Granite Hills
Friday, April 8, 2011
Minutes
In Attendance: Joni Mah, Serita Collette, Rachel Valenzuela, Barbra Ruggles, Cindi
Davis- Harris, Micah Jendian, Gerald Lopez, Tracey B., Angela, Jennifer, Jim S., Carrie
G., Matt D., Juliette, Teisha C., Rachael M., Maria
Meeting began at 8:20 a.m. Last meeting some teams had implemented sequence and
some still needed to implement.

What is one thing you have done that you see as successful in the teaching of
the sequence?
Answers: Tracey tried out the “I Have a Dream” sequence which is a work in \
progress. Started with a Dr.Seuss political cartoon. Look at 4 paragraphs before
reading the entire text. Explained some concepts of language. Drew pictures of the 4
paragraphs. Watched the speech. Students engaged in the video. Looked at cadence of
speaker, completed a vocab pre-reading activity that worked well. Identified the biblical
allusions. Taught the précis – thought is was better than a regular “summary.” Enough of
the students had success with it and enough of the students were engaged with it and
made it worthwhile. Not good idea to work on this while teaching the term paper. Maybe
put it in a different place.

What were the challenges?
Answers: Carrie- where do we get it to fit. We have loss of furlough days.
Rachael- Students did color marking on Steven King’s horror text. Taught color
marking in the fall and didn’t have to spend much time “re-teaching” this skill.
Kids need a sequence to fully understand everything. I had to scrap a novel and
this was a challenge.
Serita- She wasn’t sure what the writing would look like. She felt like a lot of the
writing was regurgitation and not independent thinking.
Cindi explained that a nice place to start in the fall would be to look at samples of
student work. What does this work look like? How do I know what I want this
work to look like? It is easy to identify when students understand content. It takes
a while to begin to identify they have understood the “skill” that I wanted them to
learn. There is an angst when we have to give up content to teach this. You may
not have to give up as much content as we think. Is it about understanding the
content of the text? Or the ability for our students to understand and read the text
independently. It is a different way to think about our teaching. Levels of concern
and change. I see the concern, How does it affect me? How do I accept the
change?
Freshman level- dept decide to teach précis then it won’t be as hard in the
successive levels. We are completely where we need to be today.

What were questions that came about during the teaching/learning process?

What concerns do you have?
Micah- pool together some information about evidence that will be at your disposal when
teaching evidence. Definition of evidence, spent some time discussing the Types of
Evidence. Identify the evidence, then look at this piece of evidence and see how it
connects to the claim, then another step is to show this evidence supports a specific claim
but also see how it all supports the claim (s). How does this further connect to ideas of
audience, purpose, genre, etc?
Wish this would have been given earlier so that she was clear about what definition to
give to her students. Juliette asked “How do we relate this to our students’ reality?”
Micah gave the example parents tell you that you can’t go to college. Give reasons and
examples to explain how the argument works and is supported.
Tracey suggested that we start the year with an exercise that works to relate to the
teaching tasks that will motivate and engage the students to be interested in learning the
key concepts of rhetoric.
Cindi- Why should you care about this? Students in class with their cell phone/texting. I
have a video documentary- Digital Nation. How many of you believe you can multi-task?
Argument is based on the evidence. MIT researched this topic.
Micah-The texts you are reading this semester are not really about the texts you are
reading. Students need to have places that allow them to build their proficiency. The text
is a place to practice the skill.
We are now having conversations that ask “Who is our audience? What is the purpose?”
and how it applies to the work we are doing.
Juliette- It seems like this would still apply for literature based work. Micah explained
that non-fiction works best with teaching these skills because it becomes more accessible
to students. It is smaller than a 300 page novel and allows them to engage themselves
with the text and work.
Maybe in Fall 2011 sequence- choose a focus on evidence (identifying, analyzing,
evaluation) that you want your students to be able to complete.
Last time we met- look at wiki for power point presentation on evidence.
Title and author of text, overview of the text, why you chose it:
9th grade- “A disease of infatuation” by June Collwood, connect to Romeo & Juliet
10th grade- Binge Drinking”- John Tucker. 4 pages long, but it is too long so we need to
adapt the text
11th grade- American Dream articles being reviewed that Cindi sent her.
12th grade- special classes with special needs, need more time together.
10:00 am -For the next hour, work with your texts and complete deep, close analysis
work. Use the Template Overview from the CSU Expository Reading and Writing
Course to write your assignment sequence. You need to CHART the text before you do
anything else.
Use the Constructing an Assignment Sequence as a resource in your assignment sequence
writing. What am I going to ask them to do? What do they need to do/know to
accomplish that goal?
Micah- The summary writing- must chart text. Micah uses in his class this process of
having students write a summary without charting. Then he teaches them and reviews a
chapter on “The Art of Summary.” Students then chart the text and see how they missed
so many pieces the first time through. Students gain confidence in their writing and are
encouraged to try harder with more challenging tasks. In 2 weeks time, they then reflect
on their first summary writing and the second attempt at summary writing.
11:10- Cindi presented power point on Prompt Writing
1:30 staff returned late from lunch. Cindi handed out the copied presentation on
“Creating an Assignment Sequence” for staff to use to remind them of the parts of the
sequence and tasks they will use in the writing their own sequences.
2:30- staff comes back together after working in teams on sequence development
2:35 final announcements include
Save the Date: ECAP Symposium May 26th
Wiki – check it for updated requested items on Claims Organizer, Samples that show the
difference between a rhetorical précis and a summary (not shared with students, for
professional supplemental understanding).
Fall 2010- wiki does not have ALL assignment sequences that were written in the FALL
2010 posted. An assignment sequence editor can be paid hours for posting and polishing
the sequences.
Finish and upload Spring 2011 Assignment Sequence to the Wiki- due June 2011
Teaching Journal due April 15th in order for stipends to be paid out by Cal-Pass