Planning the Course -- Overview

Composing Inquiry is meant to be a resource. It includes much more material than you can teach in a single term. Because you won't be teaching from Chapter 1 through to the end, you'll have to make some initial choices about how to organize your course, what material you will assign to students and how you will balance helping students initiate their own inquiries with helping them to put their results into a written form.

We know teachers are too busy to read the entire text carefully before beginning their planning process, and frankly, we don't think teachers need to read everything first.  Instead, we've organized this section to help you make initial decisions about working with the book in a way that fits your course goals. We've organized these resources into five broad categories:

General Suggestions: making initial decisions about what to include in your course

•     understanding the differences between Assignment Sequences and Sample Projects
•     start here if you need an overview of Composing Inquiry and a sense of the resources we've included in this site

Choosing Assignments: an overview of the Assignment Sequences

•     an overview of the twenty-three assignment sequences detailing the kind of inquiry and writing required in each
•     start here if you know which methods you want to teach or if you are looking for details about the various assignment sequences

Choosing Projects: an overview of the Sample Projects

•     an overview of the four sample projects detailing the kinds of inquiry and writing required
•     turn to this section if you want to work with the projects or if you are looking for details about the different projects

Choosing Readings: selecting from among the twenty readings

•     an overview of each of the readings, including an abstract, a list of what methods are illustrated in the reading, which assignment sequences include the reading, where the reading might logically be added to other sequences or projects, and links to any class activities or resources using that reading
•     start here if you have an idea of which readings you are interested in using or if you want more details about the readings and how the assignments make use of them

Pacing the Work: designing the schedule to balance inquiry and writing

•     sample syllabi featuring different versions of the decisions about assignments, readings and methods you might make
•     exploded syllabi -- day to day plans -- for specific assignments

[ Home ] [ Planning the Course -- General Suggestions ] [ Planning the Course -- Assignment Sequences Overview ] [ Planning the Course -- Sample Projects Overview ] [ Planning the Course -- Choosing Readings ] [ Planning the Course -- Pacing the Work ]

Send mail to mmarshall@miami.edu with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2008 Composing Inquiry: Methods and Readings for Investigation and Writing
Last modified: 02/15/08. Contributors to this site include: Margaret Marshall, Andrew Strycharski, April Mann, Isis Artze-Vega, Patty Malloy, John Wafer.