BWE Chapter 1 and 3 Discussion Groups (20 min)
*Count off 1, 2, 3, 4 to have four groups. We will discuss both chapters as groups with large group discussions following each small group discussion for both chapters.
*Each group member has the following roles: Facilitator, Minutes-Taker, and Substitute Minutes-Taker (will be more roles later).
*Facilitator manage the sharing of responses to the reflection questions to chapter 1 and chapter 3 and will also keep an eye on time. They might ask follow up questions for clarification, as well (especially helpful to minutes-taker). The Facilitator is encouraged to make things organic as possible. Try to make it more of a conversation (e.g., follow up questions, connect back one person’s point to an earlier point).
*Minutes-taker will record what was said. If you are a first timer for this, it can be a little difficult to keep up. I recommend using abbreviations throughout to help speed up recording. Also, do not forget to keep track of who is speaking (use initial rather than full name for better speed. Once finished, clean up after to make sure it makes sense. IMPORTANT: The Minutes-Taker should record minutes in a Google Doc and share with group either via Google Accounts or by a shareable link that is emailed to the group (if using shareable link, make sure to change permissions to “can edit”).
*Substitute Minutes-Taker will take minutes while the Minutes-Taker is sharing their responses.
****In addition to sharing responses, the Facilitator will ask the following questions for Chapter 1 during that sharing moment:
- From a writing-process standpoint (i.e., from the point that you get an idea for writing to the moment you are finished writing), what works best for you? (e.g., writing in the morning, taking notes while reading, having a to-do list)
- What is the most helpful thing a teacher has done for you as a writer?
- What is the least helpful thing teachers have done for you as a writer?
Putting CMAP to Work (45 min)
Scenario: Your group is a market research company that wants to sell its services to the University of Pittsburgh’s English department. You need to come up with two documents. One would be something that sends the big picture message about who your company is and what it can do. The other document would use your notes you took of your conversation as “market research” data to use in some piece of writing that would exemplify somehow your services.
**The person who did not have a role as well as the minutes-taker substitute will fulfill the role of author of big picture document and role of author exemplification document.**
Using Chapter 3’s guidelines for considering context, message, audience, and purpose. Especially consider “Craft Your Message,” but also clarify your purpose, analyze your audience (i.e., look around the English department website at Pitt), and have a rationale for your media of choice.
Resumes and Cover Letters (20 min)
Based on the reading, take a minute or two and consider the following questions: What is the purpose of a resume? How is that purpose different from the purpose of a cover letter?
Conventions of cover letter according to Zety: contact info, salutation, hook, why you are a fit/examples, why company is good for you, closing, formal closing, PS
Conventions of cover letter according to Glassdoor: contact info, memorable intro, relevant examples, concise conclusion with call to action, sign off.
Resumes according to BWE: contact info, work experience, education, skills/certifications, awards.
Paradox of job application materials: You want to blend in (i.e., follow conventions to a point), but you also want to stand out (i.e., people don’t look at these things for very long).
How to strike this balance calls for rhetoric. What do you choose to include? How do you choose to express it? Because, in job application materials in particular, people write so many versions, they are likely to over-rely on templates. This is where you can stand out, by becoming a master of customizing the “same” information for a different audience.
For the following cover letters and resumes, jot down some notes in response to the following questions:
What “blends in”?
What “stands out”?
What “rules” were violated?
To what effect?
What do you like? Why?
What don’t you like? Why?
Cover Letter 1: https://www.kickresume.com/en/help-center/junior-financial-controller-bupa-cover-letter-sample/
Cover Letter 2: https://www.kickresume.com/en/help-center/ibm-junior-product-manager-cover-letter-sample/
Cover Letter 3: https://www.kickresume.com/en/help-center/marketing-manager-1-cover-letter-sample/
Resume 1: https://www.kickresume.com/en/help-center/yamaha-e-commerce-executive-resume-sample/
Resume 2: https://www.kickresume.com/en/help-center/retail-experience-analyst-warby-parker-resume-sample/
Resume 3: https://www.kickresume.com/en/help-center/adidas-sales-representative-resume-sample/
For your own writing of these documents: ******Seek models from own industry!!!! Might be different path of success and expectations there******
Break (10 min)
Interpreting Job Ads by Style (20 min)
One of the keys to making the sorts of decisions we talked about in the previous activity is to read job ads to figure out the “story” of the company and of the job and how you can adapt your own “story” to theirs. Much of this takes place on the micro-level: word choice, syntax, how you organize your prose and formatting.
Let’s try this out, mostly with a focus on word choice. I’m passing out two things. One is a job ad and one is an excerpt of an “about” page for the company.
I want you to read it as a whole and also go to our CourseWeb page>Course Documents>Sample Job Ad… After downloading that file, copy/paste it into Voyant Tools and click the reveal button.
Focus on the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Look at the word cloud and some other elements here, but also click (in top left) on “terms” to see full list of words and their counts. What do these words have in common? What do they say about what this company “is”–their story, their brand?
When you sit down to write your resumes and cover letters for Tuesday, consider the job ad and the company’s website as resources for you to think about their story and how you can, at the level of word choice, try to adapt your story to their story.
Your Job Ads and Getting Started (20 min)
Let’s quickly talk about the assignment for Tuesday:
Need job ads (2) so you can write two different resumes and cover letters.
Need to do a reflective cover memo about the decisions you made in your professional bio drafts, your cover letter drafts, and your resume drafts. We haven’t talked about memos yet, so just do your best here by getting a sense of what the format is for a memo. **You don’t have to reflect about any changes you make during peer review later today or any revisions you do between now and July 2 if you do not want to…can just talk about initial choices you made.**
Like with bios today, you are bringing in hard copies of cover letters/resumes/memos to class and can submit final versions at 11:59pm on July 2.
I asked you to bring 3 job ads to class. Let’s get this down to 2 job ads that you can use for Tuesday’s assignment. Two criteria should be considered: First, two of the ads are different enough that it would make for a good exercise in customizing two different resumes and cover letters. Second, come up with a pros/cons list for how they relate to your interests. Considering both of these pieces of information, make your choices.
If time, we can get started on interpreting these job ads and starting to compose your cover letters and resumes.
Peer Review for Bios (30 min)
IMPORTANT: Include the type of environment you envision each bio appearing in (e.g., Twitter, LinkedIn, company website, material for elevator pitch, personal website, part of job or grad school application), the intended audience (e.g., fellow professionals for networking purposes, a potential employer for mechanical engineers), and the purpose (e.g., for networking, for getting a job, for showing credibility to public)
Am distributing some sheets to help with peer review.
Finding Contacts / Email Template (10-15 min)
What do you want to do, do you think? What companies do that thing? Let’s try to find some contacts. Once you have a few companies thought of, go through their contact pages to find any and all potential contacts with someone who does a similar job.
Once finished, let’s start drafting an email. Here is the template I want you to follow:
Dear X:
My name is ________ and I am a __________ at the University of Pittsburgh. I hope you won’t mind my contacting you out of the blue to introduce myself. For a class project in my Written Professional Communication class, we are emailing people in the field we would like to work in to ask some questions about the sort of writing they do.
Would it be okay to ask you some questions?
If you have the time, here they are:
What is the sort of writing you commonly do on a given day?
What sorts of writing is less common, but something you usually do at some point in the year?
If you are willing to share, can you name one writing scenario on the job that you find memorable? What was memorable about it? (e.g., once my supervisor asked me to revise a policy related to X, and one thing that stood about that experience was…)
What do you recommend as important to learn about writing for your field for any people just starting out?
Thank you, and all the best,
NAME
**Send email later tonight if we don’t have time to finish this up**
Next Time (5 min)
Bring 2 hard copies of first job ad, 2 hard copies of second job ad, 2 hard copies of first resume, 2 hard copies of second resume, 2 hard copies of first cover letter, 2 hard copies of second cover letter, and 2 hard copies of reflective cover memo.
Submit 2 job ads, 2 cover letters, 2 resumes, and reflective cover memo to CourseWeb by 11:59pm
Send email to 2 people in industry of interest if you did not finish that today.
Chapters 4, 7, 14 in BWE
By July 8, you need to let me know your choice for what you’ll work on for the Unit 2 project (will talk about this next class, but take a look at it now).