Message to Teachers: This assignment asks students to make several decisions about their rhetorical situation beforehand—and provides students with more agency than a typical task. Approximately half the group will approach me after the first in-class writing session and (timidly) request permission to "change their Contract." They want to change some combination of subject, audience, feedback, and evaluation (or sometimes all four categories). Students spend 2-3 class meetings writing the text they establish in the Contract, so it's also typical for quite a few students to approach me again after the second class writing session and request yet another change in contract.
This request is PRECISELY what I'm hoping for--I want students to ask to change the contract, although I pretend to grant their request with reluctance.
What I am after is to help students, through the act of writing, gain a sense of the text as an intrapersonal conversation, as a possible private conversation away from the teacher (students don’t need to show me their text but rather only their Process Note, see below). I want students to take control of the proximity of audience during the invention phase. As they explore content which they have fully designated, students interact with their writing intrapersonally, making decisions about audience, feedback, and evaluation which reflect their relationship to the text.
This request is PRECISELY what I'm hoping for--I want students to ask to change the contract, although I pretend to grant their request with reluctance.
What I am after is to help students, through the act of writing, gain a sense of the text as an intrapersonal conversation, as a possible private conversation away from the teacher (students don’t need to show me their text but rather only their Process Note, see below). I want students to take control of the proximity of audience during the invention phase. As they explore content which they have fully designated, students interact with their writing intrapersonally, making decisions about audience, feedback, and evaluation which reflect their relationship to the text.
Contract
Instructions: This writing project will be done in two class
meetings. Note that you can write any type of writing for any type of audience. I
suggest using this project as an opportunity to write something that you’d
really value: a piece of writing that would make you proud to advance or an
idea you’d enjoy sustaining.
Before our next class meeting, read over the below contract, complete it, and email it to me.
I ____________________________ [YOUR NAME] will be writing
about the topic of
___________________________________________________________
for the Contract Project. The genre or type of writing this project
will take the form of will be ________
__________________________________ [GENRE]. I understand that I can write in any genre and that it need not be a
conventional school-based genre. The audience for the piece will be _________________________________ [AUDIENCE
FOR THIS PIECE]. I understand I can designate any audience including individuals outside of the class, that I
have the option of selecting no audience,
and that the professor need not read your document. In terms of feedback for this piece, I understand
that I can request any type of feedback, including
but not limited to the following: Not Sharing, Sharing But Getting No Feedback
Whatsoever, Getting Only Positive Feedback, Getting Feedback on Specific
Questions I Ask my Audience About the Text, to Completely Open Unlimited
Feedback. My designated audience, _____________________
__________________________, [NAME(S) OF YOUR AUDIENCE
MEMBER(S)] will provide the following feedback:
______________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________.
In terms of evaluation,
I understand that I can select any
type of evaluation, including but not limited to the following: No
Evaluation; Evaluation Based on Rubric (Designed by You)—provide rubric;
Evaluation Based on Rubric (Designed by Other Party)—provide rubric; Letter
Grade; Check System Grade; A Predetermined Final Grade of ____. I understand that I must give the piece to my
designated audience before turning in the Process Note for this Project. In sum, I understand that I can write about any topic, in any
form, for any audience, and for any type of feedback and evaluation as I
designate but that I must give the piece to my audience before turning in the
Process Note for this Project.
Process
Note
The audience for this project is the one you designate in
the above contract. You’ll want to give the
writing you do for this project to that audience
(no matter who it is—unless you’re doing strictly private writing) before completing
the Process Note. I will only be evaluating your Process Note.
For the Process Note, write 2 double spaced pages which will
be graded on the basis of the thoroughness and care you take in exploring the
following:
·
What were the different moments in the
experience? Possibly zoom in on one
moment and describe in depth.
·
How does this project relate to our class
discussions of the writing process?
·
Draw connections between the Contract Project
with the prior projects from the semester as well as with course readings,
course writings, and course discussions.
·
Use terminology from the course and discuss
particular readings. (The more
connections you draw to course readings and terminologies, the stronger the
Process Note.)
·
Draw comparisons—hypothetical or actual—to other
things and activities to make your point.
·
Lastly and most importantly, identify and
explain at least one insight about writing that could be reached from the
Contract Project.
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