Workshop on Progressions:
A Structured Series
of Related Assignments
Leading to a Student Essay
Philosophical Structure
“In my beginning is my end…
In my end is my beginning.”
T.S. Eliot
“East Coker,” Four Quartets
Progressions as Inquiries
• Writing as Space not only to Articulate Ideas,
but also as a Means of Locating Them
• Repetition with Variation
• Reiteration of Questions, with Evolving
Contexts
• Try to Stay out of the Way!
What am I Trying to Do?
Goals of “Sport and American Culture”
• Content
• Skills
Goals of Unit on Boxing and Race
• Content
• Skills
Structuring the Assignments
• Affording students space for developing skills
integral to writing the essay:
See Assignments #1, #2, #7
• Affording students space for considering issues
of content that will appear in the essay:
See Assignments #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7
• Using the classroom as a space to further
enable the students’ developing ideas
Progressions as Sites
of Reflection
• What’s Working/What isn’t?
• Suggestions for Revision?