Blake Wilder

Teaching Artifact: Final Exam for English 1110

Although having an exam in a writing course is a bit of an anomaly, I include an exam in my
First-Year Composition course because it is another opportunity to scaffold learning for my
students. The structure of the exam incites and deepens student metacognition by explicitly
asking students to think about the answers they are giving on the exam itself. Moreover, by
prompting students to deploy the strategies of interpretative analysis that theyve learned over
the course of the term in the essay portion, the exam reinforces the idea that some answers are
better than others even if there is no singularly right answer.
The exam involves three parts: an initial pre-writing on an essay prompt, a short answer
section, and a revised essay. Students are given the prompt for Part I by itself. The detailed
prompt makes it clear how the assessment builds on multiple aspects that students have learned
in the class. First, the prompt calls explicit attention to free-writing as a brainstorming strategy
and helps students imagine how the work they do in Part I will serve them in Part III. It also
reminds students of specific terms discussed throughout the term that can serve as interpretative
lens. Lastly, it presents a quote as the organizing principle and a series of questions that guide
students through possible essay topics. The prompt also recalls specific texts and media artifacts
that might serve as evidence.
After about 20 minutes, I pass out Parts II and III. The majority of the short answers are
drawn from the writing textbook used in the course: John Trimbles Writing with Style:
Conversations on the Art of Writing. On the accompanying artifact, I have integrated my answer
key using blue text and condensed white spaces that would have been left for student answers.
Although the specificity of the short answers might seem narrow and prescriptive, I emphasize
these points (and expand on their significance for interpretative analysis in the writing process)
throughout the term. I tell students to study all the bold terms and italicized maxims that appear
in Writing with Style, so they will know the content that will appear in the short answer section
ahead of time. In feedback, students have specifically commented that having the writing with
style book helped [them] look back at it for techniques to use. By having my them study for a
test on principles of good writing, students will more thoroughly internalize these principles as
part of their writing process. When students are more aware of the principles that guide their
writing practices, they can draw on those metacognitive skills to improve their writing in future
courses as well.
After a series of questions, students encounter my capitalized exhortation to PAUSE
and reread their writing from part I before answering the final reflective questions, which are
also distilled from Trimbles writing advice. By having students apply these reflections to their
free-writing from Part I rather than simply recalling them as principles, they are prompted to
develop a greater awareness of their own composition process. Asking students to think about
what they discovered as they put their thoughts into words guides them into an interpretative
stance. They are reminded that how they communicate and support their ideas matter more than
the rightness of those ideas. The three reflective questions that appear at end of Part II are the
key point of the exam where students use the skills theyve developed throughout the course to
synthesize their pre-writing from Part I and the principles of good writing from Part II to produce
a more focused and supported interpretative analysis in Part III.
Although students do not specifically mention the exam in the end-of-term feedback, the
way they describe the benefits of the course speak directly to the goals and structure of the exam.

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One student said that the course caused [them] to think about what [they were] actually trying to
say when [they] wrote. Instead of writing unconsciously, [they] spent time thinking about what
[they were] trying to prove and [they] developed that. Also [they] learned how to serve the
readers interest instead of [their] own. What this student claims they learned from the course
mirrors the reflective stance that the three questions at the end of Part II are designed to provoke.
Similarly, another student highlighted how to they use reflections on their writing process to
strengthen their analysis, saying they learned how to observe and discover what [they] should
write first [and also] how to cite the secondary sources to make [their] essay more readable
and convincing. Another student said they learned how to backup [their] claims with examples
and to clearly identify what [they are] trying to explain in [their] writing. And a fourth student
learned how to write to please the reader and to keep [their] topics clear and to the point.
Again and again, students offer concise and powerful takeaways of how my course helped them
to improve their writing by thinking critically about their own writing process and using
evidence to support an interpretative analysis. Although students dont mention the exam by
name, I attribute the clarity of the student feedback (and students sense of ownership over their
own learning that these comments convey) to the exam itself. When a student tells me: the
rhetorical triangles are helpful. What, how, and why? Those questions helped me think
analytically, I cant help but think that the culminating exam that asked the student to recall
those rhetorical triangles and apply them to their own writing process played a major role in
helping that student to internalize those ways of thinking as part of their writing process.

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English 1110.02 Final Exam

Part I: (20 points)
Read the prompt below and begin brainstorming for an essay response to it. There is a series of
questions to get you going in the right direction. You do not have to answer every question, but
you should consider them as you try to find something that you think is worth saying.
Remember: Part I is specifically the pre-writing part of the writing process. You will not be
expected to have an organizing claim. Mostly, I will be looking to see if you are brainstorming to
come up with ideas and if you are considering both claims and evidence. In Part I, you dont
need to explicitly support your claims with evidence, but you should be thinking of both and
trying to find the pieces that will build your overall claim/thesis in Part III. You can make some
lists and scratch work if you want to, but you should also be putting sentences together to begin
thinking about possible ways to communicate your ideas. Basically, you should think of Part I,
as a rough draft in whatever way is most helpful to you.
You will find it helpful to remember the idea of interdependent or zero-sum game. Also
remember, the definitions of violence and identity. Violence is (almost) always expressed
with transitive verbs, which means that they have to have an object. And identity is actually
based on an idea of sameness or sharing some characteristic with a group.
Prompt:
What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand
others.
Consider the above quote from writer Carlos Macias. Use this quote as a jumping off point to
think about relationships between America and the world at large. What is the relation between
American culture and violence in other parts of the world? Is this relation something that most
Americans are aware of? How do certain values associated with an American identity relate to
violence in other parts of the world? How do those values contribute to a situation that might
encourage violence elsewhere in the world? If an American identity sets us apart from
something else, what is that something else? You should also consider how an American
identity might be shaped by an us and them dynamic and what problems that might lead to.
Use examples from our recent readings and discussions to support your ideas. You can think
about war and imperialism (using the Stacy Takacs article, the Madonna video, and/or reactions
to Bin Ladens death) or about conflict diamonds (using any of the sources we discussed on
Monday). Make sure to remember to address the idea of rhetoric explicitly. Dont limit yourself
to talking about the issues. Consider how the way you encounter those issues shapes what you
think about them.

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English 1110.02

Violence and Identity

Name:_________________

Part II
Label the rhetorical triangles: (9 points)
ethos

author

How?

-centered
pathos

logos

audience

subject

Why?

What?

Name the four types of sentence structure: (4 points)

simple, complex, compound, and complex-compound
What is unconscious writing? and How can it be remedied? (2 points)
Unconscious Writing is simply putting thoughts on paper without regard for anyone else.
Unconscious Writing is remedied by reflecting on what the writing/reading process ideally
involves.
The process itself is your teacher. (1 point)
What is pre-writing? What are some concrete strategies to accomplish it? How does it help you
write better? (2 points)
Pre-writing is a way to explore your thoughts before you begin writing the final product. Freewriting, brainstorming, listing, concept mapping, and notice and focus are all pre-writing
strategies. Pre-writing helps you identify your main ideas early so you can communicate them
more directly.
Define the following terms as they relate to writing: (3 points)
objectivity a writers awareness of himself from the readers vantage point
empathy the capacity to put yourself imaginatively in the readers mind
courtesy an appreciation of the readers rights and feelings
What are four specific ways to serve your reader: (4 points)
1. phrase your thoughts clearly so youre easy to follow
2. speak to the point so you dont waste readers time
3. anticipate their reactions (boredom, confusion, fatigue, irritation)
4. offer them variety and wit to lighten their work
5. talk to them in a warm, open manner instead of pontificating to them like a know-it-all
A good opener uses what kind of approach: (1 point)
a front-door approach

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List three principles of good diction: (3 points)
1. Conciseness
2. Vigorous verbs
3. Freshness
Define continuity. How can you achieve it in your writing? and Why is it important? (2 points)
Continuity linking every sentence and paragraph is one of the most important characteristics of
good writing
What are the five essential elements of a good essay: (5 points)
1. A well-defined thesis
2. A clear strategy
3. Strong evidence
4. A clean narrative line (i.e. continuity through the sentences and paragraphs)
5. A persuasive closing
PAUSE. Take 3-5 minutes and re-read what you wrote for Part I. Answer the following
questions based on that re-reading.
What did you learn as you were writing it? What idea did you discover as you were putting your
thoughts into words?
(1 point)
Ask yourself: What am I really trying to say in this piece? Well, what are you trying to say?
What is the main idea?
(1 point)
Anticipate your reader: What is the big idea they need to get? What problems might they have in
understanding what you are trying to say? What steps will you take to serve the reader? How can
you help them understand what you have to say?
(2 point)

Part III: (40 points) Using the principle of good writing highlighted on Part II and these
reflective questions, revise what you wrote for Part I. The piece you write for Part III should
be organized around a claim and your paragraphs should follow a structure based on the most
effective way to communicate your main point to your reader. If you want to take more time to
pre-write or to outline, thats fine. Signal where your piece for Part III starts with a title that
reflects the main idea.