • Analyze an Argument (30 minutes) • Each essay is scored on a 0-6 scale using holistic scoring • Two scores for each essay • GRE Website presents directions, actual topics, scoring guide, and sample essays for both the Issue and Argument tasks (www.gre.org/gentest.html)

9. Why argument and rhetorical analysis matter • In Wolfe’s 2010 study, assignments from a broad range of disciplines were collected and examined. Results? Argumentation is valued across the curriculum. “Argument is the key word for good writing and the absence of argument constitutes the central problem in students’ written work” (Wolfe, p. 50). • Richard Arum and JosipaRoksa’sAcademically Adrift, a comprehensive review of undergraduate education, finds argument literacy is crucial.

10. Why argument and rhetorical analysis matter • The Common Core State Standards – argument and rhetorical analysis are key. • The WPA exam students will take after RWS 200 • For a detailed theoretical and disciplinary explanation/justification (students, future employers, other academics who sometimes think teaching writing is comma placement) see the “Program Overview” handout.

11. You won’t be assimilated (much)… • RWS100 represents just one way to design a writing course – many others (genre, critical literacy, cultural studies, expressivism, etc.) • But your experience will be valuable as a) it’s an influential model, b) K-12 and higher ed. aligning around argument, and c) SDSU’s program is regionally influential. • Our program is fairly “mainstream.” SLOS echo WPA and NCTE statements on teaching writing. • CSU-wide articulation efforts shaped by work at SDSU

12. ITC: Expectations • ITC is an important part of your work. You are expected to attend. You get credit. Wednesdays @ 1.00 – 1.50 in SH-113. • It’s part of collaboration, professional development, and networking. • Modest home work is assigned but it’s to prepare for your class. • If you plan to teach RWS200 next semester, use ITC to prepare and find partners.

13. Your contribution is welcome • Your contribution is important. You are welcome to adapt, remix or add your own materials. TA contributions have improved courses a lot – many TA ideas are on the wiki. See the contribution folder on the wiki.

14. Meet your audience • Fall semester students are often well prepared. Some may be fairly sophisticated writers, and a few may be familiar with rhetorical terms. But you’ll be presenting them with a new, challenging way of approaching texts. • You may have some 3rd semester students who have come through 92a and 92b. If you do, roster will say level “1,” as opposed to “0”. They register late, tend to come in clusters, will be weaker writers; some will be ESL. • You may have some ESL/international students. You can refer them to LING100 if you think they’ll struggle. (Get them writing early to determine this).

15. Main Texts • Two RWS 100 Readers at bookstore (“Spartacus”) 1) Texts 2) Class material (handouts, templates, etc.) • Graff et al. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. • Little Seagull handbook • Short texts in reader (Rifkin, Kristof) and on wiki. • Online texts – you can put on blackboard or blogs (e.g. textbook excerpts, videos, supplementary texts, etc.)

16. Student Writing as Key Text • Student writing is the key text, and teaching them how to read their own writing practices (reflexivity) is important • “The ability to reflect on what is being written seems to be the essence of the difference between able and not so able writers from their initial writing experience onward”(Yancey 4)

17. New SLOs • Analyze a variety of texts to demonstrate rhetorical knowledge of an argument’s project, claim, audience, genre, rhetorical appeals, rhetorical strategies (including evidence), and assumptions. • Evaluate arguments and their evidence through a process of critical inquiry. • Locate, evaluate, and incorporate material from sources into their writing projects. • Compose a variety of texts, employing flexible composing strategies and processes for invention, structure, drafting, reflection, collaboration, feedback, revision, and editing. • Apply conventions of academic writing, including genre choices, grammar, spelling, mechanics, and citation practices.

18. New Assignment Sequence • Produce an analysis and evaluation of a single argument (Thompson) • Compare and evaluate rhetorical strategies used in multiple texts and investigate use of sources (Miller, Shieh, and Shelbourne) • Use multiple texts to examine a significant public argument, evaluating the relative persuasiveness of these texts and drawing connections among them. (Boyd, Thompson, and selected texts). • Analyze and Evaluate Online Source/s (Our module, or textsfrom wiki, as “lens” to evaluate sample online “fake news” sites).

19. Optional Assignments • Portfolio (for activities such as homework, reading responses, reflections, peer review, etc.) We would like you to have students do some or all of this on a blog. • Reflection writing: have students compose work that asks them to reflect on the writing they have done, what they have learned, the things they still need to work on, etc.

20. Requirements & Options • You need to cover the learning outcomes and assignment types, and use the major readings for assignments 1-3. Try to use due dates near those in the sample syllabi. • Your class will be observed, and you are required to hand in a “portfolio” at the end of the semester. • For at least two of the major assignments you should give feedback on a draft and final copy, and we recommend you conference with students at least once. • You should assign writing regularly and have students work on key elements of their papers (plans, introductions, body paragraphs, etc.)

21. Requirements & Options • You can adapt the assignments (they need to fit within the framework of SLOs and assignments). Talk to us or share your ideas at ITC. • You can customize your syllabus and decide how you want to run your class. You decide whether or not to assign a lot of in-class writing, use group work, organize presentations, debates, pop quizzes, or play games with Kahoot. • In the first 2 weeks you can select your own short texts to introduce concepts and practice analyzing arguments. • In assignment 3 you can select source texts to accompany Boyd and Thompson, or invite students to select source texts.* * For unit 3 you can connect Boyd, Thompson, and outside sources, or focus on how Boyd can be extended, complicated, adapted or challenged by outside texts. There are many options – see the wiki or talk to us.

22. See Karen’s handout for full explanation of requirements vs. options.

23. Where to Find Teaching Materials • Main wiki teaching page for 100 Fall 2017 (see “collected materials” for each unit) • “Contribution” and “Homework” pages (material by TAs) • Individual Teacher Wikis

24. 10.30 The First Week: Class management • Jamie Madden The first day:schedulingand class management

25. 11.00 – 11.50 • Key terms & Common Classroom Activities

26. Overview • The units build on each other, but all begin with consideration of the rhetorical situation. Who is the author, what is her purpose, what kind of audience is she addressing, what is the context and genre, what conversation is the text part of? • All units also begin with analysis of the text’s project, argument, claims, evidence and strategies – referred to by the acronym “PACES.” • We evaluate texts, examining their strengths and weaknesses, the assumptions they are built on, and their use of sources. • We use a set of guides, models, and templates. These are in the reader, on the wiki, and some samples are in the handout.

27. Common Class Activities[see p. 3 of handout] • Pre-reading and “pre-discussion” work (questions to get at student assumptions; surveys) short videos, etc. (E.g. Prensky videos and/or videos that use the categories “digital native” and “digital immigrant”) • Establishing the rhetorical situation – who is the author, what is her purpose, what is the context, who is the publisher, when was it written, what genre is used (footnotes?), who is the intended audience? (use group work/jig saw work) • Class discussion, group work, reading quizzes and reading responses • Charting and close reading– what is the text doing; how/why moves are made • PACES (project, argument, claims, evidence, strategies) • Critical reading – posing questions, interrogating assumptions, reading actively and critically (modeling qns to ask) • Assumptions, implications, strengths/weaknesses • Drafting - outlines, templates, sample sections, rhetorical precis, metadiscourse, transitions, quotations, mechanics • Feedback- peer review, student “read alouds,” conferencing, comments • Synthesis and analyzing relationships (single argument, relationship between texts, strategies, evaluation of arguments) and presentation of student arguments • Reflection (applying concepts to students own writing – e.g. charting, analyzing students’ moves and strategies, etc.)

28. Common Class Activities: Pre-reading Exercises • 1. In Class test • “Careful, you might run out of planet: SUVs and the • exploitation of the American myth,” by Goewey. Questions: • Is Goewey critical or complimentary of SUVs? • Does the author believe that there is time to make a change? • Does the author put more emphasis on car quality or social issues in assessing the value of SUVs? • Is the author likely to be a supporter of major oil companies? • Was this essay written in 1979, 1989, or 1999?

29. Pre-reading Exercises Examining titles and section headings carefully: Chua - Chua’s article “A World on the Edge” is part of her book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. New York/Doubleday, 2002 Consider the Source: Thompson’s “Public Thinking” is a chapter from his book Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better. Penguin Press, 2013. Boyd’s “Literacy: Are Today’s Youth Digital Natives” is a chapter from her book It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, 2014. Mandelbaum, “A Variety of Religious Experience” is a chapter from a book titled The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball, and What They See When They Do. Public Affairs, 2005.

30. Surveys/Pre-reading questions to “prime” students for discussion • ■ Thompson: survey questions about the impact of new media on how people write, read, think, socialize, etc. Are people writing more than in the past? Are we seeing improvements in how people write, read, argue, deliberate, etc.? • Are more people being given a voice in the media landscape? Is this good?

31. Class discussion, group work, reading quizzes and reading responses

32. (p. 21 of handout)

33. Discussion Questions

34. Reading Quizzes

35. Reading Responses (for homework and to prime class discussion)

36. Common Activities Continued. • Charting – what is the text doing (what, how, why moves are made).

39. Students chart their own and their peers’ writing An important part of Ehrenreich’s argument is that the poor are invisible to affluent people. She suggests that the affluent “are less and less likely to share public spaces and services with the poor,” that political parties are unwilling to “acknowledge that low-wage work doesn’t lift people out of poverty” (217) and that media attention focuses more on “occasional success stories” than on the rising numbers of poor and hungry people (218). The fact that the poor are invisible contributes to the lack of attention that the problem of low wages is getting. Writer telling reader one piece of E.’s argument, one claim. Showing that this claim really is in the text, and why E. makes it. Explaining why the “invisibility claim” is significant

40. Common Activities cont. Identifying claims – a good rule of thumb is to look for the following cues: • question/answer pattern • problem/solutionpattern • look for evidence being discussed and work backward to the claim this supports. • self-identification (“my point here is that…”) • emphasis/repetition (“it must be stressed that…”) • metalanguage that explicitly uses the language of argument (“My argument consists of three main claims. First, that…”) • review “beginnings and ends” – the beginning and end of the entire text, the end of the text’s introduction section, and the beginning and end of paragraphs. • look for section heading titles that indicate major claims. Some authorshelp readers follow the arc of their argument by dividing their text up into sections that • PACES (project, argument, claims, evidence, strategies)

41. Identifying and sorting claims

46. Evaluating texts • Questions that relate to the rhetorical situationHow well does the author adapt her argument to the audience and context? For example, does she show a good understanding of the audience’s values, beliefs, understanding, experience, and expectations… • Questions that relate to the overall argument, the claims and the sub-claimsIs the overall argument based on sound premises and reasoning? Is the reasoning coherent, consistent and persuasive? Do the claims and sub claims align with and support the overall argument? Is there enough supporting evidence for the argument? How “ambitious” in scope and force are the argument and claims… • Questions that relate to evidence and supportWhat is the quality and nature of the evidence? Is it sufficient, typical, accurate, and relevant? Is it sufficiently detailed, up to date, and verifiable? What about scope, consistency, quality and 'fit' with the claim… • Questions that relate to the authors assumptionsWhat does the author assume his readers will find important, true, relevant, and moral? Are these assumptions likely to be shared by the audience?

47. Drafting, review, reflection and response • Drafting: models, outlines, templates, rhetorical precis; metadiscourse, quotations • Drafting: peer review, workshops, review plans, student “read-alouds,” conferencing • Assessment and response • Reflection (applying concepts to students own writing – e.g. charting, analyzing students’ moves and strategies, etc.)

49. They Say/I Say Templates – verbs for talking about arguments

50. Templates: The Graff & B Template One of our templates