Sequencing is a planning structure in which assignments, activities, and readings build from the previous and lead into the next, moving incrementally toward the accomplishment of course goals.

Each sequence typically includes 2 or 3 short writing assignments (1-3 pages each) and a longer project (4-5+ pages).

Sequence 1 – A Narrative Approach to Concepts, Invention, and Inquiry

Organizing questions for students include:

• How do I identify, develop, and describe an idea or concept to hold readers’ interest?
• How can I connect personal observations or experiences to a larger idea?
• How do I communicate effectively in a particular rhetorical situation?
• What strategies will help me tell a story that goes beyond individual experience or reminiscence?

Writing assignments focus on

• Description/Observation
• Personal narratives or memoir (Note: Memoir is not required.)
• Narratives that look beyond the writer’s personal experience (e.g., reporting other people’s experiences, historical narratives, family history, ethnography)
• Responses and reactions

Readings used in this sequence focus on

• Description
• Narrative
• Essays that combine strategies, including description and narrative
• Ideas about writing and strategies for writing

Sequence 2 – Writing to Inform

Organizing questions for students include

• What do others have to say about an idea, concept, or question, and how can I use writing to put those ideas into conversation with my own idea(s) on the topic?
• What is research for? What can I do with it?
• What is information?
• How do I identify, apply, and assess information resources?
• What are effective ways to present information?

Sequence 2 writing assignments focus on

• Annotated bibliographies
• Reviews
• Informative articles or multimodal projects that include multiple perspectives as well as summaries, analyses, and syntheses
• Balanced interpretations developed from varied sources
• Rhetorical analyses

Readings used in Sequence 2 include

• Reviews of books or films
• Reviews of multiple works, put in relation to each other
• Bibliographic or historiographic essays
• Surveys of a field or topic
• Overviews or introductions
• Pieces that pull on multiple readings and work toward a synthesis
• Essays that show engagement with sources or raise questions about using sources
• Articles on a topic that present information with a high degree of objectivity (e.g., “good journalism”)

Sequence 3 – Developing an Approach through Research and Argumentation

In designing your Sequence 3, we ask you to conceptualize the final project in ways that help students think beyond a high school “research paper” and toward an intellectual project.

Organizing questions for students include

• What do I want to learn? What do I want to investigate?
• How do I investigate my question or topic? What methods do I use?
• What kinds of original contributions or arguments could be made about my question?
• How can I write about my topic to keep readers interested and engaged?
• How are arguments constructed?

Writing assignments focus on

• Incremental steps toward a project that develops some kind of critical approach to a concept, idea, issue, or question
  • Steps build upon the variety of writing experiences students have engaged in throughout the semester
• Final completion of the project; for example:
  • an exploratory research proposal
  • an in-depth annotated bibliography
  • a critical researched essay or position paper
  • a digital storytelling project
  • a “conference paper” intended for oral delivery.

Readings used in Sequence 3 include

• Academic as well as more journalistic or popular articles and essays that use research to make an argument or explore an issue from a critical perspective.
• Examples of work similar to the project students are completing, including multimodal examples.
• Readings on writing and/or digital media that help students become familiar with how writers work.
• Reflective essays that encourage students to think about their own learning in the course.