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Teaching Guide for New PWR 2 Instructors

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The guide below provides an easy set of links to PWR 2-specific materials, designed to function as a hub for links from Teaching Writing, Canvas, and external websites that you would find helpful to refer to as you plan, prepare, and teach PWR 2 for the first time (and even in future years).

Most Career-track lecturers teach PWR 2 for the first time during the second year of their appointment; as with PWR 1, new PWR 2 instructors will participate in a set of multi-day training sessions designed to prepare them for transitioning to teaching the sophomore-level requirement.

PWR 2 is designed to build on students' introduction to research in PWR 1 and serve as a bridge  to their later work in WIM courses and the writing of Honors Theses. Students in PWR 2 continue  to focus on research-based writing, making rhetorical choices about format, genre, diction, style, and media as appropriate to the goals of their research and to the audiences they wish to  address. PWR 2 adds a focus on delivery–the fifth canon of rhetoric–and thus on the written,  oral, and multimedia presentation of research. 

Quick Links

Resources and Sample Materials

Use the links below to navigate resources and sample materials designed to help you design an effective and engaging PWR 2 experience for your students.

  • Designing your PWR 2 syllabus and schedule.  As you design your syllabus for the course, you’ll want to pace your course to move the students through the required assignment sequence.  
  • Developing your PWR 2 assignments. The centerpiece of PWR 2 is a research project that allows students to research, write, translate, and deliver an in-depth investigation. This project consists of several parts, including a research proposal (in oral and written form), a written research-based argument, a final research-based presentation, and a composition in an alternate genre or mode. 
  • Designing effective PWR 2 learning experiences for students. PWR 2 class activities  should have clear learning objectives and should be designed to scaffold the major assignments during the quarter.  Teaching Writing contains an archive of useful PWR 2 activities that you can adapt for your own classes.
  • Holding PWR 2 office hours and conferences.  PWR 2 lecturers structure their conferences in many different ways to talk to students about their oral and written work, but no matter what is to create an individualized learning moment for the student. 
  • Assessment in PWR 2.  PWR 2 instructors provide feedback on drafts and revisions of written student work as well as their oral/multimedia presentations.
  • Useful readings for PWR 2 instructors and students.  This resource contains scholarly readings on oral communication and multimodal composing. It also includes links to some more textbook-styled readings that you might assign to your students.
  • Oral Comm Program’s "speaking” resources for students.  The Oral Communication Program has produced several video workshops for a student-facing audience.

Archived Resources from 2020-2021