I looked over all of your baseline essays - and they look very good. Each one of you is in a strong position to do well in this course. From a quick read - it looks like the main work for this course will be learning and using (and getting comfortable with) conventions for academic writing. I will give a careful read to the revised essays and we will talk about them in class on Tuesday.
In class today we talked about Peter Elbow's essay, "Freewriting". We discussed the min focus and the supporting points he made to develop that focus. We also talked about thinking about how essays are built as a way to help find their main ideas. Titles give important clues - as do introductions and conclusions, topic sentences, and terms that the author defines.
We then talked about academic summaries. In academic summaries the focus needs to be on the ideas = not on the "plot" or the examples; and the ideas need to be presented from the author's perspective. We talked about these features of the conventions for writing academic summaries in some detail - they are also listed on the handouts on summaries.
In the computer lab you looked at a sample paper for MLA format and made yourself a template. You then used the process listed on the Summaries handout to get started on your summary. You sent me a copy of the writing you developed so far before you left class.
For class Thursday:
Finish your summary of Elbow and turn it in as an attachment.
Bring your book to class.
Please complete the Pre-College Composition Survey at http://gelap.kean.edu/09faprecompsurvey.htm
This survey collects data about student attitudes toward writing so we can continue to improve our composition program.
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