Jensen's Format Writing - Daily Schedule

The Daily Schedule

Frode Jensen provides two sample schedules in the back of Jensen's Format Writing. They are weekly schedules and each week has a due date for that week's assignments. The section, To The Teacher, that is in the front of the book has assignment scheduling advice from the author. Be certain to read his advice and thoughts on choosing assignment due dates because understanding the reasoning behind a choice will help you make a better choice for yourself.

The Lesson Planner File that I Used

High school English class is a combination of several parts of language arts. I found that a planner with 3 sections could usually support the lesson plans for English class. I designed this planner for my children's English classes:
Grammar and Composition Planner | Example of Planner filled: PDF- Example
Grammar and Composition Planner [doc]
This planner's official link on the Term and Subject Planner Web Page

Things to Consider when Making the Daily Schedule

and when making other decisions for this class

1. How much other school work does your student have to do in addition to this class?
2. How many paragraphs (or essays) can you evaluate well during each *assignment time period? It is important that you not fall behind in giving feedback for this class.

*The assignment time period refers to the span of time between assignments starting immediately after an assignment is turned in and ending before the next assignment starts.

Single Paragraph Formats

Paragraph assignments: I required two paragraphs of each type. I set aside a week for each type of paragraph. The schedule for each week looked something like the schedule in the box on the left.
If you read Mr. Jensen's suggestions in the section, To The Teacher, then you might notice that I am required one less paragraph per week than the suggested three. My biggest reason for that is because this class was not the only English class that my children had each day. They usually had lessons in other parts of English.
If you look at the screen shot (below) of an actual schedule that is for one week, you will see how I planned the different parts of English class.
Click here if you cannot see the entire picture of the schedule

Consideration point: Notice in the paragraph schedule in the box above that Feedback is scheduled on Thursday. This relies on having time to evaluate both paragraphs by class time on Thursday. This was a good schedule for me, but if you have a busy Wednesday, then feedback might need to be scheduled on Friday. Try not to set yourself up to do too many important things on the same day.

A Less Guided Schedule - see the syllabus
The less guided schedule is not detailed like a daily schedule. The less guided schedule is more like a syllabus in that it should have a list of assignments and due dates. This type of schedule would have a date for at least two classes, one class that begins the assignment, and a class that completes the assignment. The schedule would include a due date for assignments. The due date for the assignments might or might not fall on a "class" date. The student is responsible for turning in the assignments by the appointed date. Keep in mind that while you are meeting with the student at least twice for a "class" the student is working on his own to complete the assignments.

5 Paragraph Essay Formats

Be sure to read Frode Jensen's comments on scheduling this chapter. His comments are in the To the Teacher section that is in the front of the book. In my edition of Jensen's Format Writing, his comments on scheduling the essays are in the middle of page 7.

Essay Assignments: The box on the left is the daily schedule routine that I decided to use for the essays. Each essay was introduced on Monday and the essay was due on Thursday at the end of class. It was my job to evaluate the essay and give feedback on Friday.

Reading Assignments: Starting with the Analogy Essay, start assigning books to read in preparation for the upcoming book reports. See schedule in the box on the right side of this page. To see six weeks worth of assignments that work in the reading assignments, see this file: PDF- Example Note: This is the same file that is linked near the top of this page.

Major Papers

Please see the example schedule in Jensen's Format Writing to get an idea of how to schedule this class. Typically with a major paper, there is no daily schedule, there are guidelines, assignments, and due dates. I do not have a day by day example for the major papers chapter - I point you to the authors example schedule on page 152 (in my 2002 edition of the book).

Donna Young, November 4, 2011

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