THE EXPOSITORY READING AND WRITING COURSE (ERWC) WAS INITIALLY DEVELOPED AS AN ALTERNATIVE CURRICULUM FOR STUDENTS IN GRADE TWELVE WHO HAD NOT DEMONSTRATED READINESS FOR COLLEGE-LEVEL

ENGLISH COURSES.

THE REACH OF THE CURRICULUM, HOWEVER, IS NOW EXTENDING TO THE MIDDLE SCHOOL GRADES.

THE ERWC PLAYED A SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WRITING PORTION OF THE COMMON CORE.

Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC)

Overview of the ERWC and EAP

The Goal: College ReadinessThe EAP: Early Assessment ProgramRemediation Data for Burbank Unified School

DistrictThe ERWC: Expository Reading and Writing

CourseThe ERWC and the Common Core

TAPPING INTO THE FLEXIBILITY AND CREATIVITY OF THE ERWC TEMPLATE

DEVELOPING A MODULEGRADE 10

“ THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY”

ERWC Template:Its Use and Creativity

Structure of the Module

Reading Rhetorically Pre- Reading Reading Post-Reading

Connecting Reading to WritingWriting RhetoricallyRevising and EditingEvaluating and Responding

Major Principles to Follow

The Interplay between the Reading of a text and the Writing of an essay

The Process of Writing as Recursive and Dynamic, not Linear Process which Consists of Distinct Units or Steps

The Texts as Research: The Discovery of the Voices of an Ongoing Discussion

The Development of the Habits of Mind which Lead to Complexity, i.e. Depth of Knowledge

Topic and Text Selection

Topic Appeal and Focus. Is it: Appropriate and appealing to the students? At grade level? Flexible so that a prompt can be developed for

either argumentative essay or expository essay?

Rigor of the Texts. Does they: Have a reading level that is at grade level? Provide a variety of perspectives?

Non-fictionNon-fiction LiteraryLiterary

“Friends Without Borders” Facebook as Big Brother

“Obama Warns Teens” Protecting Personal Info

“Almost Famous” Acting Bad for Fame

“Teens and Online Privacy” A Pew Survey

The Cold Equations Technology’s Inhumanity

The Pedestrian The Loss of Community

“Intelligent Car” Evasiveness of Technology

Text Selection: The Bad Side

Non-FictionNon-Fiction

“HS Girls Embrace Tech” Science Internships

“Teen Millionaire” Selling a $30 Company

“Teens and the News” A News Team

“The Good and Bad” Opinion Piece

Text Selection: The Good Side

Key Concept and Vocabulary

Activity One: From the provided text, select a “key concept”

which is not simply a new vocabulary word. Devise an activity to introduce the “key concept.”

Activity Two: Select “new vocabulary” from the provided text. Devise an activity to introduce the “key

vocabulary”.

Reading and Rereading

Activity Three: Pick a strategy to establish literal meaning. Create an activity that makes use of the strategy.

Activity Four: Create an activity to annotate a selected text. Focus the annotation on exploring how the text

works to inform or persuade: e.g. connotation.

Thinking Critically and Negotiating Voices

Activity Five: Create an activity to annotate a selected text. Focus the annotation on exploring how the text

works to inform or persuade through Logos, Ethos, and Pathos.

Activity Six: Complete “models of language” to integrate and

situate other voices.

Concluding Thoughts: Some Tools

The PAPA SquareEditing ChecklistHolistic Scoring GuideDepth of Knowledge