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How does a theme-based course look? How might a theme-based course be structured?

Scholars tend to disagree on many issues when it comes to writing course pedagogy. For those who employ theme-based course construction, pedagogical opinions vary as widely as the topics instructors choose for their courses. But just as standard writing courses roughly follow a similar pattern in how they move students from essay to essay, so too do theme-based courses.

Generally speaking, one primary goal of basic writing courses is to help move students from introspective, self-centered writing to dialogic, externally-informed composing. Thus, most of these courses begin with personal essays, created through writing prompts that ask students to draw from little more than their own knowledge and thinking abilities. As more readings, more knowledge, are heaped upon the students, they must find ways to integrate this information into subsequent essays. At first, they may mechanically reflect the words of the published writings to which they are exposed. But if they are challenged in everyday exercises to actively engage readings, they will find ways to express interaction with texts. Ultimately, these interactions will help students internalize the material they read, equipping them to write more complex types of essays, using multiple sources in a variety of interesting ways.

Generalized example:

Constructed around these major essays will be smaller assignments that build upon each other and toward each major essay. Such work might include, for example, reading exercises, freewrites, collaborative writing or in-class group work, journal-writing, and others.

Questions for further study

1. Provide other frameworks for constructing a theme-based course.
2. What other goals of a basic writing course might be fulfilled by a theme-based course construction?

To respond to these questions, you may choose to start a new FAQ or add to this one, see guidelines / instructions for Using CompFAQs Wiki

Annotated Bibliography

The foundational work in theme-based course construction specific to basic writing, this book outlines a course used by the authors, and then provides supporting studies from other voices in the field. Supporting articles deal with authority in the basic writing classroom, the discourse aspects of BRW, revision, and editing.

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/basicbib/content/cd_cdut.html

Dickson presents an alternative approach to a theme-based course from Bartholomae and Petrosky, partly in response to challenges she sees with the course construction the latter authors employ. Dickson re-envisions the coursework through the lens of a different basic writing demographic than is typically examined.

http://www.boyntoncook.com/products/0351.aspx

By framing her course within the idea of examining what defines “winning” and “losing,” Molstad attempts to focus on students developing confidence as writers. Molstad argues that because many of these students come to her class with the perception of themselves as “losers” academically, they come well-armed to examine what these terms mean in multiple contexts.

Silverman outlines a year-long writing intensive course run by the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University which combines study of American history and culture with written communication. Silverman argues that this course, focusing on “the American dream” and directed specifically at basic writing students, will help them engage in the problems and concerns of typical American students.

http://www.msu.edu/~wrac/