Introduction to Sequencing

[barclay_barrios]

This post is part one of a continuing series on building a course around the textbook Emerging. This series will continue through December. Sequencing is a key feature of our pedagogy here at Florida Atlantic University. By sequencing, we mean that the assignments of the semester build on each other, often by developing a common theme. Thus, while the first paper focuses only on the first reading, subsequent assignments work with multiple readings, continually returning to previous essays. We believe that using a sequenced approach to writing assignments emphasizes process-centered strategies for writing, since students return not only to their drafts but to the ideas and texts on which those drafts are based, encouraging them to revise not simply words but positions, ideas, and thinking.  Sequencing also shows students how ideas reverberate across readings and disciplines, providing them with a more complete model of how knowledge is created and circulated both inside and outside the academy.