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4 What are your tentative educational and career goals?What previous writing courses have you had? What types of papers didyou write in these courses?Do you usually like or dislike writing? Why?What kinds of reading and writing do you do outside of school?What is your opinion of your writing ability? What are your strengths?Your weaknesses?What do you hope to accomplish in this writing course? Are there anyparticular aspects of your writing ability you want more help with?What should I try to accomplish during the first few class sessions?Certainly it’s important that students learn the goals of the course and what work willbe required of them. Using the first class period to begin working on the first writingassignment communicates to students that class time matters and will be used to helpassignments move forward. Design a first-day, in-class writing assignment that functions asa lead-in to the first assignment. Collecting writing quickly from your students will allowyou to begin a routine of reading and responding to student work, and it will allow you toget a feel for the writing styles in your class.The first few class sessions are also vitally important for establishing the learningenvironment you want to create and building rapport with your students. Try to learn yourstudents’ names as quickly as possible, asking them to correct your mispronunciations andto tell you if they prefer to be called by other names or shortened nicknames. It may helpyou to ask students to identify themselves before they speak in class for the first fewsessions. Call students by name as often as possible so that students can learn each other’snames as well.Some teachers like to use an icebreaker during the first or second class to help studentsbecome acquainted. An icebreaker makes students more comfortable with the teacher andtheir classmates, which can make participating in subsequent class discussions and smallgroup activities less intimidating. Because students may be self-conscious introducingthemselves, a common icebreaker is for students to interview each other in pairs and theneach introduce his or her partner to the class.Another icebreaker that works well is to give students a list of tasks and ask them tocirculate among the room until they have completed every task. The tasks are structured topromote information conversation and get students learning each others’ names quickly.You can ask students, for example, to find someone who spends twice as much time as theydo driving to campus, someone who has more siblings than they do, someone who has never

5read their own favorite book, someone who went to a similar-sized high school, etc. Thisicebreaker gets students moving around the room, starting conversations that identifysimilarities and differences in the group.You may also want to address during the first few class sessions your students’attitudes about writing or school that could affect their work in your course. In smallgroups or as a class, ask students to discuss how their current attitudes toward writingdeveloped. What did they like and dislike about their past writing courses, their pastwriting instructors, and their past writing assignments? Explaining ways this course islikely to be different from their past writing courses--such as the opportunity to write openform texts (explained in Chapter 1 of The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing)--may increasetheir enthusiasm for the course. It is helpful for students to be aware of any attitudes theymay have that may affect the way they approach working in college, and it is also helpfulfor students to set personal goals for the semester.During the first few class sessions, try to use the full range of pedagogical formats youintend to use throughout the term (for example, lecture, class discussion with the chairsarranged traditionally, class discussion with the chairs arranged in a large circle, and smallgroup work). When students are introduced to various seating arrangements and activitiesquite early in the term, they have more time to get used to the demands of each format.Designing Lesson PlansWhy are lesson plans important?While the syllabus provides the goals and schedule for the entire term, a lesson planindicates the goals and agenda for one class session. To understand why both macroscopicand microscopic plans are important, consider the similarity between designing a writingcourse and designing a handmade quilt. For both, the maker needs to be concerned with thepattern of each smaller unit (each class meeting; each quilt square) as well as how thesmaller units are artistically combined to contribute to the larger product (the course orquilt). Obviously, such complex planning is difficult to complete in one’s head. Writinglesson plans helps you to prepare for each class more thoroughly. Planning for each sessionin writing also prompts you to reflect on how to connect one class to the next.The lesson plan has two audiences: you and your students. For teachers, lesson plansprovide an organization and a structure. For students, lesson plans help them recognize thestructure within each unit. Once you set goals for each class period with the lesson plan,communicate them with students. This helps students learn more effectively.

6What should a good lesson plan include?Begin designing your lesson plan by deciding on the objectives for the class session(based on the syllabus), the chapter of The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing students arecurrently reading, and their upcoming writing project. Once you’ve articulated the goal forthe day--and one main goal is plenty--decide how that objective can practically be achieved.Think of the class session as several fifteen- or twenty-minute segments. Strive tocover just one main concept per time segment, using a variety of examples and in-classactivities to illustrate the concept. According to composition scholar George Hillocks, whosystematically compiled the results of over sixty research studies of different pedagogicalapproaches to writing courses, students best learn writing through hands-on, inductiveactivities that allow them to grapple with the underlying principles at stake. The in-classactivity may be done individually, in pairs or small groups, or as a full class. Afterwards,the teacher facilitates a discussion of the concepts learned through the activity. Optimally,each class period will introduce a new skill or activity, allow students the chance to practicethat activity with others, and will then ask students to work on their own.Thus, when you are developing lesson plans, try to think of activities that canintroduce students experientially to the concepts you wish them to understand. There aremany ideas for such activities in The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing textbook and thismanual, but add your own as well. Rather than creating a lesson plan that focuses on thequestion “What will I be doing during class?,” try planning the class by asking, “What willthe students be doing during class?” and “What will students be able to do after class thatthey couldn’t do before?” This will help you create lesson plans that keep each assignmentmoving according to your schedule.In addition to in-class activities, it is helpful to plan in advance some provocativequestions for class discussion (see “Asking Questions” on page 9).You may want to begin each class session by quickly outlining for students in a cornerof the chalkboard the agenda for that day’s class session. Both you and students can thenkeep the day’s goals in mind and be less tempted to drift from the topic. Previewing theplans with students also helps them to better understand the relationships among that day’sdiscussion topics. End every class by asking student volunteers to summarize theprinciples they learned during the period and the relationship of these principles tostudents’ next writing project. Also announce any homework, remind students what, ifanything, they need to hand in that day, and forecast the topic of the next class meeting.How do I decide how much to cover in each class session?

7The mistake that many beginning teachers make is trying to cover too much in a classsession. As you gain experience as a teacher, you will be better able to judge how muchmaterial to cover. You will also learn that, even for the same course at the same college,each group of students learns at a different rate. Thus, you will need to make adjustmentsas you get to know each class each term.As a guideline for starting out, limit your lesson plan to just two or three concepts foreach class session; then decide what activities you will use to teach these. Reserve time todiscuss the activities afterwards. Until you become comfortable with managing class time,also plan a brief discussion topic or activity that can be done if students finish what you’veplanned much more quickly than you expected. If this additional idea isn’t needed, youmay use it at the beginning of the next class session or save it for another day when thediscussion ends prematurely. If you always have a standby discussion topic or activityready, you’ll have no need to panic and dismiss students early, a detrimental precedent thatcan make students less attentive at the end of subsequent class sessions.Fostering Student ParticipationWhy is student participation important?Participation helps students learn better: they get to try out their ideas and, based onthe response they receive from you and classmates, probe their own understandings further.Through student participation, the classroom becomes less teacher-centered. Students canlearn much from each other; encourage students to directly address and respond to eachother in full-class discussions, rather than using you as an intermediary.How can I encourage more student participation?The most important thing you can do to encourage student participation is to showstudents that participation matters. If you organize class activities so that students whoparticipate in them move forward on whatever writing project is underway, students willvalue their participation. If participation comes to mean joining in a conversation about anessay in the book that is not clearly connected to the next writing assignment, or joining aconversation about current events without a related writing project underway, students willnot see participating in class as valuable. Strive to construct activities that get studentsworking with their drafts, developing new material or evaluating old material. If theactivities you plan make a difference in the evolution of formal writing projects, studentswill respond well.

8A good principle for encouraging participation: have homework before every classperiod that requires students to prepare something, even if it is an answer to a simplequestion, a short informal writing assignment, or some additions to a current draft. Havediscussion and activities that enable students to work with others during the class period tobuild on that preparation, and then assign homework that allows students to practice alonewhat they did with others in class. This cycle will ensure that each class period followswell on the next, and it will get students into a consistent habit of participation andpreparation.Sometimes students don’t participate in discussions because they don’t feel they arean integral part of the class. If you frequently lecture for long periods, they may think theirinvolvement is unimportant and remain passive even when you ask them for their input.Try to routinely structure class so that students have an opportunity to speak within thefirst ten minutes of the period. Students will then be likely to contribute to discussionsmore often and at more length.The majority of the class may also be quiet if they feel that a few vocal students arewilling and able to carry the class discussion. Acknowledge frequent contributors but don’tlet any one student monopolize the discussion (e.g., “Thanks, David. I see your hand, butis there someone who hasn’t spoken today who’d like to answer?”). You may have astudent who regularly blurts out answers to your questions, while others wait to be calledupon. Often a student who speaks out of turn sits in the front of the room and does notrealize that students sitting further back want to participate. Simply ask this eager studentto raise his or her hand so that you can include everyone in the discussion.To encourage your students to participate more equally, direct questions to studentssitting in different areas of the room. Make sure your eye contact is with all students, butparticularly those in an area of the room where few people talk. If you tend to stand or sitin the front of the classroom, move from side to side rather than regularly positioningyourself in front of the same students. If you walk around in the front of the room, walktowards the desks of the students who are most quiet or inattentive; often your physicalpresence alone will be enough to regain their attention and invite them to speak.Sometimes students need a “warm-up” to discussion. If you want the class to discussmaterial they read for homework, first ask someone to summarize that reading, to remindthe class of its contents. Then ask remaining students to add any other details theyremember as important that weren’t yet mentioned. After focusing their minds on thereading in this manner, students will be better equipped to answer more challengingquestions. If students are non-responsive when you ask a difficult, abstract question, givethem a few minutes to first explore an answer in writing themselves or discuss theirimpressions with a classmate, and then ask several students to share their ideas with the

9class.The examples you use to illustrate writing concepts also affect students’ participation.Your examples should reflect the diversity of your students’ backgrounds. For example, ifsome of your students are older than recent high school graduates, using activities ordiscussion topics that imply dependency on a parent will make these students feel they arenot equal members of the class. Be alert to other possible biases in your examples too:gender; race; ethnicity; socioeconomic class; ablebodiedness; religion; etc. Use genderneutral terms such as “significant other” or “partner” if you refer to romantic relationshipsto avoid assuming all students are heterosexual. If you show awareness of students’differences and accommodate the breadth of their identities in class discussion, studentswho might feel they are a minority within the class will feel more comfortable participating.Students are also more likely to talk in class when they feel comfortable with the otherstudents. You may want to hold discussions with the class sitting in a large circle so theycan see one another. If so, vary the location of your own seat each time so that you becomea more integral part of the circle and no one spot becomes viewed as the position ofauthority. Small group activities can also help students become acquainted and feel morecomfortable sharing their thoughts.When students do talk, listen. Nothing else you can do is more powerful in solicitingfurther student participation. Ask follow-up questions respectfully and encouragingly.Whenever possible, validate students’ participation by using the students’ exact wording inyour response and when you write their ideas on the chalkboard.When a student gives a wrong answer, how you respond will affect not only thatstudent’s future participation in class but also the participation of every student whoconsiders it intimidating to talk in class. Never embarrass a student. First try to find thesource of the person’s misunderstanding by asking “Why do you think that?” (ask this ofstudents who give correct answers too) and if possible then ask questions about theirexplanation that will eventually lead them to the correct answer. Instead of stepping in asthe “answer-giver,” give that role to the class by asking, “Does anyone disagree? Why?”Even if the first person to disagree gives the correct answer, if you think other students willhave different responses, ask for their views too and lead the class to explore all theresponses that are given.Is it fair to require all students to talk in class?Deciding whether or not to require all students to participate in class is difficultbecause the decision must be based on two quite significant yet disparate issues: what roleyou believe participation plays in the learning process, and how committed you are torespecting students’ personal (and even cultural) differences.

10A colleague tells a story about encountering a former student whom she had during hisfirst semester of college. Then on the point of graduation, the student told my colleaguehow much he had enjoyed her course, even though he thought she hadn’t realized thatbecause he had never spoken in class. “In fact,” he said, with obvious regret, “I’ve neverspoken in any college class I’ve taken.” He was a second-language student who feared otherstudents might not understand his accent; the motives may differ for other silent students.This conversation illustrates that if teachers can do more to nurture into classroomdiscourse those students who almost never speak, particularly in first-year courses, theirentire educational experience may change.If you notice students who haven’t spoken after the first several weeks of class, youmay want to call on them at particularly non-threatening times (to answer a simple questionor to read a brief passage from the textbook aloud). Another strategy to help excessivelyquiet students feel comfortable speaking is to gently tell them after class that you’venoticed they haven’t participated and then identify a specific question or topic you’ll askthem about during the following class period so that they will have a chance to prepare.With a few such empathetic nudges, silent students may begin to participate more regularly.If any portion of the course grade is determined by students’ participation, clearlyidentify for students how you will evaluate this and at several points during the term tel

Chapter 1 Posing Problems: The Demands of College Writing 39 . Indianapolis, whose ingenuity and creativity show me new approaches to teaching writing with every hallway conversation and formal workshop or meeting. I am a better teacher and administrator because of them