Building a Composition Class

I have three Composition II classes this semester, for a total of 5 classes, which is an overload, but there were extenuating circumstances. This however is not a single prep.

Since today is the first day of class, I wanted to share how I build my composition courses. First, a general overview. How composition was modeled for me makes sense to my brain and is good pedagogy, so it's what I use. We have three major writing assignments (MWAs), each a specific genre, and each MWA has two low stakes assignments (LSAs) that are the parts and pieces of the MWA which they get feedback on so ideally by the time the MWA is complete they've gotten feedback and had time to revise with this in mind. I also do a portfolio rather than a final exam which includes a piece that is a major revision, a piece where the genre is revised, brief paragraphs for each where they reflect on changes they made and why, a reflection on the priority student learning outcomes (SLOs) for the department, and a more personal reflection on how they feel about their writing, done as a cover letter to me.

When I built and paced out my syllabi, I put in dates for all these, put in dates for grade conferences, in class workshopping, introduction of mentor texts, and times for mini-lessons (to be determined). What I did not put in were any details about these things. The reason I did not is because I do not choose them. Today, during the beginning of my class, students took 3 Google Form surveys. The first was about them, and covered pronouns, concerns, things they're worried about, skills with documents, that kind of thing. The second was them voting on when they wanted me to be available in my office. The third asked them to choose what we were going to cover in class this semester.
First, they chose the 3 genres that will be our major writing assignments. This class chose argument/position, flyer/webpage, and profile.

Next, they told me the topics they were interested in. I use these to choose the mentor texts we'll use as models.

 Finally, I asked them to self-identify some topics for mini-lessons.

If you've never used Google Forms, it does some really cool things. The first is that it auto creates visuals from the responses. So it was really easy for me to see what they chose. Since research and profiles were tied, I wanted to make sure they did some heavy research lifting for the profile.

Once class was over and I was back in my office I sat down, looked at the responses, and plugged in the MWAs into the syllabus. Then I wrote the bones of the assignments:

Major Writing Assignment 1: Profile

Rhetorical Situation:
You've been asked to write a profile on a famous person for TIME magazine.

LSA #1: Choose who you want to research, and why

LSA#2: Title, outline of topics, where to find the information, citation

MWA #1: Write the profile

Major Writing Assignment 2: Argument/Position

Rhetorical Situation:

You’ve been asked to write an article for WIRED magazine about the ethics of an app.
Argue for or against its ethical application.

LSA #1: Choose the app, annotate the terms of service

LSA#2: Organizer for pro/con

MWA #1: Write the article

Major Writing Assignment 2: Flyer/Infographic/Webpage

Rhetorical Situation:

Choose a topic or issue that is important to you.
Write a specific rhetorical situation (genre, audience, purpose).

LSA #1: Annotate a sample of what you’re creating, write rhetorical situation

LSA#2: Plan out, storyboard

MWA #1: Create the flyer/infographic/webpage

For the last MWA since students had chosen a variety of topics that tied, I wanted to open it up. Also by the end of the semester I want them using the skills they've learned so writing their own rhetorical situations.

As we work on each as a class we will discuss (and I'll write down on class notes, done in Google Slides, and made available to them) the elements each should include. They will use these to create and we will use them as reference during our grade conferences.

Next, I needed to look at the topics and choose mentor texts for each of these genres. As program coordinator, I'm building a document for composition instructors that lays out the genre approach, and supplies resources, so I went to look there first. I put those links to mentor texts into the syllabus.

I've talked about this approach before, and the pushback I've gotten is "I'd love to do this but this is too time intensive." This took me 36 minutes. And the payoffs will be huge. On their exit tickets today the majority of students said they were excited to get started in class. Choice and to a certain extent engagement is already built in. More importantly for me, this is a class culture builder. For their exit tickets I asked for one thing they learned, one question they had, and one thing they wanted me to know.
Some of the things they put under learned:

• In this class I learned we are not writing for the professor
• Writing is more than just writing for the teacher or professor
• Many mentioned the Weapemeoc tribe from my land acknowledgment I opened with as part of my "where are we?" focus
• In each aspect of your life there are genres and a certain jargon used
• I learned that we will focus on different perspectives not just mine and/or the professors

The students also in class did mini discourse community notes- identified four areas of their life and wrote down what each read and wrote, then the specific genres and jargon. Then I asked them to think about the job they had or wanted and what they read and wrote, what genres and jargon was used.
I wrote up the answers to their questions (no attendance policy, no I'm not straight edge) for the first slide we'll go over next class, and learned all kinds of things about them from that last prompt.

My students know that their interests, narratives matter. That they matter, from the first day. This is very important to me. And everything else we do in class enforces this.

I know it can feel scary to give up control in a classroom. I know it seems like this is a lot of work. But the payoffs, the benefits are amazing.

I'm excited today went well, and look forward to meeting the rest of my classes tomorrow.