Resources for TAs Teaching 200

Teaching RWS200 - Sample Syllabi, Assignments, Prompts, Schedules & Teaching Materials

Textbooks for 200 with useful thematic sequences

• New Humanities Reader

• Contexts Site and textbook: http://contexts.org/  The site and the textbook take key issues - race, immigration, new media, literacy, etc. - and explore them from a range of angles using short texts. Produced by sociologists, but is not narrowly disciplinary and tries to find articles that are accessible and engaging. The site also includes many examples of public sphere writing, and of writing intended to enact change.

• The Presence of Others (Bedford St. Martins) textbook. "Presenting widely varying opinions on provocative topics, The Presence of Others invites every student to enter a dialogue with the readings and with accompanying commentaries from the editors, student writers, and experts in other disciplines and fields. Noted scholars Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz — whose takes on political and academic culture differ markedly — have selected a range of visual and written texts that cover issues of importance in academic and public life, from education to ethics, science and technology to American cultural myths."

• Rereading America: "Rereading America has remained the most widely adopted book of its kind because of its unique approach to the issue of cultural diversity. Unlike other multicultural composition readers that settle for representing the plurality of American voices and cultures, Rereading Americaencourages students to grapple with the real differences in perspectives that arise in our complex society. With extensive editorial apparatus that puts readings from the mainstream into conversation with readings from the margins, Rereading America provokes students to explore the foundations and contradictions of our dominant cultural myths."

• Unit 1: Construct an account of an argument and identify elements of context embedded in it

   

• Unit 2: Follow avenues of investigation, Notice context, Research, and Evaluate how understanding context changes argument 

• Unit 3: Given the common concerns of two or more arguments, discuss how the claims of these arguments modify, complicate or qualify one another:

• Unit 4 (Optional): Consider own student life as context, Position life in relation to text arguments, shape own analysis through this framework

• All Purpose Materials for Teaching
  Pre-reading exercises, group work, class discussion 
  strategies, rhetorical reading, charting, drafting, peer review, metadiscourse, teaching with visual texts, etc.

• RWS 100 FrankenReader
  Here is last semester's "FrankenReader," a set of excerpts from 14 popular argument/rhetoric textbooks. 

• General Resources for Teaching Writing

  Summaries of research; bibliographies, organizations, concepts, classroom activities, links, etc.

• Resources on Grammar,  Mechanics, 
  ESL, Citation, Research Tools, etc.

• Announcements and Discussion Board