The first unit this semester will focus on building writing skills crucial for college. Whereas later units will each culminate in an essay, this first unit will present shorter passages in a graded portfolio. By centering attention on short assignments, we can work on the relationship between paragraphs, putting off for later the challenge of generating a larger essay structure.

Our topical focus will be YouTube videos that teach: What makes YouTube a good medium for instruction and education? What makes some videos more effective than others? What, if anything, does this suggest about how best to reach readers in a written essay?

Key skills covered:

• vivid description that takes the place of viewing a video
• narrowed focus on a key quality/aspect of a source
• comparison of two sources with an eye to learning something about one of them
• the three Aristotelian appeals: logos, ethos, pathos.
• introducing an unfamiliar to the reader
• introducing an essay’s project to the reader