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Although the formats cover the same concepts, they differ in approach. In the email format, students email finished essays to instructors and receive detailed critiques of those essays. Assignments in this format can be individualized to address a particular student's needs; thus, assignments may vary by instructor and from student to student. The flexi-paced format uses a web-based course management system that delivers assignments, receives finished essays, and returns instructor critiques. Students and instructors use the course management system's messaging module to communicate. Because due date schedules vary by student, peer review workshops are not possible. Students and instructors need not be online at the same time. Students read essays by Susan Orlean, Ted Gup, and Samuel Freedman.
The web-based format is an interactive, process-oriented course featuring frequent peer discussions of readings and writings in an online, asynchronous workshop. Students and instructor need not be online at the same time. The majority of assignments apply the strategies of classical rhetoric (narration, definition, argument, persuasion, and so forth) to the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies, which is concerned with the production of meaning in society. Students read essays by authors including Susan Orlean, Joan Didion, and Anne Lamott as well as more traditional writings about argument by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. Integral to all formats is a substantial metacognitive dialogue with the instructor about writing. Assignment | Skills Taught | Redesign your own educational experience | Intro to persuasion and thesis
Intro to documentation
Purpose and audience
Writing process
Intro to essay structure
Introduction and conclusion
Intro to revision | | Personal Narrative | Narrative design and purpose
Using details effectively
Audience | Division and Classification Essay | Analysis
Organization and paragraphs
Thesis | Topical Persuasive Essay | More about persuasion
Claims and evidence
Using sources effectively | | Revision | Global revision
Common grammar issues | Literary Analysis: The Orchid Thief excerpt | Writing about literature
Close reading
Quoting from the text
Components of creative non-fiction | Cause and Effect | Analyzing cause/effect
Defining culture
Metaphors, similes, analogies | | Book, Movie, or Play Review | Analyzing meaning
Writing for an audience | | Persuading about "Meritocracy" | Analyzing a culture
Formulating a thesis
Persuasion | Revision | Revision review
Revising "good" work
Using editing tools |
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