Feb 24: Practice persuasive essay

In class today we made sure everyone was clear on the portfolio.  I will be reading your portfolios and sending you a "grade-so-far" by Tuesday.  Your portfolios will be graded on completeness, organization, and the overall quality of work.  Your "grade-so-far" will include points for your homework and class participation, and graded work (the best summary, the best response, and the reflective writing). As pointed out in class - for me to read your work - you have to share your portfolio with the ENG 1031 email address.

We spent the rest of class talking about how to develop persuasive essays.  We looked at the "plans" you developed for homework; you worked on groups to come up with a focus and a list of points to argue against "Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha."  The strongest arguments against this piece centered on the issue she raised => gender equality as it is related to the draft.

For Tuesday:
Read:  HTWA, sample essay on gay marriage.
Write: Practice Argument 2=> write an essay where you take a position on gender, equality and the draft.  Use the essays by Quindlan and Parker - (you may also us other materials) - to set up the background issues. Make sure your focus is on gender equality and the draft.  Focus on and develop one or two points IN DEPT - rather than writing about any argument you can think of.  Make sure your points connect to your focus.

In class we will assess these essays, read the assignment sheet for the graded persuasive essay, and begin brainstorming ideas.

Have a good weekend and see you Tuesday.

Feb 22 => Persuasion!

In class to day I showed you how to share your portfolios.  Those of you who needed additional help to complete the portfolio will meet with me in my office - CAS 324 - Wednesday, Feb 23 at 2:00 pm.  I will leave a  note on the door to let anyone who is a little late which computer lab we are working in.

We started thinking about persuasion by talking through a hypothetical situation where one person, J,  was in a position where he wanted to persuade another, K.  We began by listing the reasons K might choose to do what J  wanted.  We then listed the reasons J would present to K if he tried to persuade him.  We noted that these two lists were different => the content and organization of an argument depends on your audience and your purpose.

We them quickly reviewed the presentation of argument in your text.  We discussed the use of logos, pathos, and ethos - the three ways to appeal to your audience to see your side.  We talked about what each kind of appeal can do - and began to think about when, where and why you might choose one appeal over another.

We then looked at Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha - and identified the main points + the nature of her appeals.

For homework:
Read: HTWA Chapter 3, Argument
Write: write a plan for an argument against "Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha.  Use a process similar to the process we walked through in class to discover what you have to say.  After doing some invention writing (this can be listing, freewriting, clustering, detailed listing etc) develop your plan.  Your plan should include the points you will make in the order you will make them.  Label the appeal you make for each point.

Feb 17: Creating Portfolios for grade-so-far

You spent class creating your portofolios for the grade-so-far evaluation.  The sample portfolio is listed to the right under course documents.  Click through the headings and make sure to include work for all the headings listed in the sample.  Notice that the pages for Best Summary + Best Response require you to post a reflective essay where you assess what you are learning + what you need to work on.

Portfolios will be graded on overall quality of work, completeness and organization.  Complete portfolios are due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, February 22.  At the beginning of class you will invite me to view your portfolio, and I will provide feedback, and your grade-so-far probably by the end of next week.

For Tuesday:
Write: Finish portfolio + reflective writing
Read: HTWA, Chapter 3: Argument => bring your book to class


FYI:students who do not bring books to class are unprepared and will receive only 1/2 credit for participation.

February 15: Best response essays

In class today you workshopped your response essays for Lakoff & Johnson.  You sent a plan for how to  revise this essay (based on the process we developed in class on Thursday and posted on the last blog).

You then spent the rest of the class working on your best response: you get to choose which essay - the response to McCall or the response to Lakoff & Johnson - will present your strongest writing.  Then, revise that essay.

In class on Thursday you will set up your portfolio (you can check out the portfolio template - also posted at the link  under course documents).  You will also do the reflective writing for the summary assignments + the response essays.   The class will be a workshop - where you have time to work on the writing of your choice.  If you choose, you can schedule an in-class conference on the essay of your choice.

For Thursday:
Write: Revised response essay

Class Thursday February 11: Workshop on Response essays

We used the assignment sheet to put together a rubric for figuring out what to work on in revising your response essays on McCall.

We started by reviewing the essay - to make sure we had a clear idea what McCall was writing about.  We then established the following pattern to figure out what to revise.

1.  Identify the main point of the response essay.  Which point of McCall's does the author respond to?  Is it an important point?  Does the author represent McCall's point accurately?

2.  Assess the focus.  Does the introduction set up the focus in terms of the main points McCall makes?  Does the author make a clear point with respect to the focus in each paragraph?  (If you can't say what that point is - the essay probably needs some work).  To sharpen the focus we identified material that should be deleted, ideas that should be added, sentences that needed to be moved, and information that needed to be changed, clarified or strengthened.  Make sure the focus developed in the paragraphs is the SAME focus you set up in the introduction + sum up in the conclusion.

3. Look at the development.  Did the author use examples, illustrations, "facts," personal experience, references to the media, etc to make their points clear and support their validity?  If not - the author should do some freewriting/brainstorming to figure out how to support his/her point.

4. Check the organization.  In general, in academic writing - the expectation is for students to make a general statement (a conceptual statement) and move to a more particular discussion.  The points in your essay should generally be organized in keeping with this principle.  Does the author state the "idea" s/he is discussing -before discussing particular cases or variation?  Also - in a response essay - the introduction should set up or introduce ideas/key terms from McCall's essay that the author refers to in his/her discussion.  Does the introduction do this?

The main point of today's class was that revision is not about spelling and grammar.  It is about strengthening your focus = sometimes even finding your focus.  Good writing grows out of re-writing.  Writing is part of the thinking process.  Often first drafts discover your idea - but they need more work before you can say exactly what you want to say in the best order.

We workshopped two essay - one as a whole group, and one in small groups.  You then wrote notes about what you needed to revise to strengthen your essay on McCall.  I will not be providing written feedback to direct revision for this essay => you will work from your notes - and from face-to-face feedback in conferences (which we will schedule on Tuesday).

We then discussed strategies for writing a response essay for Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language.


For Tuesday:
Write: Resonse to "Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language"

Have a good weekend and see you on Tuesday!
 

Response essays

You took a look at the marks for your response essays; hopefully they were useful.  Anyone who received an "R" needs to revise their essay and re-submit it for a grade.  As we discussed in class - your most difficult issues were with understanding the content of the essay.  So we worked on McCall for your first response essay.

To work on your response essay we moved through the following process:

Reviewed the main ideas = supporting discussions in McCall's essays
Looked at a "model" response essay (in your text book) and talked about what the author did in each paragraph
Looked at the assignment sheet
Did some invention writing.  You did someblindwriting, followed by writing to identify ideas in the blindwriting that would work for you,.  Then you listed:

• your main idea, 
• how your main idea connected to McCall's main idea 
• points from McCall that you would need to include in your summary to set up your essay

Next - you went back to review McCall's essay to make sure he said what you thought he said, did some writing to identify and organize what you had to say back to him, and started on your draft.

Finish your response to McCall for Thursday, and read through L&J one more time!  You will work on your response to L&J during the second half of class on Thursday.

For Thursday:
Write: Finish your response to McCall; in the email you use to turn it in - let me know if you'd be willing to let the class use your essay for practice feedback.  I will take your name off before I put it up on the screen or make copies.

Nathan McCall

We talked about Nathan McCall's "Men, We just don't get it."  Our conversation emphasized McCall's ideas => rather than the stories he told to develop those ideas.  To write a good academic summary you need to answer the "what was the essay about" questions in terms of ideas , NOT in terms of "what happened."  The story about "the list" illustrates his point that men are socialized in ways that shape them to think about women as "things" - the object of a conquest.  

During the second part of class you worked on your summary.  I emphasized that you should start by stating the overall point you see McCall as making.  What was he trying to get you to understand about male identity, cultural conditioning, and how men (and women) think about sex?    A good way to figure out the main point of an essay is to ask yourself what the title means.  For McCall - you might ask => what is it that men don't get?  What points does he make about why men don't get "it" and why it matters that they don't?

Pay attention to the strategies you use to figure out the main ideas.  Academic summaries require you to present ideas (and to avoid repeating the story or the details).  In your World literature course, you will be required to write about the main ideas in the literature you read - NOT to retell the stories.  For example, while Herman Melville's Mody Dick is certainly about a sea captain who tries to catch a whale and ends up dying - that is not how you would summarize it.  You might write that: Moby Dick is both an almost journalistic story about the details New England whaling industry, and a kind of parable about man against nature.   The point is - you need to write about the ideas.

For Tuesday:

Read: HTWA, Chapter 10, Position paper

Write:  Finish your summary of "Men, We just don't get it" and email it to me 

In class Tuesday, I will hand back your summaries of Lakoff and Johnson and we will talk about issues to work on - and how to work on them.  

Then we will talk about writing response essays - we will talk about what you have to say back to McCall - and you will get started on writing a response to his essay.

Have a good weekend!

Summaries part 2 - when the reading is REALLY hard

One purpose of ENG 1031 is to make you strong, independent writers who can solve their own writing challenges.  So - today we talked about strategies for writing summaries of readings that were difficult to understand (like the one I gave you) - and we worked through some of those strategies in class.

First - you took an inventory of the strategies you are already using.  Most of you read and re-read the essay.  Underlined, took notes and reviewed your notes from class; identified key terms. .  Some of you wrote main ideas and looked up "hard:" words.  Good.

Second - we looked through the text book to see if we could find tips for what to do with a "hard" reading.  We found chapters on "smart reading" and on "experts" = both of which made useful suggestions.  IN terms of smart reading - I would suggest paraphrasing main points, asking questions about how the main points relate to each other.  But if you are really stumped = talking to others can be crucial   We took time to figure out how to schedule appointments at CAS and the Writing Center on Tutortrac, and I encouraged you to ASK ME (or the instructor whose course you are working on).  Or ask each other.  Or someone you know.  The important thing is that you get some fresh input.

Third - we talked  (again) - only this time we identified our own conceptual metaphors for argument through examining the language we used to talk about arguments.  We noticed that our class discussions used the following phrases when talking about arguments:

Following are some of the conventional metaphors from the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT is a BUILDING.

• build your argument 
• the structure of your argument is weak
• the way to construct a good argument is to provide support for your main ideas

We also identified language for the conceptual metaphor, ARGUMENT as a SHARED VISION = focus your points, I see your idea, could you draw the argument to a conclusion, this is clear/fuzzy, show me what you mean, illustrate that point = and so on.

The point is that = through conversation, asking each other for examples - thinking and talking - we came to a clearer understanding of what the essay was about.

Workshop:  You then had one-on-one conferences (using the posted protocol for the workshop) to work on your summaries.  You checked the list on the board to make sure you'd covered the content (you needed to include definitions of conceptual metaphors & conventional metaphors, a discussion of the relationship between the two kinds of metaphors - and you needed to state Lakoff & Johnson's main point => what were they saying about conceptual metaphors?  why does it matter whether we notice them or not?)  and you talked through the questions for Content, Form + Style.

Congratulations!   You have worked through a very challenging reading.  It was written for other professors and graduate students => and you read it and understood it.  I am looking forward to reading your summaries!

For Thursday:  
Read:  Men, we just don't get it by Nathan McCall (handout in class + posted under Men). This may seem like more of a "story" - but he makes a series of points.  Make sure you know what his main argument is - and what points he presents to develop that argument.

Write: Revise your summary of Lakoff & Johnson.  Send it to me as an attachment to an email with the subject line: LastnameLakoffJohnsonR  => my essay would be ChandlerLakoffJohnsonR  (the R stands for revised).

Great class!  Thank you for coming out on this cold icy day - and see you on Thursday.





We also noticed

In-class workshop 2/1

Workshop

Ask what issues the writer wants to work on

Content

What are the main ideas of Lakoff & Johnson's essay in the summary?   What does it need to add?

How does the summary define key terms?   Are these definitions understandable and in the author's own word?

What does the summary state as the relationship between key terms and the essay's main points?

Form

How/where does the summary set up L&J's essay?

Are the points from the essay presented in an easy to follow order?  Would a different order be easier to understand?

Does the summary acknowledge the poit of view of the author?

Does the summary come to a conclusion?

Language issues

Together, identify the main class of mistake (made more than once) in the essay (there might not be any)