Pacing the semester can be challenging in College Writing II. It’s a tricky combination of a long class that needs to stay lively, and a lot of material to cover. Students need an opportunity to practice and get feedback on many new activities. Here is a partial list:
searching for sources
citing
paraphrasing
reading peer-reviewed sources
reading independently
synthesizing sources
drafting and organizing a long paper.
As you plan your course, consider that for each of these activities, you should
Introduce and model it
Give students a chance to practice it
Give students feedback on their practice (mostly orally in class, so it’s not overwhelming for you)
Give students a chance to practice again and improve, using the feedback
Ask students to incorporate it in a paper for a grade.
The lengths of this list shows the problem of pacing. How do you braid together all these different experiences with all these different activities?
The challenge is intensified for faculty and students in sections that meet one day a week. A helpful compilation from advice from FYWP faculty can be found here. If you are teaching CWII on a once-a-week schedule this spring, please check it out.
Below is a week-by-week listing of how one instructor paces out activities in College Writing II, adjusted for class 3x per week, 2x per week, and 1x per week.
