Week 1/Day 2—Wednesday, August 23

Homework Due:

  • View your Joining the Conversation: A Guide to Research Writing at Colorado State University(JtC)textbook through Canvas by clicking on the Unizen Engage button in the menu and read the following:
  • Chapter 1: “Why Think of Writing as a Conversation?” (pgs. 3-10)
  • Chapter 3: “How Can I Read Critically” and “What Strategies Can I Use to Read Actively?” (pgs. 53-66). You will use this information to critically read Bittman et al.’s piece (see next bullet).
  • Purchase your FOOD reader. Read and annotate the following:
  • the Introduction to the reader. As you read, try to get a sense of the course theme.
  • “A National Food Policy for the 21st Century” by Bittman et al. This is the article we’ll use to practice each step of Assignment #1, so read it closely! Annotate the article to help you discuss the following question in class: What are some of the complex connections between food and other contexts (politics, economics, etc.)?

**We’ll be discussing texts from the reader almost every day, particularly during the first part of the semester, so bring your reader to class every day even if no readings were assigned.

  • Familiarize yourself with the CO150 Canvas page. Review the class syllabus to remind yourself of course policies and expectations. E-mail me with any questions or concerns.
  • Begin composing your first assignment: Getting to Know You Letter. In your letter, tell me a little about yourself: Where are you from? What is your major, or what are you considering for a major? What do you enjoy doing in your free time? What kinds of writing have you done in the past? What kinds of writing do you enjoy? What are your expectations for CO150? What do you want to learn and why? What else should I know about you? Your letter should be at least 250 words and should be posted by Friday, 8/25 at ____(time)___.

______

Lesson Objectives

  • Practice close reading
  • Introduce students to the conversation metaphor
  • Introduce students to the course theme: FOOD

Connection to Course Goals

Today’s class introduces students to the course theme and helps students see how vast this theme truly is. It also establishes a sense for how writing is like a conversation, with many points of intersection AND many points of controversy, which allows us to find many ways in which to enter these conversations. Today’s lesson emphasizes skills necessary for active reading.

Prep

  • Review the assigned homework pages from the JtC (about Writing as Conversation and annotation/close reading skills)
  • Carefully read and understand Bittman et al.’s “A National Food Policy for the 21st Century.” Make your own list of the various contexts that the article connects to food.
  • Carefully review all your notes
  • Write your own version of the day’s lesson plan (as it makes most sense to you)
  • Preview the letters from your students —it may not be due yet, but you can start to get a sense of who your students are. Also, make plans for how you will assign points for homework assignments.
  • ASK QUESTIONS of the Composition Faculty—we’re here to help you!!!!

Materials

  • FOOD reader (to walk through the text with students)
  • Overheads:
  • Close reading picture: Day 1 (options are available in Assignment 1: Materials)
  • The Conversation Model (an image is available in Assignment 1: Materials)
  • WTL: Bittman & Intro to Course Theme (available in Assignment 1: Materials)

Lead-in

For today’s class, some students have thought about their identities as writers and expressed their expectations of CO150. It’s not uncommon to have a few students come to class the second day without having done the homework, or for new students to show up who won’t have contacted you about what work they should do before appearing. Unprepared students will be able to catch up without too much floundering, but dissuade them from trying to do so at the beginning of class. Have them come to your office hours (or, reserve a few moments after class if time allows). Arrange a way to help students with any problems (couldn’t figure out Canvas, bought the wrong textbook, etc…) It’s wise to plan a Write-to-Learn (WTL) or have some other means of holding students accountable for the reading assignments. For this class, you might want to explain the way students WILL be held accountable and, even, begin developing this habit for learning. Remind students of the upcoming limited add/drop policy deadlines. Refer them to the yellow sheet you handed out on the first day.

ACTIVITIES:

Before Class (5 minutes)

If you arrive to class a few minutes early, write the “agenda” on the board. A brief list of today’s activities could go something like:

  • Closely reading an image
  • Conversation Model
  • Discussion of Bittman and course theme
Tip: An agenda on the board may at first seem too structured to allow for flexibility in the classroom, but they are incredibly beneficial for your students. Giving students a clear view of what they are to cover in the day’s class helps them sustain focus and make the kind of class-to-class connections we want them to make. If you keep your agenda broad, there will still be plenty of room for flexibility.
Tip: Some instructors put the homework due on the board (either in addition to an agenda or sometimes as a replacement). Any way to help students maintain focus on the course is a good strategy—just be sure to make whatever you adopt a reliable, consistent routine.

Welcome Back and Attendance (2 minutes)

Take care of any remaining registrations issues (such as new students or students absent on the first day—in order to save time, inform students of an appropriate time/place to take care of these issues). Be sure to note which students are absent. You might take attendance by asking each student to describe one thing he or she remembers about a classmate from the getting-to-know-you activity last time.

Tip: It can be really engaging to “call roll” with an activity (such as recall something from last time). Just be sure that the activity has some connection to the course goals or the day’s lesson. For example, don’t do something like “name your favorite Disney movie” unless you happen to be focusing upon Disney movies in the day’s lesson.

Transition: Over the next few weeks for our first assignment, we’re going to focus on close and critical reading. An important part of close reading is to be conscious of how we’re interpreting texts, and it’s important to support our interpretations with textual evidence. We’re about to closely read a text to understand its meaning, but you’ll have to interpret it without any context. The goal here isn’t to be “right” in your interpretation – the goal is to support your interpretation with evidence/details. We’re also going to begin to think about texts as encompassing more than written words – a text is anything that communicates, so today, we’re going to start close reading by interpreting an image.

Closely Reading an Image (15 minutes)

Students read about how to read critically and actively for homework. To practice these skills, and begin emphasizing that texts extend well beyond the written word, begin class by projecting the one of the options for an image and close reading questions from the Assignment 1: Materials. These pictures and questions are adapted from the New York Times blog The Learning Network, so feel free to choose your own image (ideally related to food). Your goals are to help students see how they can find many interpretations from looking at the same text, think about context, help them to provide evidence to support their answers (a skill which they’ll need to transfer to other texts and discussions throughout the semester), and continue building a classroom community by engaging many voices in an activity that doesn’t have a “wrong” answer and therefore is less intimidating for them to discuss. You may want to use a Think-Pair-Share strategy in which students think individually and write, talk through their responses in pairs, and then share with the whole class. Here’s a sample explanation:

To practice close reading, I’m going to project an image without any context. I’d like you to write your responses to the three questions below the image for the next five minutes. After that, you’ll each share with a partner to see if you had similar interpretations and which aspects of the image you focused on for your interpretations.

After they’ve discussed with a partner and you’ve heard from a few students with the whole class, ask if they want to know what was really going on and show the second page. This explains the story associated with the image, and asks students how context affects their interpretation. Explain that context is an important concept that you’ll return to throughout the semester and to keep in mind why it’s important.

Transition: Keep this paper – you’re going to add more thoughts below later in the class. When you read closely, like we just did with this image, you’re beginning to engage in a larger process. On Monday we were introduced to the course, and you read about writing as a conversation for homework. Reading closely means that you’re beginning to listen to the conversation. We can also see that this idea isn’t unique to our classroom—it’s actually a wide-spread idea.
This can further explain why a class like CO150 matters. Over the course of the semester, try to get students to think about the conversations on food that they’ve learned about during the course, as well as conversations on food they hear about in other locations. How does the land grant university participate in conversations on food? What subset conversations occur? How does the disciplinary area they’re considering as a major approach conversations about food?

Introduce the Writing as a Conversation Model (10 minutes)

The Assignment 1: Materials has a visual representation of the way in which assignments for this course are designed—the design revolves around the writing as conversation metaphor. Before explaining, present it to students on an overhead or draw it on the board:

Explain the ways in which writing is similar to conversation. Here’s a sample explanation:

Like a conversation, writing involves exchanges of ideas that help us shape our own ideas and opinions. It would be foolish to open your mouth the moment you join a group of people engaged in conversation—instead, you listen for a few moments to understand what’s being discussed. Then, when you find that you have something to offer, you wait until an appropriate moment to contribute. We all know what happens to people who make off-topic, insensitive, or otherwise ill-considered remarks in a conversation(if you have a personal example of speaking before listening, it can be fun to share here). Each assignment will take you through each step of this conversation model: you’ll read to listen to the conversation (this is to determine WHAT is being said), then you’ll ask questions and gather perspectives by annotating those articles and doing additional research (to determine HOW the issue is being discussed), and finally you’ll contribute to the conversation by making various kinds of arguments.

Tip: The conversation model will be revisited many times throughout the semester, so a brief introduction to the concept is all that is needed at this time. However, it is the guiding principle for each unit, so it is important that we introduce it early.
Transition: Bittman et al.’s article listens into many different conversations about food, and so we’re going to think and write about the different contexts that he introduces us to. But first, let’s familiarize ourselves with how our food reader is organized.

Discuss “A National Food Policy for the 21st Century” (20-25 minutes)

Students read the introduction for the reader to have an idea about the course theme, so you can begin the discussion with an overview of the main sections of the book: production, distribution, and consumption.

Our reader for the class is the FOOD. The way it is organized helps to categorize some of these topics. Go through the book and discuss the categorization of the chapters and what each means (which is clearly outlined in the Introduction of the reader). What the FOOD reader offers is a way of seeing this theme as a complex conversation with MANY off-shoots of conversations which we can consider joining.

Transition: Now that we’ve considered the framework for the reader, let’s take a closer look at Bittman’s et al.’s article and try to really understand how it can work as a jumping-off point for our class theme. I’m going to project the question that was attached to the reading for homework, and it’s going to be part of our first Write-to-Learn (WTL). We’ll also look at an excerpt from “A Native Perspective: Food is More than Consumption” from the Food reader and consider how you make more personal connections to food. We’ll often write in class to gather our thoughts and reflect so that we’re ready for discussion.

Project the WTL: Bittman & Introduction to Course Theme (in Assignment 1: Materials) and ask students to write their responses below their thoughts about the image in the earlier activity. Bittman et al.’s article is a good piece to briefly discuss with first-year students. Not only does it offer an argument that is exigent in the current political context, it shows how food can reach across many different contexts and help students see the complexities surrounding one resource. While Bittman et al.’s article draws connections to outside contexts, the second question helps students start to reflect on their own, personal connections to food. This part of the discussion can help students connect themselves to the class theme and consider how food affects their lives in various, often unacknowledged ways. Spend a few minutes for students to discuss their responses as a class. It’s a good idea to record student responses on the board to help keep track of discussion, identify patterns, and differentiate for various learning styles.

Concluding Class: Over the course of the semester, we’ll continue to think about how our lives are impacted by food in direct and indirect ways. To join this conversation today, you annotated Bittman et al.’s text, and we’ll start with looking more closely at your annotations at the start of the next class. We’ll add a new reading strategy, and we’ll also start to think about how to read a text critically.

Conclude Class and assign homework (2 minutes)

  • Submit Getting to Know You Letter assignment to Canvas by Friday, 8/25 at ____(time)___. In your letter, tell me a little about yourself: Where are you from? What is your major, or what are you considering for a major? What do you enjoy doing in your free time? What kinds of writing have you done in the past? What kinds of writing do you enjoy? What are your expectations for CO150? What do you want to learn and why? What else should I know about you?
  • Read the first two articles for your rhetorical summary portfolio from FOOD and annotate to be ready for discussion. As you annotate, be sure to note where you believe the thesis and key points to be:
  • Food Insecurity on Campus (Nellum)
  • Golden Rice: Lifesaver? (Harmon)

Connection to Next Class

Today’s class introduced students to many key course concepts: the conversation model, close reading skills, AND the course theme and its many potential topics. While it seems like A LOT of ground to cover in one class, don’t worry—we frequently come back to each of these concepts. Embrace the idea of writing as a recursive process.