Luke Huntley

Writing Assignment Design

ENG 683
Dr Shana Hartman
Overview:
Understanding bias in writing is important in order
for students to look past propaganda and skewed data.
This lessons main goal is for students to recognize
when an author might be leaving out certain
information to suit an agenda along with being able
to read between the lines. With social media becoming
the standard for how most news is obtained, its
important for students to recognize that not
everything will be 100% truthful. This doesnt mean
authors are lying, but it does mean that facts are
slightly distorted. After going over the assignments,
classroom assessments and group activities, students
should have a firm grasp on author bias while being
able to pick out hidden truths using inference skills
from the text.

These goals will be completed by going through

several objectives. First, students will be
introduced to 1st-person vs 3rd-person narrative.
Through textual readings and classroom discussion,
students will learn how 1st-person narratives only
give you information from one view-point, which means
some information might be misleading.
After establishing possible bias within 1st-person
narrative, students will closely read the text and,
based on evidence, see if there is something else
going on. This will develop inference skills.
Finally, students will use what theyve learned to
transform 1st-person texts into 3rd-person. All of this
leads to the main goal of understanding bias,
developing close-reading skills and preparing
students for research projects later on by
recognizing when an author has bias.
Context:
This lesson is meant for first year college students
taking English 111, intro to reading/composition.
Its ideal for this level of students since it

introduces them to logical follicles and will help

them determine if a resource is reliable. The lesson
will span for three days Monday-Wednesday-Friday
classes. Ideally, it could only take two days to go
over the material, assignments and assessments.
However, I feel a third day will be good in order to
drive home any key points some students may have
struggled with.
Prior to this lesson, students will have already
learned figurative language such as tone, mood, and
irony. This will have given them a strong foundation
of some writing techniques some writers use to
inflict bias in their writings.
This lesson will also lead into our study of
satire. By going over this lesson and having it build
on the figurative language lesson prior to this one,
students will be able to transfer these skills to be
able to understand the complexities of satire.
Objectives:
Although I do not follow the Common Core standards,
there are some basic objectives that all students in

English 111 must go over in order to progress. These

objectives, which are relevant to my lesson-plan are:
A. Develop close-reading skills and be able to draw
textual evidence to support your argument.
B. Understand figurative-language and how it effects
the text
C. Understanding different points-of-view and how to
switch between them.
Assessments:
The class will start with us reading John Updikes
A&P. Afterwards, well have a class discussion on
1st-person point-of-view and how the story might have
been different if it was written in 3rd-person. By
talking about the differences between 1st-3rd person
writing, well lead into author bias and how the
story can be affected depending on who writes it.
Assessments at this stage will be done through class
discussions/participation.
Afterwards, Ill break the class up into two groups
1st-person group and 3rd-person group. Each group

will write about what they experienced going on in

school over the past week. The 1st-person group will
write things down from their perspective, meaning, it
will only reflect their side of what happened. The
3rd-person group will be writing more objectively,
giving more of the facts as they are aware of them.
Once both groups are finished, they will switch
papers and see if there are any gaps in information
from one group to another.
Their lesson from Tone/Mood should be seen here
since the people writing in 1st-person will mostlikely reflect their feelings about things their
tone, more than those writing in 3rd-person. Thus, it
will be up to the 3rd-person group to pick out the
writers tone and see how it adds to any bias that
might have been added.
On the second day, well go over A&P again only
this time have everyone write a certain scene from
3rd-person. I will break them up into groups and give
everyone a certain scene to transfer into 3rd-person.
Afterwards, well come together and discuss how these
scenes might have changed once they were written in

3rd-person. Thus, the students will now know from

first-hand experience how tone and perspective can
change a story.
On the final day we will wrap-up all that we
learned about 1st-person/3rd-person and how students
must be careful to see through bias. This will lead
into our lesson on satire in the next week.
Notes:
This lesson is based around multiple objective, yet
the main goal is for students to recognize author
bias. The objectives that lead into this main goal is
understanding 1st-person/3rd-person, developing
inference skills and understanding
subjective/objective language.