Instructor’s

Guide

William Bryant, PhD

CEO, Founder, BetterRhetor Resources, LLC
[Link]

©2018 BetterRhetor Resources LLC

Introduction ................................................................................... 1
OVERVIEW
Lesson 1: Overview...................................................................... 4
PLANNING
Lesson 2: Task, Audience, Purpose...................................................6
Lesson 3: Selecting a Topic..............................................................8
Lesson 4: Researching a Topic..........................................................9
Lesson 5: Reading Perceptively......................................................10
Lesson 6: Defining an Issue............................................................11
Lesson 7: Connecting a Specific Issue to a General Concern...........12
Lesson 8: Mapping Perspectives....................................................13
Lesson 9: Taking a Position............................................................14
Lesson 10: Outlining Your Essay.......................................................16
Lesson 11: Outline - Peer Reviews....................................................17
DRAFTING
Lesson 12: Rhetorical Appeals..........................................................20
Lesson 13: The Introduction.............................................................21
Lesson 14: The Introduction - Peer Reviews......................................22
Lesson 15: The Body - Background and Analysis...............................23
Lesson 16: The Body - Your Position and Supporting Argument.........24
Lesson 17: The Body - Addressing Counterarguments......................25
Lesson 18: The Body - Peer Reviews................................................27
Lesson 19: The Conclusion...............................................................28
REVISING
Lesson 20: Self Review....................................................................29
Lesson 21: Self Review - Content and Structure................................31
Lesson 22: Self Review - Language...................................................32
Lesson 23: Peer Reviews..................................................................33
FINALIZING
Lesson 24: Finalizing.......................................................................34
Lesson 25: College-Ready Writing....................................................35

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INTRODUCTION • Providing a
College-Ready Writing Essentials (CRWE) is a mode of student
teacher-facilitated classroom resource designed performance
specifically to support instructors and equip assessment
students for college writing success. that generates
both actionable
Year after year, according to national testing
diagnostic information and supportable,
results, only about 25 percent of students
evidence-based claims about student
graduate from U.S. high schools prepared for
readiness.
college-level writing. To address this persistent
problem, we did something that hasn’t been done Research suggests that entering college students,
before: We took the extensive research on college- regardless of their field of study, are more likely
ready writing—including frameworks for success, to succeed when they have experience with
best instructional practices, and composition authentic, extended composition; when they
theory—and translated it into a focused, easy- understand the behavioral and performance
to-implement resource for pre-college and early- expectations of college academics; and when
college classrooms and programs. they have developed metacognitive awareness
of themselves as learners and of the culture
We designed CRWE on deeply researched,
and institutions around them. CRWE helps guide
evidence-centered principles, so that schools
students in all three of these domains, reflecting
and teachers might have a high degree of
the best of what we know about college-ready
confidence that their students are acquiring
writing practices, principles, and theory.
the competencies most needed for college
writing success. We also designed CRWE to help ease the
workload that comes with teaching composition.
Our approach to developing CRWE entailed:
While teachers may choose to modify,
• Identifying and targeting the competencies supplement, and adapt the resource as needed,
that research indicates are essential to CRWE is complete in itself, including all of the
college writing readiness. These include not instructional language, exercises, evaluation
only cognitive abilities, but also noncognitive tools, and other resources needed for a self-
behaviors and metacognitive awareness; contained unit of study. The completeness of the
• Employing evidence-based instructional resource helps reduce planning time and frees
practices; instructors for more interaction with students.

• Aligning with the rigor, theory, and CRWE’s instructional language is directly
instructional approach found in college addressed to students; teachers may thus elect
settings; to “flip” their classrooms if they desire, assigning
• Attending to common classroom lessons and exercises as homework, while using
impediments to authentic composition class time for sustained writing, peer review,
instruction; discussion, and for reviewing and responding

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to student work. This model is intended to A persuasive
help relieve the difficulty of conferencing and essay provides the
providing detailed feedback on a large volume greatest opportunity
of student prose. to emphasize
argumentation,
Our goal for CRWE is to support teachers and
a skill central
students as they work toward college-ready
to a number of genres students are likely to
writing. Please see our White Paper for an
encounter throughout their academic and work
extensive analysis of the college-ready writing
lives. Almost half of writing assignments in
gap and our approach to bridging it, including
college composition courses are based on
the research basis, the theoretical foundations,
argumentation. In addition, a persuasive essay
and the design strategies that underlie this
foregrounds the rhetorical and sociocultural
instructional resource.
dimensions of writing that composition studies
The Writing Task indicate are integral to college-level writing.
College-Ready Writing Essentials guides students
Features
through the process of composing a research-
CRWE is divided into 25 lessons, which translates
supported persuasive essay. We encourage you
into five weeks of instruction. Not every course
to set the parameters of this task according
or context is organized around daily sessions, of
to your needs, but we recommend that, at a
course, so the CRWE lessons may be combined
minimum, students produce a polished 3-5 page
or otherwise adapted to your academic schedule
paper that cites at least three credible sources.
as needed.
A primary goal of writing instruction early in
As you lead students through the resource, you’ll
college is to prepare students for writing in
note some recurrent themes:
their disciplines later on. General principles of
academic writing that are transferable across • Socialization: An emphasis on learning the
conventions and expectations of the college
disciplines, therefore, are important for students
academic discourse community: language
to master in their introductory courses. This kind
and concepts; behavioral expectations;
of writing generally requires that students define
accepted and rewarded modes of meaning-
a debatable issue that matters to them; conduct a
making and persuasion, and more;
disciplined inquiry; formulate a position and
support it with evidence and reasoning; and • Agency: CRWE presents effective writing,
produce a polished, cohesive essay that and the critical thinking and perceptive
conforms to academic conventions. reading skills that go with it, as a means
of empowerment. Students are given to
A persuasive, source-based essay is typical
understand strong writing as an ability
of college-level work, calling upon the full
integral to advancing their own interests
complement of cognitive competencies
and perspectives, both in the classroom
identified in college-ready writing frameworks.
and beyond;

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• Responsibility: We stress the need for each Competencies
student to take responsibility for their own Framework
education, their own intellectual engagement. At the core of CRWE
We also underscore their responsibilities to is a Competencies
others in their learning community, and to the Framework, derived
integrity of the wider enterprise of education; from the research
on college-ready writing and adapted to the task
• Substance: The level of students’ effort and of producing a research-supported persuasive
the quality of their thinking matter most.
essay. The CRWE Competencies Framework
Writing is a means of discovering what we
articulates for instructors and students precisely
think, what we care about, what we know and
the qualities that students should demonstrate
don’t know. Form and surface features matter,
in their work. It thus serves as the basis for
but of greater importance are critical thinking
assessment. Each CRWE lesson includes
and the quality of content and analysis.
one or more assignments with an associated
Best Practices rubric comprised of statements from the
The resource employs research-validated Framework. The specificity and structure of
instructional practices throughout, including the statements affords an easy way to quickly
an emphasis on writing processes, strategies, evaluate student work and provide diagnostic
modeling, peer review, reflection, self regulation, feedback that you and your students can
self evaluation, motivation, and others. use to improve performance.

Flexibility The CRWE Competencies Framework is available

While CRWE is a complete, self-contained unit as a separate document.
of study, it is also adaptable. Its successful
implementation depends on your expertise,
your objectives, and your knowledge of your
own students. Use, or choose not to use, as
many of the assignments and worksheets as
needed; evaluation criteria are provided for
all assignments, but you may be selective in
which of them you assign and assess. Spend
time leading your students through lessons and
sample essays, or introduce your own materials
and lessons. Flip the classroom or not, as you
determine best serves yourself and your students.

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 OVERVIEW
LESSON 1: Overview
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Overall purpose of CRWE: To help students gain experience with the

kind of composition that will be required of them in college.

• Overall task in CRWE: A research-supported persuasive essay. Adjust

as needed for your students, but we recommend at minimum a 3-5 page (800-1200 word) essay,
incorporating at least 3 credible sources. Students choose their own topic, taking responsibility for
their own intellectual engagement.

• Discuss your overall plan for the unit—how you will make use of the College-Ready Writing Essentials
resource, including whether you will “flip” the classroom by assigning readings and/or exercises out
of class, using class time for writing, peer reviews, conferencing, etc.

• Academic writing calls upon an array of complex skills and abilities. Throughout the unit, students
should acquire a fuller appreciation of what writing is, and why it is a skill that is valuable and
relevant in their lives. They should come to understand what’s meant by “reading perceptively,”
“critical thinking,” “advancing their own interests and perspectives,” and “contributing to meaningful
conversations through their academic work.”

• It is important for students to develop their writing abilities, because strong communication skills
are foundational to success in school, work, and civic life. Throughout the unit, we seek to cultivate
in students a metacognitive awareness of effective writing as a useful tool for navigating education,
work, and civic life.

• The CRWE Competencies Framework is an essential guide and tool for evaluation. Students should
understand its importance, and should gain a close familiarity with its components.

• Consider discussing your expectations for “Language and Concepts” and for “Rigor.”

• Discuss Going Beyond exercises—including how/whether you will make use of them for your
course. These exercises reward effort, reinforcing CRWE’s emphasis on engagement and
responsibility. The opportunity to demonstrate a high level of effort, beyond the minimum
requirements of the course, may especially reward and encourage students who struggle with
language or with cognitive dimensions of writing.

Writing Assignment:
• Baseline writing sample.

You may wish to acquire an early sample of students’ writing, to get an idea of individuals’ starting
places, as well as the class’s overall level of ability. A baseline sample can also be useful later in
gauging student progress.
(continued on next page)

Lesson 1 [Link]
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 OVERVIEW
The exercise below includes both a prompt and evaluation criteria.
(This exercise is not intended to be part of the student’s grade, so is
not mapped to the Competencies Framework.) College-Ready Writing
Essentials encourages transparency as an approach to preparing students
for the expectations they’ll encounter in a college environment. For that
reason, we include evaluation criteria from the Competencies Framework
with each writing assignment, so that students can see for themselves precisely the qualities their work
must demonstrate for college readiness.

Baseline Writing Sample

Prompt: Evaluation of student responses:

Think of a course you took in the past, one that
• Did the student understand the task? Does
stands out in your mind, either because you
their response include both description and
learned something valuable, or because you
analysis?
learned nothing.
• How much effort did he or she put forth?
Write an essay (at least 250 words) in which
you describe the course: What was the • Was the student able to organize their
subject? When did you take it? What were your writing in a clear and logical way?
classmates like? What was your teacher like? • What’s the level of language use, grammar,
Analyze your experience: What went right? Or and mechanics?
wrong? Why? How much effort did you give? • Does the student demonstrate an ability
Why? What has been the lasting effect of this to reflect thoughtfully on his or her own
experience on you? experience and performance?

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 1: Overview before next lesson.
Read Lesson 2: Task, Audience, Purpose before next lesson.

Going Beyond:
Lesson 1: Going Beyond - Writing Skills and the Job Market

Lesson 1 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 2:
Task, Audience, Purpose
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Discuss planning as an integral part of academic writing, not separate

or optional. CRWE places a lot of emphasis on planning. At some
points, students may grow eager to jump ahead to drafting. They should be reassured that their
essay will turn out much better (and they’ll save themselves a lot of work) if they plan it out
thoroughly first.

• Task, Audience, Purpose. In addition to making sure students understand these foundational
elements, you may want to talk about them in terms of “rhetorical knowledge.” This concept is
featured in the Competencies Framework, and is identified as of fundamental importance to
successful composition in the scholarly literature on college-ready writing.

• In alignment with how composition tends to be understood and taught in postsecondary

contexts, rhetorical concepts frame our approach to teaching writing: we emphasize to students
that as writers they are always situated within specific contexts in which certain modes of
behavior and communication are legitimized and valued, while others are not.

• Students should develop a metacognitive awareness of the social and cultural contexts
in which they operate, including especially their academic contexts, and should strive to
understand themselves as rhetors situated in particular ways within those contexts. Their
situatedness is determined by factors such as their identity, background, values, language
resources, and experience.

• A big part of what students are doing as they make their way through College-Ready Writing
Essentials is learning what modes of communication and behavior are legitimized and valued
in the culture of college academics. Academic writing competency requires understanding and
responding to the expectations they’ll encounter in the culture of college academics: reading
perceptively, thinking critically, reasoning carefully, communicating with clarity and precision,
exhibiting personal and social behaviors and ways of thinking that lead to success.

• Ask students to share and discuss responses to the Lesson 2 Writing Assignment.

• Argument vs. opinion. Argumentation—the construction of a logical sequence of claims supported

by evidence and reasoning—is the key mode of persuasive meaning-making in college academics,
while unsupported opinionating is of little value.

(continued on next page)

Lesson 2 [Link]
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 PLANNING
• Knowledge telling vs knowledge transformation. An overall objective
throughout College-Ready Writing Essentials is to help students
understand and practice critical thinking. Here’s an opportunity to
underscore that overarching objective.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 2: Writing Assignment - Task, Audience, Purpose

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 3: Selecting a Topic before next lesson.

Going Beyond:
Lesson 2: Going Beyond - Planning and Design

Lesson 2 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 3: Selecting a Topic
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Discuss the importance of students taking responsibility for intellectual

engagement by choosing a topic that interests and motivates them.
A larger point to make is found in the “Understanding the Culture of
College Academics” section: students have an opportunity, even a duty, to discover and explore the
academic subjects that matter to them and motivate them.

• Consider a close classroom reading of the student essay, “A Bitter Cup of Coffee.” It illustrates how
a well-chosen essay topic opens itself to a problem or controversy that can serve as the focus of a
persuasive essay. Students should not get the mistaken idea that this essay is ideal; it has plenty of
flaws. However, the author does some important things right. A close reading led by the instructor
will also give students a model for critically reading the work of their peers—a skill that they’ll be
asked to practice later.

• Draw upon the work of Lesson 2 - Task, Audience, Purpose in analyzing and selecting a topic.

• Selecting a topic is a Milestone—meaning that it must be completed or else the student can’t
continue. The writing exercises in this lesson offer a strategy for generating and analyzing topic
ideas, and choosing a topic to research.

• Since this is such a crucial step, consider checking each student’s choice of topic and offering
guidance where needed; in order to succeed going forward, they need to select a topic that is well-
suited to the task.

• It is especially important that they articulate their topic in a way that begins to suggest some
underlying problem, tension, or controversy. Otherwise, their research efforts will not have much
direction, and they’ll later have trouble clearly identifying the precise issue their essay addresses.
This quality of the student’s choice of topic is captured in the Competencies Framework as
evidence of competency 1.1.c: “Your topic lends itself to argumentation.”

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 3: Worksheet - Generating Ideas for an Essay Topic
Lesson 3: Writing Assignment - Selecting a Topic
Much of class time may be devoted to completing the worksheets.
Evaluation criteria are found at the end, but are intended to apply to all preceding steps.

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 4: Researching a Topic before next lesson.

Going Beyond:
Lesson 3: Going Beyond - Grit and Growth

Lesson 3 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 4:
Researching a Topic
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• A significant portion of class time may be devoted to searching for

relevant, credible sources. While this lesson is focused on finding
sources, Lesson 5 is about analyzing them. Evaluation criteria are provided in Lesson 5.

• Discuss writing as participation in academic conversations.

• Discuss credible sources and the importance of credibility in academic work. What counts as a
credible source?

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 4: Writing Assignment - Inventory of Knowledge about Topic
Lesson 4: Writing Assignment - Research

For Next Lesson:

Students should continue to research their topic, finding a number of credible sources that they can
begin to compare and analyze. Ideally, they will have located and will have working access to five or so
sources before the next lesson.

Lesson 4 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 5:
Reading Perceptively
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• By this point students will need to have found a number of relevant

sources and will need to have access to them in class. Much of class
time may be devoted to working through the worksheets for evaluating sources.

• Discuss the close relationship between reading and writing skills.

• What it means to read perceptively.

• Who is the author and what is his/her purpose?

• Identifying problems, disagreements, controversies that can help students locate and
understand the conversation circulating around their topic.

• Thinking pragmatically: How might this source be useful to me, given my writing task?

• Intellectual integrity as a core value in college academics; the credibility of their sources reflects
on the credibility of their own work.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 5: Writing Assignment - Evaluation of Sources
Ideally, students will have five or more sources to analyze using a copy of the worksheet for each.

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 6: Defining an Issue before next lesson.
If necessary, complete Lesson 5: Writing Assignment - Evaluation of Sources before next lesson.

Lesson 5 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 6:
Defining an Issue
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• The focus of this lesson is on precisely defining potential issues to

write about, and analyzing those issues with the goal of selecting one.

• Defining an issue is a Milestone: students cannot proceed to the next step without having defined,
at least preliminarily, the issue their essay will address.

• Defining an issue to write about can be one of the most difficult, yet most important, steps in the
composition process. The student, and the student’s readers, must be absolutely clear on the
precise question, problem, controversy addressed by the essay. The student can’t compose a
competent, focused essay without it.

• Instructors are advised to make sure that each student’s issue is clearly stated in a sentence or
two, can be productively researched, and lends itself to the formulation of a coherent position and
argument built on evidence and reasoning.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 6: Worksheet 1 - Translating Disagreements, Problems, Controversies into Precisely Defined
Issues
Lesson 6: Worksheet 2 - Analyzing Prospective Issues
Lesson 6: Writing Assignment - Choosing Your Issue

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 7: Connecting a Specific Issue to a General Concern before next lesson.

Lesson 6 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 7:
Connecting a Specific Issue to a General Concern
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• The ability to forge connections between the specific and the general is
a feature of writing and thinking that will serve students well in college
and in life. The concept is not easy for all students to grasp, however, and some may struggle with
this task—perhaps because they’ve never been asked to do it before. That makes this a valuable
teaching opportunity. It’s definitely worth taking time to help students develop an ability to think
more critically and expansively about their own ideas.

• Finding a general concern that underlies their issue will be of aid to students later on, as they
work to convey to their readers the significance of the specific issue they’re analyzing and the
implications of their own position.

• Consider an in-class close reading of the student essay, “Should Smoking Be Banned In Public
Restaurants?” The essay illustrates how a specific issue (smoking ban) acquires added significance
when connected to a more fundamental concern (individual liberty vs. public safety). The essay
exhibits a clear point of view and integrates multiple sources. Overall, however, it is not a great
essay. A close, classroom reading presents an opportunity to discuss both its virtues and its
flaws—good modeling of the kind of examination students will be asked to perform on the work of
their peers later on.

• In-class opportunity for students to discuss the specific-to-general connections possible in their
own essays. Consider small-group discussions in which students can help one another and learn
from one another’s successes and failures.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 7: Writing Assignment - Connecting a Specific Issue to a General Concern

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 8: Mapping Perspectives before next lesson.

Going Beyond:
Lesson 7: Going Beyond - Flow

Lesson 7 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 8:
Mapping Perspectives
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Students are asked to work with their sources to identify a range of

perspectives, to summarize these perspectives in a sentence or two,
and to document evidence of them so that they can make reference to them in their essays. This is
an exercise in perceptive reading and critical thinking.

• Throughout CRWE we emphasize that writing takes place in rhetorical contexts. This exercise
underscores the idea that discourse communities arise around debatable issues. These
communities comprise a range of viewpoints, undergirded by a range of values, interests, and
objectives. The student writer should understand that, through their research and writing, they
themselves are entering into this discourse community as a participant. Thanks to their thinking
and communication skills, they have an opportunity to weigh in on an issue that matters, and to
influence the ongoing conversation.

• Research shows that motivation is an important element in learning to write effectively. Many
students are motivated by the opportunity to investigate a topic they’re interested in, and to say
something meaningful about it.

• Note that we ask them to identify a range of perspectives, not just two oppositional positions.
Students should move away from defining disagreements and controversies in binary terms. To the
extent that they recognize a range of possible positions in a given conversation, they show evidence
of critical thinking.

• As they identify and articulate a range of perspectives emerging from their sources, students should
in each case think about what motivates the participants in discussion: Where do their interests lie?
What values underlie their perspectives? What do they want?

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 8: Writing Assignment - Mapping Perspectives

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 9: Taking a Position before next lesson.
Continue mapping perspectives as needed.

Lesson 8 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 9:
Taking a Position
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Taking a position is in many ways the point of writing a persuasive

essay. Therefore, it is important that students 1) understand what it
means to make a clear commitment to a position on the issue they have defined; and 2) understand
that the position they take cannot be a mere opinion, but must be rendered persuasive to readers
through evidence and argumentation: that’s the work of their essay.

• This is not to say that students must forevermore strictly adhere to the position they sketch out in
this lesson. Through the process of composing their essay, they may refine their thinking and even
change their minds altogether. Such revisiting and revising are integral to good writing and are
highly encouraged.

• It may be worth emphasizing this point from the lesson text:

“The writer recognizes that it is not up to her to answer the specific question that underlies
debate about UBI: Would universal basic income make people more inclined to create and
be productive, or less so? The answer to that question is one for research to determine;
as a student writer, she knows that she has neither the information nor ethos to weigh in
authoritatively on that question. Rather, the position she takes is a response to the fact that
this question is in play and thus far unanswerable. What she can speak persuasively about is
the role that entrepreneurship might play in coming to terms with the problems UBI is aimed at
addressing.”

• Too often student writers attempt to be persuasive on questions that they can’t possibly have an
answer too. A valuable lesson for all writers lies in understanding the limits of their ethos—their
ability to speak with credibility and authority. Learning how to scope out a position that they can
actually make persuasive is a skill vital to successful academic writing.

• As they analyze perspectives, students should understand that they are not constrained in their
responses; they may disagree or agree, partially or fully, with any perspective they analyze. They
may come up with an entirely different position, or find they have grounds for dismissing the debate
altogether.

• Throughout CRWE, we endeavor to associate writing motivation with personal agency. Ideally,
students will come to understand effective writing, and the critical thinking it entails, as a chief
means for advancing their own interests and objectives—and thus be motivated to get good at it.

(continued on next page)

Lesson 9 [Link]
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 PLANNING
• Throughout CRWE, we also endeavor to position writing as an act
that takes place in particular rhetorical contexts. The writer inserts
herself into an ongoing conversation. She has an opportunity—even an
obligation—to make a contribution to the discourse community, drawing
upon her own creative intelligence. This understanding potentially both
empowers the student and helps the student understand the purposes,
responsibilities, and opportunities that come with effective writing.

• You may choose to conduct a close reading of “Women and Video Games” essay, especially to
illustrate how your students might effectively integrate their own identities and background into
their essays.

• Identifying values that underlie perspectives is a challenging but rewarding task. It exercises critical
thinking and cultivates an analytical habit of mind that will serve students well in their writing and
elsewhere.

• The exercise devoted to responding to perspectives is very useful in helping students to map
the terrain of the discussion around their issues and to find their place within it. Here, they begin
inserting themselves into the conversation. It’s important that they not settle for merely agreeing or
disagreeing, but instead ask critical questions, consider strengths and weaknesses, and consider
shades of agreement and disagreement. Again, this kind of analysis shows evidence of critical
thinking.

• Defining their position is a Milestone; they’ll need to do so, at least provisionally, in order to move
forward.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 9: Worksheet 1 - Your Identity, Background, Experience
Lesson 9: Worksheet 2 - Connecting Perspectives to Values
Lesson 9: Worksheet 3 - Responding to Perspectives
Lesson 9: Writing Assignment - Define Your Position

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 10: Outlining Your Essay before next lesson.
Continue responding to perspectives and defining position as needed.

Lesson 9 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 10:
Outlining Your Essay
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Much of class may be devoted to generating an outline. This should be

a Milestone assignment—a required activity that must be completed in
order for students to move forward.

• Lesson 11 is focused on review of outlines. Thus, it will be important for students to have
completed their outlines and have them available before the next lesson.

• The outline provides a good opportunity to make sure students have the basic building-blocks of
their essay in place: they have defined their topic, issue, and position appropriately; they understand
the overall mission of making their position persuasive through an analytical argument that engages
with outside sources; they have a strategy for organizing their essay.

• It may be helpful to discuss the work of an essay via a close reading of the “Access to Healthy
Food” essay, which is annotated in the lesson.

• Students should recognize that college-level writing will require them to move beyond the five-
paragraph essay. They must learn to make their own decisions about how best to present ideas,
information, and arguments, based on their understanding of the task, the needs of their audience,
and their purposes for writing.

• Rather than thinking in terms of formulas, students should think about the structure of their essay
in terms of a focused, logical sequence of elements flowing from beginning to end. An essay’s
structure should lead the reader through a line of thinking, with each element preparing the way for
the next. Students who grasp this will be more likely to generate an essay that is tightly focused and
logically organized.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 10: Writing Assignment - Generating an Outline

For Next Lesson:

Complete outline; make available for peer review.

Lesson 10 [Link]
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 PLANNING
LESSON 11:
Peer Reviews
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• As a final activity in the planning phase, consider having students

review one another’s outlines.

• Peer review provides practice at critically but constructively evaluating the work of others—a key
social behavior represented in the Competencies Framework.

• A review sheet is provided, aimed at eliciting this competency from students.

• This is the first of several peer review opportunities in CRWE. Here’s a practical resource with some
suggestions on how to approach peer reviews: “Peer Review Done Right,” by Sean Cassel.

• Consider whether it makes sense to conduct this first peer review as a class or as a small-group
activity. You may elect to model for students your expectations for peer reviews.

• Students can download the peer review worksheet and duplicate it as many times as needed. They
can attach their completed worksheets as their submission for the Lesson 11 assignment. From
there, you can decide how best to review their work, and how best to make reviews available to each
essay author.

• Also, consider a process wherein reviewers are anonymous. Research gives some indication, in an
online context at least, that anonymous reviewers perform better on their essays and provide more
critical feedback to their peers than do identifiable reviewers. See Lu & Bol below.

• It may be helpful for students to use the Lesson 10 model outline— “Universal Basic Income”—as
a guide for evaluating the outlines of their peers. The model embodies the elements all student
outlines should contain, and serves as a demonstration of what is expected.

• The in-class time may provide you with an opportunity to review outlines as well.

• This is an important juncture in the process of generating an essay—the transition from planning to
drafting. Thus, it represents a key opportunity for instructors to review students’ work, making sure
they’ve got the foundational elements in place before moving forward. Outlines make a check-in
convenient because they collect in one place all of the major elements developed thus far.

• Students should make use of peer and instructor reviews to adjust and refine their plans as they
move forward. In the Competencies Framework, this ability is reflected in 1.3.a, “You judiciously use
feedback from others to improve the quality of your academic essay.”

(continued on next page)

Lesson 11 [Link]
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 PLANNING
• “Judiciously” is a key term here: through practice, students should
learn to distinguish between feedback that can improve their work and
feedback that is not helpful. That, too, is a critical thinking skill.

• Evaluation criteria are provided to assess the social behaviors students

exhibit in providing feedback to their peers. Throughout CRWE we
stress students’ responsibility for advancing the goals of their academic community by providing
substantive, socially and intellectually constructive feedback to others.

• Below are some resources on the value of peer review, and the forms it may take. Here’s some
advice from the article by Walls and Kelley:

“As teachers we cannot assume that students understand or see the value in peer feedback,
unless they are properly socialized into the process through guided instruction. This implies that
we as instructors have a responsibility to hone and develop students’ understanding of the value
of peer review assignments and of the value of incorporating feedback, while also ensuring that
time is devoted to the development of metacognitive processing skills. Furthermore, we need
to do explicit instruction on how students should receive and implement feedback. . . [W]e need
to ensure that students understand how to critically assess the feedback they are given. This
means spending time talking about what constitutes productive feedback, how to decode such
feedback, and when that feedback is relevant or irrelevant in relation to the overall amelioration
of a paper’s quality.”

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 11: Writing Assignment - Peer Review of Outline

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 12: Rhetorical Appeals before next lesson.

Going Beyond:
Lesson 11: Going Beyond - Social Skills and Success

Peer Review Resources:

Bean, John C. Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active
learning in the classroom. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.

Lu, Ruiling, and Linda Bol. “A comparison of anonymous versus identifiable e-peer review on college
student writing performance and the extent of critical feedback.” Journal of Interactive Online Learning
6.2 (2007).
The results from both semesters showed that students participating in anonymous e-peer review
performed better on the writing performance task and provided more critical feedback to their peers
than did students participating in the identifiable e-peer review.
(continued on next page)

Lesson 11 [Link]
18
 PLANNING
Shaw, Victor N. “Peer review as a motivating device in the training of writing
skills for college students.” Journal of College Reading and Learning 33.1
(2002): 68-76.
Shaw found that students seemed to care about how their classmates
perceived their work, with peer pressure motivating students positively in
their writing.

Walls, Laura, and Jeremy Kelley. “Using Student Writing Reflections to Inform Our Understanding of
Feedback Receptivity.” Issues in Applied Linguistics 20 (2016).
Several suggestions for improving peer review classroom pedagogy are explored, resulting in
implications for enhancing peer review practices more generally and the subsequent reception of
student feedback.

Wooley, Ryan S. The effects of web-based peer review on student writing. Diss. Kent State University,
2007.
Results indicate that students who provided elaborate forms of feedback, which included free-form
comments, performed significantly better on their own writing than students who provided numerical
ratings only.

Wynn, Evelyn Shepherd, Lorraine Page Cadet, and Ernesta Parker Pendleton. “A Model for Teaching
Writing: Socially Designed and Consensus Oriented.” (2000).

Yang, Yu‐Fen. “A reciprocal peer review system to support college students’ writing.” British Journal of
Educational Technology 42.4 (2011): 687-700.

Lesson 11 [Link]
19
 DRAFTING
LESSON 12:
Rhetorical Appeals
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Discuss persuasion in terms of rhetorical appeals.

• Consider the ethos comparison as a classroom exercise.

• Discuss the potential need to conduct additional research to support claims. This is an expected
and valuable part of academic writing.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 12: Writing Assignment - Ethos
Lesson 12: Writing Assignment - Logos
Lesson 12: Writing Assignment - Pathos

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 13: The Introduction before next lesson.

Lesson 12 [Link]
20
 DRAFTING
LESSON 13:
The Introduction
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for writing. This gives instructors an

opportunity to consult with individual students as they work.

• Completing a draft of an introduction is a Milestone. Students should have a draft available to share
before the next lesson, which is devoted to peer review.

• Discuss the work a competent introduction accomplishes.

• Consider a close, class-wide reading of the model introduction to the UBI essay.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 13: Writing Assignment - Drafting an Introduction

For Next Lesson:

Complete draft of introduction; make available for peer review.

Lesson 13 [Link]
21
 DRAFTING
LESSON 14:
The Introduction - Peer Reviews
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• A peer review period may help instructors make time for providing their
own review and feedback.

• See notes on peer reviews, Lesson 11.

• You have the ability to assign anonymous peer reviews: open the assignment settings and choose
accordingly.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 14: Writing Assignment - Peer Review of Introduction

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 15: The Body - Background and Analysis before next lesson.

Lesson 14 [Link]
22
 DRAFTING
LESSON 15:
The Body - Background and Analysis
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for writing, consulting with individuals

as needed.

• Discuss the work that the body of an essay needs to accomplish, as presented in the text of
the lesson.

• Close classroom readings of the models may be helpful.

• Discuss the concept of presenting information with analysis, to guide readers’ understanding.

• Discuss the value of providing background information on a topic.

• Discuss the value of presenting a range of perspectives, providing a snapshot of the conversation
circulating around a topic.

• Discuss the organization of an essay in terms of a “line of thinking,” wherein each element is in
logical relationship to the one that came before. Approaching organization in this way helps writers
generate a cohesive, tightly focused sequence of logically related elements, rather than merely a
collection of disconnected paragraphs.

• Though evaluation criteria are provided for each section of the body (Lessons 15, 16, 17), you may
consider evaluating students’ work on the body of their essays once all of it is assembled, after
Lesson 17.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 15: Writing Assignment - The Body - Background and Analysis

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 16: The Body - Your Position and Supporting Argument before next lesson.
Continue drafting background and analysis as needed.

Lesson 15 [Link]
23
 DRAFTING
LESSON 16:
The Body - Your Position and Supporting Argument
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for writing, consulting with individuals

as needed.

• Much of the work here entails fleshing out the student’s position and supporting argument. Ideally,
language from the logos exercise in Lesson 12 can be expanded and refined in this exercise.

• Discuss how clarity around the writer’s position is achieved through explanation.

• Discuss again, as needed, the structure of an argument: the writer must take a clear position on the
issue and make that position persuasive to the reader via a logical argument. That logical argument
consists of a sequence of claims validated with reasoning and evidence.

• Discuss the potential need for additional research. Often a writer does not know all of his/her
needs for supporting sources until deep into the task of constructing a persuasive argument.
Conducting additional research to support a claim, or rule it out, is a normal, even expected,
part of the writing process.

• It may be worth noting once again a point about position-taking from Lesson 9:

“The writer recognizes that it is not up to her to answer the specific question that underlies
debate about UBI: Would universal basic income increase people’s productivity, or make them
idle and dependent? The answer to that question is one for research to determine; as a student
writer, she knows that she has neither the information nor ethos to weigh in authoritatively
on that question. Rather, the position she takes is a response to the fact that this question
is in play and thus far unanswerable. What she can speak persuasively about is the role that
entrepreneurship might play in coming to terms with the problems UBI is aimed at addressing.”

• Too often student writers attempt to be persuasive on questions that they can’t possibly have an
answer too. A valuable lesson for all writers lies in understanding the limits of their ethos—their
ability to speak with credibility and authority. Learning how to scope out a position that one can
actually make persuasive is a skill vital to successful academic writing.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 16: Writing Assignment - The Body - Position and Argument

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 17: The Body - Addressing Counterarguments before next lesson.
Continue drafting position and supporting argument as needed.

Lesson 16 [Link]
24
 DRAFTING
LESSON 17:
The Body - Addressing Counterarguments
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for writing, consulting with individuals

as needed.

• Research indicates that many students mistakenly believe that raising counterarguments in their
essay weakens their argument. They should instead understand that exactly the opposite is true—
provided they’re able to effectively rebut.

• Here’s a helpful scholarly article on the research around counterarguments in student writing. A key
quote follows:

Nussbaum, E. Michael, CarolAnne M. Kardash, and Steve Ed Graham. “The Effects of Goal
Instructions and Text on the Generation of Counterarguments During Writing.” Journal of
Educational Psychology 97.2 (2005): 157.

“[R]esearchers regard the consideration of counterarguments as an important aspect of

good writing (see Santos & Santos, 1999, for a review). Unfortunately, there is a tendency for
students not to consider counterarguments when writing argumentative texts. In a seminal
series of studies by Perkins, Farady, and Bushey (1991), high school and college students wrote
argumentative essays on social issues such as school funding and nuclear arms control. Few
students spontaneously included counterarguments to their positions. Perkins et al. labeled the
tendency to consider only the side of the issue favored by the student as a my-side bias.”

• Discuss counterarguments in terms of conversations comprised of multiple perspectives.

Students may tend to reduce issues to two-sided contests, in which the writer functions as a
dispassionate arbiter with nothing personally at stake. It’s much preferable that they see themselves
engaging in and contributing to a lively on-going conversation that they care about, among a variety
of participants.

• Their essay is not expected to put an end to the conversation by presenting the definitive, irrefutable
resolution to a thorny problem once and for all. Rather, their essay is an opportunity to contribute
to the conversation, by adding an insight or recommendation, proposing a new course of action,
revealing the flaw in a line of reasoning, etc.

• A close reading of the examples in the lesson text can help illustrate a few different approaches
to addressing counterarguments. At minimum, they together underscore the idea that there is no
formula for raising and rebutting counterarguments.

(continued on next page)

Lesson 17 [Link]
25
 DRAFTING
• The “UBI” model presents an opportunity to discuss how a student
might effectively integrate his/her own experience, background, or
identity into their essay. The “Women and Video Games” model essay
also provides an example of this. In both cases, students should note
that personal experience and perspective can have persuasive power,
but are not sufficient by themselves in an academic context: writers
must also attend to logos, or their ethos and pathos will not count for much with their readers.

• Completing this section is a Milestone, since students will now have completed a draft of the body
of their essay. Students should have a draft of the entire body available to share before the next
lesson, which is devoted to peer review.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 17: Writing Assignment - The Body - Addressing Counterarguments

For Next Lesson:

Continue drafting section addressing counterarguments as needed.
Assemble all three parts of the essay body into a single file that can be shared with others for
next lesson.

Lesson 17 [Link]
26
 DRAFTING
LESSON 18:
The Body - Peer Reviews
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider this lesson as an opportunity for students to assemble into a

whole the three drafted parts of the body of their essay—Background
and Analysis; Position and Supporting Argument; Address of Counterargument.

• A peer review period may help instructors make time for providing their own review and feedback to
individual students.

• Consider a classroom close reading of the model provided in the lesson text.

• An evaluation sheet is included, if you choose to review your students’ efforts at providing feedback
to one another.

• See notes on peer reviews, Lesson 11.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 18: Writing Assignment - Peer Review of Essay Body

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 19: The Conclusion before next lesson.

Lesson 18 [Link]
27
 DRAFTING
LESSON 19:
The Conclusion
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for composition, consulting with individuals

as needed.

• Discuss conclusions in terms of the work they must do to bring an essay to a satisfying close.

• One way—not the only way—to construct a conclusion that accomplishes this work is to
1) remind readers of the significance of the issue; 2) summarize and extend the essay’s
contribution to the conversation; 3) present readers with a call to action or with further
considerations.

• Consider a close reading of the model conclusion that appears in the lesson text.

• Completing a draft of the conclusion is a Milestone. At this point, students now have a complete
draft of their essay.

• We have not made space for a separate peer review of the conclusion, though we have included
evaluation criteria for the instructor. Whether or not you elect to use them, the evaluation criteria
communicate performance expectations to students.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 19: Writing Assignment - Drafting the Conclusion
Lesson 19: Writing Assignment - Assemble Your Draft

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 20: Self Review before next lesson.
Assemble complete draft of essay and make available for self-review, instructor review, and peer review.

Lesson 19 [Link]
28
 REVISING
LESSON 20:
Self Review
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Students should be able to assemble and make available their

complete essay draft. This is a Milestone.

• Lessons 20-23 are devoted to revising. Our intention during this section is to create space during
class time for student-teacher conferences, should you elect to conduct them. Research shows that
even a 5-minute face-to-face conference with students can help them improve their writing. With
students having now completed a full draft of their essay, this is an opportune time to monitor their
status, provide guidance and feedback, and intervene where needed.

• Lesson 20 asks students to reflect on their work, using a provided worksheet. These reflections can
serve as a point of entry for conferences. Consider conferencing with individuals while the class
works on revision and review in Lessons 21- 23.

• Revising can be difficult for many students, especially those who think it means “fixing” surface
errors. Students should instead understand that effective revision entails a thorough self-appraisal
of all parts of their essay. Accordingly, they should expect to make substantive changes to content
and organization, as an integral part of the composition process.

• To encourage students to develop a deeper appreciation of revision, we discuss it in terms of

revisions to content and structure (Lesson 21) and language-level revisions (Lesson 22).

• Revision and reflection are both “threshold” concepts—meaning that students must grasp them
conceptually and develop some facility in their practice if they are to become competent academic
writers.

• These two concepts—reflection and revision—are mutually reinforcing: reflection improves revision,
while revision deepens reflection. Lesson 20 is intentional in helping students understand this
reciprocal connection. Consider stressing this connection as you help students revise their drafts.

• In designing this section of CRWE, we have drawn upon research around both reflection and
revision. In particular, we have incorporated lessons from:
Lindenman, Heather, et al. “Revision and Reflection: A Study of (Dis) Connections between Writing
Knowledge and Writing Practice.” College Composition and Communication 69.4 (2018): 581-611.

• This research emphasizes the need for students to make substantive rather than merely surface-
level revisions. Toward that end, it suggests that instructors point students away from the idea that
revision entails responding to a checklist of teacher-directed fixes. Rather, students must come to

(continued on next page)

Lesson 20 [Link]
29
 REVISING
see themselves as empowered agents equipped with the ability
to weigh for themselves the merits of the feedback they receive.

• Accordingly, we have designed the Lesson 20 Self Review assignment

as an aid to reflection and conferencing that orients students toward
metacognition and “higher-order rhetorical concerns,” rather than
error correction.

• Here are some key points from the article:

• “Our results add depth to previous scholarship that asserts that reflection, if implemented and
taken up well, can play an important role in fostering students’ metacognitive writing awareness,
which in turn can support their ability to revise their writing in substantive ways . . . “

You’ll note that the evaluation criteria for the Lesson 20 Self Review assignment invokes
metacognitive awareness from the CRWE Competencies Framework.

• “As writing instructors, we often prompt students toward revisions that are thorough
reengagements with their writing and arguments, yet many students see revision as a mandate
to fix errors. . . “

• “. . . [W]e found that students are more likely to make successful, substantive revisions if
they engage in such metacognitive practices as using teacher commentary heuristically and
centering attention on higher-order rhetorical concerns.”

• “Further, our investigations indicate that when students treat teacher commentary in their
reflections like a checklist, frame revision as error correction, or overestimate the importance of
small changes, their revisions are likely to be editorial or moderate at best.”

• “The overarching idea is that through reflection, students would avoid simplistic understandings
of revision as editorial changes and instead use their metacognitive writing knowledge to
assess their work and make meaningful changes to their texts.”

• “. . . [T]he most effective teacher comments are often ones that resist line-by-line correction
and instead offer questions for students to grapple with or large-scale rhetorical concerns to
address.”

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 20: Writing Assignment - Self Review

For Next Lesson:

Make complete essay draft and completed Lesson 20 Self Review assignment available to instructor in
preparation for conferencing during Lessons 21-23.
Read Lesson 21: Self Review - Content and Structure before next lesson.

Lesson 20 [Link]
30
 REVISING
LESSON 21:
Self Review - Content and Structure
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for making revisions to content

and structure.

• Consider using class time for individual conferences.

• Discuss the self evaluation writing exercise model.

• Discuss content and structural revisions in terms of “higher-level rhetorical concerns”—meeting task
requirements, meeting audience expectations, fulfilling purposes for writing, coherent organization,
clarity of position, strength of supporting argument, use of rhetorical tools.

• Consider a close comparison of the model essay first draft and revised draft, as presented in
the lesson.

• You may find it useful to ask students to generate a “track changes” version of their essay that
shows the extent and nature of their revisions to content and structure.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 21: Writing Assignment - Self Review - Content and Structure
Revise content and structure of essay draft.

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 22: Self Review - Language before next lesson.
Continue revising content and structure as needed.

Lesson 21 [Link]
31
 REVISING
LESSON 22:
Self Review - Language
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for revisions to language.

• Continue one-on-one conferences.

• This lesson makes the point that while language use and mechanics are important for successful
college writing, students shouldn’t let their insecurities about language use discourage them; the
quality of their ideas and effort count for just as much, if not more, in most college settings. This
message can be especially valuable for English language learners to hear.

• The lesson provides some guidance around word choice, sentences, paragraphs, tone, and use
of sources. Of course these topics are enormous, and mastery of them requires years of reading
and writing experience. Nevertheless, we introduce them in CRWE so that students and instructors
may have a starting place for discussion. Please bring to bear your own expertise and resources
as needed to help students improve their language skills and place language use into proper
perspective within the broader topic of college-level composition.

• The discussion on word choice and sentence construction emphasizes clarity as an overriding
objective.

• The discussion of paragraphs presents an opportunity once again to stress the logical sequence of
ideas as the driving organizational strategy of any competent academic composition. The section
on paragraph continuity helps to emphasize this point.

• The discussions on tone and use of sources present an opportunity to again stress the
importance of understanding what is expected in college. Students should be encouraged to
develop a metacognitive awareness of college as a discourse community with its own conventions
for meaning-making and expectations for behavior. Part of becoming a competent writer in
college entails socialization into the conventions and expectations operative within the culture
of college academics.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 22: Writing Assignment - Self Review - Language

For Next Lesson:

Continue revising draft as needed.
Make a complete draft, whatever its revision status, available for peer review in the next lesson.

Lesson 22 [Link]
32
 REVISING
LESSON 23:
Peer Reviews
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• This lesson represents the third period available for one-on-one

conferences, should you elect to conduct them.

• Students should at this point have a complete draft available for peer review. In many cases, the
draft they submit for review may already reflect substantial revision.

• A peer review worksheet is provided. It is rigorous and should not only provide writers with valuable
feedback, but also give a good indication of the reviewer’s ability to analyze an essay, use key terms
and concepts, and contribute in a critical and constructive way to the community.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 23: Writing Assignment - Peer Review of Essay Draft

For Next Lesson:

Read Lesson 24: Finalizing before next lesson.
Continue revising in response to feedback, as needed.

Lesson 23 [Link]
33
 FINALIZING
LESSON 24:
Finalizing
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Consider using class time for finalizing essays—formatting, compiling

works cited, proofreading.

• Discuss formatting styles in terms of disciplinary conventions.

• Discuss academic disciplines. This concept is unfamiliar to many students prior to college, but can
help them better understand how postsecondary institutions and culture are organized, and thus
how they themselves are situated within them.

• Discuss again intellectual integrity, especially in relation to ethos in academia.

• Students should understand the importance of producing polished work; it demonstrates

conscientiousness and an ability to meet expectations—both of which are in high demand in
both school and career. They should associate their ethos as writers and students, and perhaps
eventually as professionals, with their willingness to learn and conform to conventions of
presentation: precision, accuracy, integrity, and polish.

• Final Essay evaluation criteria are included in this lesson, so that students are aware of them
before submitting.

Writing Assignment:
Finalizing essay.

For Next Lesson:

Continue finalizing essay as needed.
Students should be prepared to submit their final essay next lesson.

Lesson 24 [Link]
34
 FINALIZING
LESSON 25:
College-Ready Writing
Notes and suggested discussion topics:

• Students should submit their finalized essay. This is a Milestone.

• Discuss writing in academic disciplines.

• Discuss the importance of competent writing skills in school, work, and civic life.

• The final writing assignment, College-Ready Writing, provides an opportunity for students to
demonstrate metacognitive awareness by placing writing skills in broader context and reflecting on
themselves as writers. Evaluation criteria from the CRWE Competencies Framework are provided.

Writing Assignment:
Lesson 25: Writing Assignment - Submit Your Essay
Lesson 25: Writing Assignment - College-Ready Writing

Lesson 25 [Link]
35