Rhetoric and Emulation Workshop

This last week, I had the opportunity to receive some AP English literature training as well to hear Kelly Gallagher speak about improving students' reading and writing skills. I was blown away by the number of practices, ideas, and concepts that I've been exposed to before but that seemed so much more tangible, doable, and impactful the way they were explained. (Of course, maybe the biggest difference is that I've changed - not that the presenters have.) In combining all that I learned with what I already planned on doing next year, I've come up with the following overall plan:

Each week, I want to focus on what I'm currently calling a rhetoric and emulation workshop - a sort of combination of readers and writers workshop. I envision finding excellent mentor texts that we would do close readings of, which would involve looking at not only the literary devices but also the rhetorical strategies and rhetorical situation of the text. We would then use those texts as specific models we would strive to emulate in a kind of condoned plagiarism of format and overall concept.

I still have a lot to flesh out, but I'm excited to see where we can go!

I'd strongly encourage you to check out Gallagher's website and work: http://kellygallagher.org/.