September 29

You looked at some sample response essays for Rau, and we talked about what the author would need to do to revise the essay so that it met the criteria for the assignment.

We looked at the essays in terms of:
focus - the focus for the summary of Rau + your discussion needed to be the same;
development - the response needed to bring in OUTSIDE information to develop a discussion of the points raise by Rau;
organization - the essay needed to introduce all the points from Rau that you responded to;
language - the essay needed to use the language expected for summaries).

In the computer lab, you had a workshop with a classmate to figure out what you needed to do to revise your own essay. You then spent some time working on revising your essay.

Homework:
Read: Amy Tan "Mother Tongue" on Banks
Write: Do the pre-writing to develop a response essay for Tan; print your pre-writing & bring it to class on Thursday.

Write: (for October 6) finish revising your response to Rau.

I read through your feedback on class so far - thanks for the good suggestions. I will go over the most commented on points & discuss some of the observations/requests you raised on Thursday.

September 24

In class today you did some reflective writing on what you are learning about writing summaries. Hang on to that writing. You will refer to it to write a reflection that you will turn in along with your best summary.

We spent the rest of the class working on developing some pre-writing for a response essay for "By any other name." (The process for developing your writing is listed on the post for Tuesday's class.) You turned in your writing at the end of class.

For Tuesday, September 29:
Write a response to "By any other name." Be sure to read through the assignment sheet. Remember that the response should be longer than your "summary" of what the author said - and that you CAN'T cover everything in the essay. You will need to response to one particular idea that was raised by the author - rather than to ALL the ideas we discussed as related to her essay.

Have a great weekend, and see you Tuesday.

September 21

In class today you worked through the process for writing a response essay. We did the following:
-re-read the essay in terms of what happened
- identified themes or important ideas the author addressed
- did some freewriting to open up any and all possibilities for what you might write about
- read through the freewriting and underlined any thoughts ideas that came up more than once or that you found interesting
- did some more freewriting to open up what you might say about the ideas you underlined
- worked on coming up with a focus for an essay

wrote a list that included the following:
- a statement of the focus for the essay
- points the author of the essay made about that focus
- points you might make with respect to that focus
- connections between your ideas and the authors

You then looked back at the focus - and revised that or changed it if you seemed to be going off subject, and went through the process again.

The point of this exercise to find your focus and think about what you were going to write BEFORE you started your essay.

We also looked at google.sites. You will use google. sites to turn in your portfolio. Feel free to explore + use it for your own purposes. We will get back to it when we work on putting together your portfolios.

For Thursday:
Read: By Any Other Name p. 262 in Banks
Write: Finish the pre-writing you did in class and turn it in as an attachment

I will look over your pre-writing, and give you some feedback as a class. In class on Thursday you will go through this process again (more on your own, with less direction from me).

Good work today - and see you on Thursday.

What we did in class, September 17

You worked in groups to write descriptive "summaries" of photographs of buildings from Kean University, and then your classmates read your descriptions - and drew what they saw. You noticed that for readers to interpret the descriptions, they needed information about the viewer's perspective as well as an indication the relative importance or location of the main objects in the image before they could interpret/understand the details. It's the same with writing summaries of texts! You need to set up the focus - and use an organization that orients the reader to the importance and relationships of the ideas in the text. We then spent a little time thinking about what the images said about how the work done in the different buildings is valued.

You did a great job on this exercise.

In the computer lab, you looked at the feedback you got on the Elbow essay - and used that information to work on revising the Murray essays.

For Tuesday:
Read: Salvation, by Langston Hughes, p 591 in your text
Write: Revised Murray => use track changes + turn in your revised essay by email before class on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend.

Tuesday, Septermber 15

In class today you worked on your Murray summaries, and we went over your baseline essays.

In the discussion of Murray, we focused on thinking through a process for writing a summary.

Our brainstorm list of how to write a summary

Read the essay + re-read the essay, marking /highlighting important passages.

Look at the title, intro/conclusion, important terms and do some freewriting/associating to get some language to state the overall point

List the points made by each paragraph without looking at the book.

Go back to the reading & fill in any missed points for the list of points

Do some writing (more listing) for which points go together

Do some freewring/associating to get some language (doesn't have to be perfect) for what each point is about (keep thinking about how the point relates to the overall focus)

Check out your list again and start drafting your summary. Make sure each point you make has a connection to the main focus.

Revise. . . first for focus, then for organization, then for the level of detail.

You might go through some of the steps several times.


You turned in a copy of your pre-writing (all the writing you did before you sent the draft) at the end of class.

For Thursday:
1. Finish your summaries of Murray

Be sure to bring your books.

See you in class.

Class Thursday, September 10

In class today we did some more work on how to write summaries. We created a "rubric" - a standard list of features we could used to evaluate a summary. Our rubric evaluated summaries based on:

- whether they stated the focus of the piece they were summarizing;
- how well they were organized
- how well (and whether) they developed the focus;
- and the language choices the writer made.

You then worked in groups to assign grades to 4 sample summaries of "Freewriting." We talked about how grades have two functions. They need to tell the student how well s/he is doing; and they need to provide information about how the student can do better. When we discussed the grades your groups gave to the sample summaries - we spent some time thinking about what needed to be changed to make the summary better. The point of this work was to set you up to be able to evaluate YOUR summaries - and to know how to make them stronger. You did a good job on this exercise. Thanks.

In the computer lab, you learned how to organize your gmail so that your work for ENG1031 would be in a separate folder (under its own label so you can find your work easily) and you learned how to use track changes. You also made yourself a list of what you needed to work on to strengthen your summary - and then you got started on revising.

For Tuesday:
1. Revise your summaries and turn them in as LastName_Elbow_R

2. Read Donald Murray's "The Maker's Eye."

Have a good weekend and if you have any questions send me an email.

Link for essay by Donald Murray

The Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts is available at: http://robertnazar.pbworks.com/f/The+Maker's+Eye+-+Donald+Murray.pdf

Class September 8

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.

What we did in class Tuesday, September 3

We got off to a great start for this class. We got a start on learning everyone's name, we went through the syllabus and you wrote your baseline essay. Don't worry if it felt a little overwhelming - I know it is a lot of information all at once. We will work together and go over course policies and materials again and again - and again - so hang in there.

BOOKS:
I just got back from the bookstore and as reported in class, there are currently no copies of Comment and controversy. The Bookstore person said the books would be in "soon." For those of you who would rather take action, I checked amazon and there are 68 copies available through intependent sellers. The price you get from amazon will be MUCH better than you get at the bookstore (used at the bookstore is around 60? ) If you plan to order online - order asap.



For Tuesday, September 8:
Read: Peter Elbow's essay "Freewriting". I handed out copies in class. Be sure to bring your copy of the essay to class.

Write: Revise your baseline essay and turn it in to ENG1031@gmail.com before class on Tuesday. There may be some problems with the Kean email system's spam filter; if you have trouble sending your essay for any reason, bring it to class on your flash drive and I will make sure you get credit for doing your work on time.

Have a great weekend, and see you next week.

Welcome to English 1031-1032 Section 9

This is the home page for your course. This site will provide an overview of what we do in each class, links to important documents for the course including the course syllabus and the calendar and assignment sheets.

Infromation about H1N1 Flu

The CDC has reported it expects an increase in cases of H1N1 (flu) for this coming fall. While this may or may not happen, to be prepared and have minimal impact on your classroom studies, we are asking that if you have a fever over 100', a sore throat and cough at any time during the semester - PLEASE STAY HOME from class.



In order to avoid an academic penalty, you must alert this professor immediately before class of your absence and request any missed class materials and assignments. All assignments will only be obtained upon email request.



If you require medical attention see your primary care provider and/or Kean University Health Services located in Downs Hall.



Proactive things you can do to prevent you, your dorm-mates and/or your family from getting ill....

- Vaccination is the single best way to prevent flu

+ Get Vaccinated for Seasonal Flu

+ Get Vaccinated for H1N1 (series of two shots given within 3 weeks)

- Stay home when you are sick

- Wash your hands often with plain soap and water.

- When hand washing is not possible, use of a hand sanitizer gel with 60% alcohol is recommended

- If you have to use an alcohol sanitizing gel, wash your hands with soap and water as soon as practicable after using the hand sanitizer.

- Social distancing (where possible) of 6 feet or more

- DO NOT USE YOUR HANDS when sneezing or coughing. Cover the almost invisible droplets by coughing or sneezing into your elbow or arm

- Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth

- Limit use of over the counter disinfectants when cleaning...Use steam sanitizing where possible



* Because hand sanitizers are alcohol based, excessive use can dry out the skin and possibly contribute to dermatitis especially in the cold, dry months of the year.

Some hand sanitizers may contain pesticides. Read labels carefully.