WR 120
Facilitating Discussions
Each Flipped Learning Module (FLM) is a set of short videos and online activities that can be used (in whole or in part) to free up class time from content delivery for greater student interaction. At the end of the module, students are asked to fill out a brief survey, in which we adopt the […]
Student Presentations and Strategies for Audience Engagement
WR 111, WR 112, WR 120, and WR 151 all require oral presentations for students and value these opportunities for students to speak to their peers. However, instructors sometimes struggle to sustain engagement on the part of the rest of the class during presentations. The following list provides some strategies to motivate audience members to […]
Place-Based Possibilities: Experiential Learning Ideas for WR Courses
This guide helps instructors connect place-based experiences and experiential learning to different courses in the WR sequence. Guiding Questions for Adventures Outside of the Classroom How can students engage deeply and safely with a place/event and its community/ies? What clear ground rules can you create to protect students while giving them freedom to explore? How wide […]
Self-Assessment
In this activity, best assigned within the first 2-3 days of the semester, students think about their past writing experiences and set goals for themselves for the coming semester. Instructors should think of this assignment as setting the tone for a semester of active metacognition, and as a precursor to the final portfolio or final reflective […]
Assignment Sequence Templates: WR 120
These templates are meant to offer new Writing Program instructors an easily adaptable overview of the WR 120 assignment sequence. They refer to sources using the BEAM/BEAT framework, which we recommend but do not require you to introduce to your students in WR 120. Opportunities to specify your course material and alternative possible language are […]
Writing Program Shared Vocabulary
This list represents some of the core shared vocabulary of the CAS Writing Program’s curriculum. Using these terms with students helps foster a common language across course sections and levels. Rhetorical Situation Audience Purpose Context Genre Mode (more applicable in WR 151/152) Argument Claim Reasons Evidence Acknowledgment and response Introductions Current situation/[common ground]/[background] Research question/[problem statement] […]
Faculty Guide to Teaching WR 120 and WR 15x
The following guide is aimed at instructors new to the CAS Writing Program and walks them through the process of preparing their courses for the first time. Note that while some sections of WR 120 are reserved for English language learners (ELLs), all WR 120s use the same learning outcomes and course requirements. Similarly, while […]
Building Your Syllabus (Syllabi Templates)
New for AY 2022-2023, the Writing Program offers the following set of resources to help you build your own syllabus, rather than a single syllabus template for each level. We have broken the syllabus down into three parts, so that it is clearer which parts of our syllabi are common to all courses in the […]
Portfolio Analysis and Peer Review
If you have permission from former students to archive their portfolios and use them in the classroom, this activity offers students a chance to perform a genre analysis on former students’ writing portfolios and draw conclusions about key portfolio features: Students will come to recognize that these portfolios are both archives of writing and personal […]
WR 120 or WR 15x Portfolio Assignment and Rubric
AY 2022-23 note: The Writing Program is currently piloting a new and streamlined cumulative portfolio assignment. We’ll update the page below when we can report back on the results of the pilot. Objectives To help you document the revision work of your semester, making visible all the steps taken to craft and improve your major […]