With the advent of the Social Studies MEAP, the days of exclusive use of multiple choice, matching, and short answer testing are over in history classrooms. Teachers will need to help their students learn to compose effective expository essays that address historical problems of various types. The Collins Writing Types offers an effective method of helping students master writing skills they will need not only to succeed on the MEAP, but much more importantly, to become an effective communicator in their world.
For this assignment, you must create at least one writing prompt for each of the 5 types of Collins writing. Type 1 and 2 prompts should be fairly easy. Prompts for Types 3, 4 and 5 will be more difficult. Each must include the 7 elements listed on the handout. The following should distinguish them:
Your Type Three prompt should involve a question to which a student can respond in a focused way to clarify an issue in a day's or week's reading. It might function as a review question or a prompt for the next day's Dimension 3 activity.
Your Type Four prompt should raise a question revolving around a central theme of the unit which you believe is important enough to have students spend some extended reflection and response time on in Type Four reading and response exercises. It may involve as much as two days of class time and should require students to respond to a theme already treated over at least that many days.
Your Type Five prompt should sustain an extended investigation that may take at least the length of the unit to complete. It need not be for actual public presentation, but a presentation in some format outside the classroom would enhance its authenticity. Examples of such might be an article for the school paper, an investigative piece for the local newspaper, a research paper for a National History Day composition, a scholarly essay for the Concord Review, a national professional journal for publication of historical scholarship produced by high school students.
Each prompt should be focused on an appropriate topic from your chapter. You must ultimately incorporate a Type One, a Type Two, and a Type Three prompt into your unit plan. If your unit includes a written unit project, you should also consider incorporating Type Four and/or Type Five prompt to guide student performance in completing the written project. When incorporating Types Four and Five into your unit plan, be sure to provide at least one day during the unit for peer reading and editing.
Refer to your notes and handouts on Collins writing to guide you in preparing the prompts. Keep in mind the different types and what they require. Four types 3, 4, and 5, be sure to include the 7 elements of the assignments, specify appropriate focus correction areas, and for type 5 the professional criteria that must be met (e.g. Chicago Manual of Style footnotes or endnotes and bibliography).
Due on the date specified in the syllabus.