Lesson Materials: 1. PowerPoint
Lesson Objectives: 1. Understand how word choice can be modified to generate more specificity; 2. Identify moments when word choice is insufficiently descriptive/accurate; 3. Revise word choice to more accurately describe what the writer is attempting to convey; 4. Engage in peer review to provide feedback as a reader using a guide of key criteria, and make revisions accordingly
Connection to Major Paper/Project: In this lesson you will have an opportunity to receive feedback and revise your second draft of the Analysis and Annotated Bibliography assignment. This lesson will also assist you in revising your vocabulary and develop strategies to regularly make academic word choices.
Connection to Course Goals: We will reinforce the notion of writing as a process by focusing on the language and conventions aspect of writing in the second draft process. We will introduce conventions of academic writing through focusing on developing academic vocabulary items.
Activities:
- Warm-up: Greet and welcome each other, discuss any questions that might have come up.
- Watch a clip from “Captain Fantastic”: This clip is from a film about a deeply political father who raises his children off the grid in the Pacific Northwest, teaching them values from Plato’s Republic with the goal of turning them into “philosopher kings.” The children each speak multiple languages, and have a deep understanding of science, government, and philosophy. The selected clip features an exchange between the father and one of his daughters who is reading Lolita. The father asks for her analysis of the book. When the daughter starts by saying that the book is “interesting,” her younger siblings immediately tattle on her for using an “illegal word.”
- Word Choice, Summary, and Analysis in “Captain Fantastic”: You will watch the “Captain Fantastic” clip twice, and then the instructor will ask you to draw connections between this scene and the Analysis assignment, and to write down your answers after watching; when you have done this, you will share your answers with a partner and prepare to share more widely with the class; then, you will discuss the connections you located as a class and the difference between summary and analysis you see through the word choices in the film.
- Describing and Analyzing Images with Specificity: In this activity you will use precise vocabulary to describe images in order to make distinctions between summary, analysis, and synthesis. You will use sets of two images that could be similar. You will pick one set and try to describe the two images as specifically as possible, then share your descriptions and analyses with a partner (you will be working in pairs). The instructor will help as needed. The instructor will give you an example of how they would approach this assignment and ask you to model it, following the step-by-step instructions in the handout.
- COCA Vocabulary Activity: As a warm-up for this activity, the instructor will ask you to share with the class your existing strategies for improving your vocabulary. Then, to do the activity: 1. If you haven’t yet, create a Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) account with your Baruch Mail address. 2. Pull up the COCA corpus. The instructor will demonstrate how you could also use the corpus to upgrade your language choices using reporting verbs. 3. Practice using COCA with your own writing. 4. Share your answers with a partner and help each other use a thesaurus and COCA to improve your vocabulary choices. 5. Share your pair work with the class. Highlight successful examples of word choice revision.
- Draft Review Guide for the Analysis and Annotated Bibliography Assignment: Follow the protocol for peer review as you give each other feedback on your drafts with special emphasis given to language issues and APA citation practices.
- Implementing Revision: Using remaining class time, implement changes suggested during the peer review portion of the lesson. Ask the instructor any questions you have. Continue revising at home ahead of the final draft due date after individual conferences.