Design Document for

Freshmen Persuasive Writing

By Allegra Coe
Purpose of the Course

To teach college freshmen students how to write persuasive papers

Audience Description

The audience will be mostly college freshmen, with some upperclassmen. There will be a
minority of older college students. Students will include a range of ethnic and cultural
diversity.

Major Course Objectives

(Terminal)

Students will construct valid, well researched arguments

Course Enabling Objectives

Students will:

identify and incorporate components of argument using the rhetorical triangle

deconstruct a problem or issue
identify, acknowledge and appropriately synthesize opposing views into their
persuasive arguments
incorporate researched evidence
propose, describe and explain an appropriate solution to the problem/issue.
apply appropriate paper writing strategies to their work
utilize the mechanics of college level standard English.

identify and incorporate components of argument using the rhetorical triangle

RLO Enabling Objective

Learning Assessment for

Course

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The capstone assessment for the course are the students persuasive papers. Each paper will be
delivered at the end of a course unit. The passing grade for the course is determined by the
grade on the papers, as well as participation and activities.

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Learning Assessment for

RLO

The knowledge check at the end of the RLO will consist of three questions. Since the
concepts presented are quite tricky and can, and will, easily overlap with each other, the
questions on the knowledge check will be basic factual identification and classification
questions. (The synthesis and interdependence of these concepts with each other will be
presented in a later module with more sophisticated assessments). As such, the questions at
the end of the present RLO will be multiple choice (select one) and serve to reinforce the
basics of the concepts presented in the RLO.

Instructional Delivery
method for Course (overall)

This course will be delivered mostly online with asynchronous components and blended
learning.

Instructional Strategy for

RLO

After viewing an initial presentation on the components of the rhetorical triangle, appeals and
fallacies, students will complete a tutorial (RLO) where they must identify and differentiate
characteristics of logic, emotion and credibility. As a generative strategy, students will have to
recall, categorize and organize the three parts of the rhetorical triangle.

Media

Since the course objectives focus on written arguments and to lessen students cognitive load,
media will be kept at a minimum. There will be short animations that demonstrate concepts,
pictures, and interactive graphics but the bulk of the content will be text based and presented
in written form.

508 Accommodations

The RLO will be designed with all possible accommodations for accessibility. Documents
will be formatted so as to be read with current assistive technologies. Pictures and graphics
will be formatted with appropriate alternative text. Keyboard shortcuts will be available. All
videos will have closed captioning which can be turned off if the user prefers. If there is audio
narration, a transcript will be provided if the user wishes. The transcript will be accessible via
a tab on the menu and can be viewed alongside the relevant content. The audio narration may
be turned off if the user wishes. If necessary, the RLO will be designed with speech input
accommodation for user input. A text only version of the RLO will also be available, if
required

Course Structure Description

The overall course should consist of between 8-15 modules. Each module would consist of
readings, activities (RLO) assignments, discussion topics and supplementary activities.

Seat Time of Course

This course is designed to be a unit of instruction within one college semester. In a typical
writing course, there are 3 to 4 major writing assignments per semester. This course is
designed to take approximately three weeks.

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Seat Time of RLO

The RLO should take a maximum time of 30 minutes to complete.

RLO Outline

Please see accompanying RLO Flowchart. An additional outline of RLO structure can be
provided upon request.

RLO Flowchart

Please see flowchart at the following link:

http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/8886733

Screens/Pages in RLO

There are 22 screens in the current form of the RLO.

Knowledge Checks or Other

Assessments or Practices for
RLO

There is one knowledge check in the RLO, with three questions. Students must answer all
three questions correctly before proceeding. Students will have three tries to get the answer
correct; after three tries, the correct answer is given.
____Dichotomous (T/F, Y/N, etc.)
X Multiple Choice
____Multiple Select
____Drag and Drop
____Custom describe; if appropriate, supply flowchart in an Appendix and reference it
here.
____Other describe

Rollovers/click events

At this time, there are no rollovers, but there are click events, both for content and navigation.
____Rollovers
X Click Events

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RLO Navigation

Due to the complexity of the content, it is critical that the RLO navigation be simple and easy
to use as possible. Navigation buttons will run along the top or bottom of the screen or down
the left hand side as much as possible..
For general navigation, there will be the following buttons:

Next: on bottom right. This will allow students to progress to the next screen.

Previous: on bottom right. This allows students to go back one screen.

Volume Control: This is to allow the student to turn down the audio narration of the
text. The student may turn the audio narration on or off at any time. However, at
present, Articulate Storyline has no mute button feature; therefore, in order for
students to eliminate the audio narration, students will have to turn the volume down
on every screen.

Other controls: Due to the nature of the content and branching, other controls are
included on some pages of the RLO. These include buttons to allow students to return
to the main content page and to return to the main quiz page. These buttons allow
students choice regarding which sections of content and which quiz questions they
would like to answer and in what order.

Exit: The Exit feature is a red X in the top right corner. When clicked, a pop up
confirms that the student does want to exit. The students have a choice to exit or
continue. If the student clicks Continue, the pop up is hidden and the student can
continue with that slide. If the student clicks Exit, he or she will be exited from the
course. If the student desires to return to the course, he or she will have to start over
from the beginning. There are no soft bookmark features in the RLO at this time.

The navigation buttons Next and Previous will be on the bottom right of every screen.
The Exit button will appear there on the top right of every screen. Next takes students to
the next screen. Previous will take students to the preceding screen.

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Down the left hand side of the screen will be the following buttons:

Menu: This will be in dropdown format and also serve as course map. It is critical
that the students begin to see and understand how these concepts are connected;
therefore, a visual course map format is preferable.

Help: This button is on every slide, on the bottom left. This will access Help with the
course, not content.

Quiz: Students may have access to the assessment at any time, regardless or not they
have finished the content.

Exit: Students may exit at any time. When the Exit button is clicked, a pop up screen
or dialog box will give the student the option of exiting temporarily or permanently. If
the student chooses to exit temporarily, the program will bookmark the students
position and return them to the same point when the student resumes. If they choose
to exit permanently, no bookmark will be recorded and they will have to start again
from the beginning if they resume the program. Students will be warned of this.
Furthermore, if they choose to permanently exit the program before completing the
assessment, the students will not receive any credit for either completing the RLO or
the assessment.

All navigation buttons will be available at any time during the course.

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Screen Layouts for RLO

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Development Tools for RLO

To develop the course, I will be using Articulate Storyline. I plan on using Storyline for any
audio/visual components as well, though for short screen capture videos and screenshots, I
will use Jing. For storyboards, I will use PowerPoint. For pictures, I will use pixbay.com or
pictures from my own collection. For graphics I will develop them in Articulate or
PowerPoint.

Ownership

Allegra Coe will develop the initial course; however/and, The University will maintain the
course. This course is being developed for The University.

Development Time of entire

course and RLO

According to my estimations, the design and development of the RLO should take
approximately 100 hours to complete. The development of the entire course could take
approximately 250-320 hours or more to complete, (6-8 + weeks) depending on resources
available, learner needs and accommodation and instructor preferences.

Support requirements for

RLO and course

Support requirements would include input from several writing/rhetoric instructors (SME),
academic support services, campus information technology specialists, and other university
personnel as deemed appropriate.

Project
Sign-off [optional]

Please sign below indicating agreement with the proposed course plan and approving start-up
of the storyboard and development phases.

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Instructional Designer

Date

Project Manager/Sponsor

Date

10/13/2015