Timed Writing Unit

 

At the end of the unit, students should:

​

•             Demonstrate their ability to adapt their writing processes to an abbreviated time frame;

 

•             Analyze an essay exam question to understand what the question is looking for by recognizing cues and by interpreting and responding to key terms;

 

•             Produce a written document, written under time constraint, that responds effectively to the prompt and that exhibits a clear thesis, coherent organization, and content appropriate to the question.

 

 

Day 1 Timed Writing

 

PREVIOUS DAY’S HOMEWORK

• Read Allyn & Bacon Chapter 21

 

• Write

 

• How have you prepared for essay exams or other timed writing assignments in the past?

 

• What strategies do you have for writing under pressure once the exam begins?

 

• What advice would you offer to those who are new at timed writing?

 

DAILY LEARNING GOALS

 

• Reflect on test taking strategies used in the past

 

• Discuss strategies for preparing for and succeeding on timed writing assignments

 

• Practice using timed writing strategies

 

 

CLASS ACTIVITIES

 

• Small group discussion of homework

 

• Discussion of strategies to prepare for timed writing

 

• Presentation of rubric that will be used for the exam

 

• Exercise:

 

• In pairs, review the essay question below and 1) Restate the question in your own words; 2) Identify any subparts to the question; and 3) Briefly state how you would answer the question

• Question: What strategies would you use to prepare for and write a timed essay for which you have 50 minutes to complete? Think about your experiences in the past in which you had to write in a crunch and cite specific examples from those experiences in support of your argument. You have ten-minutes to draft a clear thesis statement with an outline of an argument with supporting bullet points.

​

• Discussion of Exercise

 

HOMEWORK

 

Complete timed practice exam on Blackboard:

This is an open book exam and is not designed to simply test your knowledge.  It is designed to test how well you have learned lessons from the course, including those in Chapter 23 about constructing an effective answer to timed writing exams. 

            You will have one hour to answer the following question:

            For the last two essays that you’ve written in this course, you’ve had to incorporate the work of other authors into your own analysis and synthesis. 

 

            In your own words, explain what it means to summarize, paraphrase, and quote the work of another author, then illustrate the advantages of each of these methods using examples from Stephanie Malinowski’s rhetorical analysis essay “Questioning Thomas L. Friedman’s Optimism in ’30 Little Turtles’” (Allyn & Bacon 125-127).  How does Malinowski utilize the three strategies to incorporate examples from Friedman’s article into her analysis?  Are there any places where she could have chosen a more effective strategy to incorporate Friedman’s text into her analysis?  Why?

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2 Timed Writing

 

DAILY LEARNING GOALS

 

• Discuss practice exam

 

• Analyze which timed writing strategies work best for you

 

CLASS ACTIVITIES

 

• In-class writing:

 

• How do you think you performed on the practice exam?

 

• Which timed writing strategies were useful? 

 

• What would you do differently next time?

 

• Discussion of in-class writing topics

 

HOMEWORK

 

Study for final timed writing exam