It's important to learn how to communicate in a business setting. Modern-day business writing covers application materials like resumes and cover letters, professional correspondence like emails and memos, and workplace presentations such as slide shows and infographics.
While these skills are crucial to practice, it can be a little boring and superficial for a high school writer who doesn't have real-life experiences to pull from.
In this class, we'll cover all of the serious content with a fun twist: we're not writing as ourselves.
Want to apply for a job as your favorite fictional character? An alien pretending to be an Earthling? A time traveler who has to keep a low profile?
We'll spend the first week of class developing our professional characters, and we'll spend the rest of class writing in character — all while practicing the form, style, and precision of business writing.
Gain Key Academic Writing Foundations
Students will learn foundational business writing skills including professional style, organization, revision, formatting, and proofreading for grammatical clarity.
Meet Live Weekly
This is a live class, which means we meet weekly to discuss the reading and explore writing tips. Learners can also interact with each other and the instructor between class meetings on our class discussion boards.
Provided materials include reading guides and activities to help with vocabulary and comprehension as well as writing tips to apply to short, informal writing assignments.
Practice Writing as a Process
As we work on projects, writers will practice writing as a process with video feedback on rough drafts and the chance to revise into polished final drafts.
Class Details
Age Range: 13-18
Class Size: 3 - 10 learners
Dates: February 3-May 4, 2025
Live Meetings on Wednesdays from 11-11:45am Eastern/10-10:45am Central/9-9:45am Mountain/8-8:45am Pacific
Spring Break March 24-30 (no meeting on Wednesday March )
Supplies
- Microphone and camera for in-class participation
- PDF Reader
- Zoom (free account)
- Discord (free account — can be installed on phones or computers)
- Learners will submit work through Google Drive (a Google (Gmail) account can be acquired for free)
You do not need to purchase any specific texts for this class, but we will use excerpts from the following two (free) open source textbooks, which are available to read online or download as PDFs:
Meet Dr. Michelle Parrinello-Cason
Dr. Michelle Parrinello-Cason is the founder of Dayla Learning. She has a PhD in rhetoric and composition, a passion for helping students find their writing voice, and two homeschooling children of her own.
Michelle has taught in a wide variety of settings including six years as a full-time college professor. She has been teaching virtual and in-person homeschool writing and humanities classes for more than five years.
Michelle believes in meeting students where they are and — as any of her previous students will tell you — believes deeply that there is no such thing as a bad rough draft!
Skills Needed
Learners will be most successful in this class if they have the following skills/experiences:
- Previous writing experience (the ability to write 2-3 paragraphs on a single topic)
- The ability to read at a 9/10th grade level by decoding unfamiliar words through context and making connections between ideas over multiple chapters
- Prior experience with proofreading and avoiding correcting common errors like run-on sentences, typos, comma splices, sentence fragments, and subject-verb agreement errors
Skills Gained
Students will learn about the following:
- Form and conventions for a variety of business writing including emails, memos, application materials, and presentations
- Organization for clear communication
- Audience consideration for professional rhetorical situations
- Creative writing and writing with detail to bring their chosen character to life throughout the class
- Revision strategies to focus on the higher order concerns of the writing process
- Proofreading strategies to focus on the lower order concerns of the writing process
- Developing their own individual writing processes and strategies for tackling a range of writing activities
Time Commitment
Learners can expect to spend 4-6 hours per week on assignments including reading, note-taking, writing, taking quizzes, and participating on discussion boards.
This class will involve 60+ hours of learning time and is therefore suitable for 0.5 high school ELA credits.
Reporting and Records
Upon successful completion of class, instructor provides detailed exit letter suitable for inclusion in portfolio. Families may request numerical grade at beginning of class for a detailed course grade summary, but it is optional.
Individual Support
All students will receive individualized video feedback on all rough drafts that specifically addresses their rough draft submissions.
My teaching philosophy very much focuses on starting with students’ strengths to build confidence and using them to work on improvements over time.
Feedback is tailored to each student’s individual needs and goals. I also encourage a lot of self-reflection and provide opportunities for students to directly communicate their challenges so that facing them with strategies becomes a normal part of the writing process.