On Thursday 10.2 ENG 1031 meets in CAS 352, and ENG 1032 meets in CAS 245.
Essay choices for persuasive writing
We started class by discussing which essays you wanted to read for the work on persuasive writing. You identified the following topics as associated with this unit, "Is Higher Education Worth the Price?"
(requiring) a college degree is wrong (stupid) - it shouldn't be expected or assumed that going to college is the only choice
what good is a college education
why does it cost so much?
what is a "liberal arts" education and why should college education focus on it?
After some discussion, you decided as a class that the last two issues were what you wanted to focus on and we chose the following essays to provide a basis for exploring those issues.
Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus: Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission? (179)
Sanford J Ungar: The New Liberal Arts (190)
Robin Wilson: A Lifetime of Student Debt? Not Likely (256)
The Hacker & Dreifus, and the Wilson address costs, and the Ungar essay describes what students get for their money.
Finishing up your response essays
You spent the rest of class working on your response essays and the reflective writing to assess your writing process & your response essay. From the one-on-one conferences I had with you, the main issues I noticed in our talk connected to making sure you are writing a response (making They Say and I Say moves in the right place, with transitions). Overall though - looks good and like we are ready to move to the next genre!
For next class:
Read: Chapter 12 in They Say/I Say, and Ungar, The New Liberal Arts (p. 179)
Write: Post your revised response essay and the reflective writing to your Response page.*
In our next class we will get started on writing persuasive essays.
* Over the weekend (after you turn in your work on 10.2) I will grade your response writing and give you a feedback sheet like the one you got for the summary unit. I will be looking for the following homework/assignments posted to the response page.
brainstorming for your response essay (in class 9.18)
draft response (the one you workshopped in class 9.25)
plan to revise your response essay (homework for 9.30)
revised response (in-class 9.30)
reflective writing on response essays (in-class 9.30)
See you Thursday in CAS 352.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014
9.25.14
I started class by making sure everyone checked out the feeback on your work on summaries. You should have received an email from me with comments and a grade for your "best" summary. Just so you know, I had a big smile on my face the whole time I was reading through your portfolios. As I clicked through successive drafts I could see your writing getting stronger. Well done!
Creating a rubric to evaluate your response essays: We spend the first part of class creating the rubric (see previous post). This rubric is important both because it gives you an idea of how to value the different moves you need to make in developing your writing (writing to the genre requirements, working of focus, checking organization, etc) => it also gives you and idea of what a "good" essay does and includes. You can use this rubric to check through your draft - as a way to figure out what you need to work on.
Using a rubric to identify what to "do" to revise your essay. After we created the rubric, we used it to score several of the sample essays posted to the right. For each score you gave where you took off a point, I asked you to describe what the author needed to work on in order to make that score stronger. You did a great job on this! After we identified WHAT these authors needed to work on, we had a short discussion of HOW (what they would DO) to "fix" what the rubric indicated they needed to work on.
Strategies for working on revision with respect to the categories for the rubric.
Audience/Genre considerations: If the author is not writing to the genre requirements - s/he should review the form for a response essay. Look back at the notes on the blog from our class discussions, review what the textbook says about the kinds of language moves, as well as about the overall organization of the They Say/I Say conversation of responding to a text (in particular, review out the Chapter 3 ways to response).
Focus: To work on focus - first you have to identify what your focus is. If you are not sure, spend some time writing (and re-writing) what you want the focus of your essay to be. Once you are clear what you want to say, check to see where (or whether) you make a clear statement of your focus. You should set up the focus near the beginning (in a response essay, often it is the transition from the They Say to the I Say, though as we dicussed in class, the way you sum up the text you are responding to implies your focus). Response essays often return to the focus in the conclusion - to draw the discussio together.
Once you make sure that the set up and the closing are about the same focus - look at each of your supporting points and ask what they add to the focus? Delete (or revise) points that go off topic.
Then ask if each point develops the focus in a DIFFERENT way. This can help you identify additional material that you can cut.
Also ask - are there any points I need to add? Are there any counterarguments that would work to make my response more clear?
Organization; To work on organization - state the main point of each paragraph - and make a list that just states the points. Any points out of order? Need to add any? Need to take any out?
Within the pargraphs, do you introduce/define material (set it up) before you challenge it or discuss it? Do ?
Does the essay follow a logical order?
Development: For development, ask your self if you provide enough background or context for the ideas you introduce? Do you give enough examples and illustrations? Do you provide evidence for your claims? If your development seems a little thin, you might: do some freewriting, talk to a friend, chat or text with a friend about your topic (this gives you some writing), make some lists of ideas you might add, look around on the internet (though be careful not to cut and paste ANYTHING from the sites you visit without citing them).
So that should give you a start.
Peer review workshop. The last part of class was a peer review workshop where you shared your drafts so far, and gave eachother feedback. Before you shared your work, we established a portocol (procedure) for what you would do and say. This is what we came up with:
1. Author: Set up your essay. Provide any background you want to put out there, and tell your peer group what kind of feedback you want. If there is anything you DON'T want your group to comment on - mention that as well.
2. Author: rovide your group with copies, and read your essay out loud.
3. Reviewers: take notes as you listen.
4. Reviewers: Say what works (what is going well) and say back what you heard (what you got as the main point.
5. Reviewers: Reply to the author's requests
6. Continue to develop a conversation where you ask and answer questions directed toward what might strengthen the essay.
You did a great job on this part of class as well! Thanks for the good work - and have an awesome weekend!
Peer review groups for response essays:
Jacqueta, Austi, Sabrina
Erica, Vinson, Jessica
Sha, Doreen, Terrell, Jesse
Damian, Khizer, Lulu, Wenscent
For next class:
Read: Skim through the readings in the chapter on the cost of higher eduction. Come to class prepared to talk about which readings we want to use for the persuasive writing portion of the course.
Write: Plan for revising your response essay.
Writing a revision plan: Using the feedback from your classmates, write a plan to revise your essay. Describe: 1) what you are going to work on (use the rubric as a guide for what you might need to work on in each category, 2) and write your plan for HOW you are going to work on revising the points you have identified as needing work (refer to the suggestions in this post under Strategies for working on revision.)
In class on Tuesday we will choose the readings for the persuasive writing work, and you will have an in-class workshop to finish your response essays. During the last part of class you will start on your reflective writing for the response.
Creating a rubric to evaluate your response essays: We spend the first part of class creating the rubric (see previous post). This rubric is important both because it gives you an idea of how to value the different moves you need to make in developing your writing (writing to the genre requirements, working of focus, checking organization, etc) => it also gives you and idea of what a "good" essay does and includes. You can use this rubric to check through your draft - as a way to figure out what you need to work on.
Using a rubric to identify what to "do" to revise your essay. After we created the rubric, we used it to score several of the sample essays posted to the right. For each score you gave where you took off a point, I asked you to describe what the author needed to work on in order to make that score stronger. You did a great job on this! After we identified WHAT these authors needed to work on, we had a short discussion of HOW (what they would DO) to "fix" what the rubric indicated they needed to work on.
Strategies for working on revision with respect to the categories for the rubric.
Audience/Genre considerations: If the author is not writing to the genre requirements - s/he should review the form for a response essay. Look back at the notes on the blog from our class discussions, review what the textbook says about the kinds of language moves, as well as about the overall organization of the They Say/I Say conversation of responding to a text (in particular, review out the Chapter 3 ways to response).
Focus: To work on focus - first you have to identify what your focus is. If you are not sure, spend some time writing (and re-writing) what you want the focus of your essay to be. Once you are clear what you want to say, check to see where (or whether) you make a clear statement of your focus. You should set up the focus near the beginning (in a response essay, often it is the transition from the They Say to the I Say, though as we dicussed in class, the way you sum up the text you are responding to implies your focus). Response essays often return to the focus in the conclusion - to draw the discussio together.
Once you make sure that the set up and the closing are about the same focus - look at each of your supporting points and ask what they add to the focus? Delete (or revise) points that go off topic.
Then ask if each point develops the focus in a DIFFERENT way. This can help you identify additional material that you can cut.
Also ask - are there any points I need to add? Are there any counterarguments that would work to make my response more clear?
Organization; To work on organization - state the main point of each paragraph - and make a list that just states the points. Any points out of order? Need to add any? Need to take any out?
Within the pargraphs, do you introduce/define material (set it up) before you challenge it or discuss it? Do ?
Does the essay follow a logical order?
Development: For development, ask your self if you provide enough background or context for the ideas you introduce? Do you give enough examples and illustrations? Do you provide evidence for your claims? If your development seems a little thin, you might: do some freewriting, talk to a friend, chat or text with a friend about your topic (this gives you some writing), make some lists of ideas you might add, look around on the internet (though be careful not to cut and paste ANYTHING from the sites you visit without citing them).
So that should give you a start.
Peer review workshop. The last part of class was a peer review workshop where you shared your drafts so far, and gave eachother feedback. Before you shared your work, we established a portocol (procedure) for what you would do and say. This is what we came up with:
1. Author: Set up your essay. Provide any background you want to put out there, and tell your peer group what kind of feedback you want. If there is anything you DON'T want your group to comment on - mention that as well.
2. Author: rovide your group with copies, and read your essay out loud.
3. Reviewers: take notes as you listen.
4. Reviewers: Say what works (what is going well) and say back what you heard (what you got as the main point.
5. Reviewers: Reply to the author's requests
6. Continue to develop a conversation where you ask and answer questions directed toward what might strengthen the essay.
You did a great job on this part of class as well! Thanks for the good work - and have an awesome weekend!
Peer review groups for response essays:
Jacqueta, Austi, Sabrina
Erica, Vinson, Jessica
Sha, Doreen, Terrell, Jesse
Damian, Khizer, Lulu, Wenscent
For next class:
Read: Skim through the readings in the chapter on the cost of higher eduction. Come to class prepared to talk about which readings we want to use for the persuasive writing portion of the course.
Write: Plan for revising your response essay.
Writing a revision plan: Using the feedback from your classmates, write a plan to revise your essay. Describe: 1) what you are going to work on (use the rubric as a guide for what you might need to work on in each category, 2) and write your plan for HOW you are going to work on revising the points you have identified as needing work (refer to the suggestions in this post under Strategies for working on revision.)
In class on Tuesday we will choose the readings for the persuasive writing work, and you will have an in-class workshop to finish your response essays. During the last part of class you will start on your reflective writing for the response.
Rubric for Response essays
Audience (5): uses forms for academic writing (state's author's name & names article corretly), uses moves from They Say/I Say, creates a conversation with the article, provides context, declares and develops a position (meets requirements for the genre of response).
Focus (6): all points connect to the main idea; the author points out the connections between points & examples; each point develops the focus in a different way, develops a non-trivial, critical focus, includes in-depth development of the focus
Organization (5): set up context (They Say) first, logical order, define terms or introduce ideas before discussing them.
Development (6): provides detailed support for the main idea through a series of points, refers to the article/readig; states a position/puts forward a response that provides reasons and gives evidence
Correctness (3): spelling, punctuation, grammar, paragraphing, MLA conventions
Focus (6): all points connect to the main idea; the author points out the connections between points & examples; each point develops the focus in a different way, develops a non-trivial, critical focus, includes in-depth development of the focus
Organization (5): set up context (They Say) first, logical order, define terms or introduce ideas before discussing them.
Development (6): provides detailed support for the main idea through a series of points, refers to the article/readig; states a position/puts forward a response that provides reasons and gives evidence
Correctness (3): spelling, punctuation, grammar, paragraphing, MLA conventions
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
9.23 Finishing up summary writing => moving on to writing response essays
On Thursday 9.25 ENG 1031 meets in CAS 352, and ENG 1032 meets in CAS 245.
Close to the beginning of class I directed your attention to the calendar. We are finishing up working on summaries and moving on to response writing. You will notice on the calendar, that after you finish your response essay, you will be taking stock and calculating a "grade so far".
I will be checking over the summary page of your portfolio so that you can have some feedback on your summaries by next class. As we discussed in class, this page should have the following writing posted as attachements:
It should also have your reflective writing where you evaluate your writing process, and explain how you would grade your "best" summary (see the prompt for Reflective Writing on Summaries, posted under Assignments to the right).
For Thursday, I will give you a grade for your best summary and credit for the homework/drafts you wrote for practice. The total points for this part of the course = 50.
Writing response essays.
TS/IS. We reviewed the main points in TS/IS Chapters 5, giving clear "signals" the the 'They Say' and the 'I Say' in your writing, and Chapter 6, a discussion of raising "counterpoints" in you writing. Both of these chapters will be important references for writing your response.
Process for writing a response essay
You then took a look at the brainstorming you wrote for your response essay assignment. You were instructed to identify a focus and look back at the essay to decide on which points you will develop, and how you will be "in conversation" with the text. I clicked through your posts and it looks like most of you have a great start and are writing in the right direction. At the same time, one thing I noticed was that some of set up a bigger focus than it would be possible to cover to this particular assignment.
This raises a third important step in brainstorming the essay : check back to make sure your focus and development is a good match for the audience expectations (in this case, the requirements set forward on the assignment sheet).
So the invention/brainstorming process for developing a response depends on attention to the three bolded points in the last two paragraphs = but often you don't go through the steps in order, or just one time. You might write and re-write a (possible) focus three or four times as you go back to the reading and identify different sections you might write about.
Organizing your response essay: Finally, we talked about planning the overall organization of your essay. This depends on the genre (you are writing a response essay= a short essay that summarizes a text and makes usually just one well developed point about one of the author's major claims.
The overall organization for a response essay is to set up your response in terms of a point made by the text/author you will reply to, and then to develop a critical (meaning well thought out), well developed response to that point. So, overall => there are two parts. The set up, and the response. Usually the response is longer than the set up, and the response makes some specific reply to the particular points mentioned in the set up.
In terms of how to do this with paragraphing, you have a number of options, but as this essay is 11/2 to 2 pages (not very long) it probably shouldn't be more than 6 paragraphs - unless you are using short paragraphs for emphasis or some other rhetorical purpose.
Typical patterns for developing a response essay might be:
2 paragraphs: Setup paragraphs with a transition at the last sentence, followed by a well developed single paragraph response that concludes with a sentence to draw the point it makes to a close.
3 paragraphs: Setup paragraph followed by two paragraphs to develop your reply. The seconde paragraph would focus on developing your reply, and the third paragraph would emphasize what the two points say to one another, and draw the discussion to a close or resolution.
4 paragraphs. A setup paragraph, with three paragraphs for developing the discusion. Ususally the second paragraph would elaborate your response, and the 3rd paragraph might consider a counterargument or deepen your analysis, and the last paragraph would draw the essay to a close.
You spent the rest of class working on your draft response essays.
For next class:
Read; nothing.
Write: 1) make sure all assignments are posted to the summary page; 2) finish your draft response essay.
In class on Thursday you will participate in peer review of your response essay, so you will need to make sure that a copy of your work will be available to your classmates to read. Bring two print copies, since we will be working in the non-computer classroom.
I know it is scary to have classmates read your work. We (as a class) will negotiate clear boundaries for how to give feedback BEFORE you begin to offer your comments. Coments/feedback is meant to give you information about how your readers understand what you have written.
Asking students to give each other feedback is especially important since sometimes you can say what needs working on in a way that is more understandable to your classmates than the way I would say it.
So bring your writing, and we will find a way to make this into a helpful experience.
Close to the beginning of class I directed your attention to the calendar. We are finishing up working on summaries and moving on to response writing. You will notice on the calendar, that after you finish your response essay, you will be taking stock and calculating a "grade so far".
I will be checking over the summary page of your portfolio so that you can have some feedback on your summaries by next class. As we discussed in class, this page should have the following writing posted as attachements:
- draft King summary
- revised King summary
- revised group summary
- Herbert summary
It should also have your reflective writing where you evaluate your writing process, and explain how you would grade your "best" summary (see the prompt for Reflective Writing on Summaries, posted under Assignments to the right).
For Thursday, I will give you a grade for your best summary and credit for the homework/drafts you wrote for practice. The total points for this part of the course = 50.
Writing response essays.
TS/IS. We reviewed the main points in TS/IS Chapters 5, giving clear "signals" the the 'They Say' and the 'I Say' in your writing, and Chapter 6, a discussion of raising "counterpoints" in you writing. Both of these chapters will be important references for writing your response.
Process for writing a response essay
You then took a look at the brainstorming you wrote for your response essay assignment. You were instructed to identify a focus and look back at the essay to decide on which points you will develop, and how you will be "in conversation" with the text. I clicked through your posts and it looks like most of you have a great start and are writing in the right direction. At the same time, one thing I noticed was that some of set up a bigger focus than it would be possible to cover to this particular assignment.
This raises a third important step in brainstorming the essay : check back to make sure your focus and development is a good match for the audience expectations (in this case, the requirements set forward on the assignment sheet).
So the invention/brainstorming process for developing a response depends on attention to the three bolded points in the last two paragraphs = but often you don't go through the steps in order, or just one time. You might write and re-write a (possible) focus three or four times as you go back to the reading and identify different sections you might write about.
Organizing your response essay: Finally, we talked about planning the overall organization of your essay. This depends on the genre (you are writing a response essay= a short essay that summarizes a text and makes usually just one well developed point about one of the author's major claims.
The overall organization for a response essay is to set up your response in terms of a point made by the text/author you will reply to, and then to develop a critical (meaning well thought out), well developed response to that point. So, overall => there are two parts. The set up, and the response. Usually the response is longer than the set up, and the response makes some specific reply to the particular points mentioned in the set up.
In terms of how to do this with paragraphing, you have a number of options, but as this essay is 11/2 to 2 pages (not very long) it probably shouldn't be more than 6 paragraphs - unless you are using short paragraphs for emphasis or some other rhetorical purpose.
Typical patterns for developing a response essay might be:
2 paragraphs: Setup paragraphs with a transition at the last sentence, followed by a well developed single paragraph response that concludes with a sentence to draw the point it makes to a close.
3 paragraphs: Setup paragraph followed by two paragraphs to develop your reply. The seconde paragraph would focus on developing your reply, and the third paragraph would emphasize what the two points say to one another, and draw the discussion to a close or resolution.
4 paragraphs. A setup paragraph, with three paragraphs for developing the discusion. Ususally the second paragraph would elaborate your response, and the 3rd paragraph might consider a counterargument or deepen your analysis, and the last paragraph would draw the essay to a close.
You spent the rest of class working on your draft response essays.
For next class:
Read; nothing.
Write: 1) make sure all assignments are posted to the summary page; 2) finish your draft response essay.
In class on Thursday you will participate in peer review of your response essay, so you will need to make sure that a copy of your work will be available to your classmates to read. Bring two print copies, since we will be working in the non-computer classroom.
I know it is scary to have classmates read your work. We (as a class) will negotiate clear boundaries for how to give feedback BEFORE you begin to offer your comments. Coments/feedback is meant to give you information about how your readers understand what you have written.
Asking students to give each other feedback is especially important since sometimes you can say what needs working on in a way that is more understandable to your classmates than the way I would say it.
So bring your writing, and we will find a way to make this into a helpful experience.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
9.18 Reflecting on summaries - getting ready to respond
Class on Tuesday, 9.23 will be in CAS 307
At the beginning of class, I asked all of you to open up the feedback I gave you on your summaries. I wanted to make sure that you could see both the notes at the top of the page, and the side comments which made specific suggestions. After looking over these notes, we listed of some of the things you have been noticing/working on when writing summaries. We made a list on the board. Here are the observations about what you have learned.
This is a good list about what summaries are and how they work.
How are you doing? During the next part of class you took stock of your process for writing a summary, and assessed how well the summaries you write meet the expectations for a "good" summary. You used the prompts (Reflecting on Summaries, posted under Assignments to the right) to describe what you have learned and what you need to work on.
Discussion of Olson's essay on Wal-mart. We spent the beginning of the second part of class identifying the main points in Olson's essay. Then you went back to the essay and pulled out the "evidence" in Olson's essay and noted the page numbers - so you knew where to look if you wanted to quote. Below is a copy of our notes from the board. We identified 5 major points, and a few pages/ideas to elaborate on what each of those points discussed. They are not necessarily in the order they appeared in in the essay,
There are lots more examples to support each of these points - but that's what we got on the board.
Brainstorming: During the last part of class you did some brainstorming for your response essay. To start, I asked you to :
At the beginning of class, I asked all of you to open up the feedback I gave you on your summaries. I wanted to make sure that you could see both the notes at the top of the page, and the side comments which made specific suggestions. After looking over these notes, we listed of some of the things you have been noticing/working on when writing summaries. We made a list on the board. Here are the observations about what you have learned.
- Summary is a conversation between the writer and the text
- Using language from the templates can set up for a particular focus for the summary
- The summary needs to make references to the quotes/material from the text that you will reply to
- Summaries have a focus
- Use your summary to set up a relationship between the They Say and the I Say of your essay
- What you summarize (which points you refer to) depends on what you will write about (your purpose)
- Summaries need to be developed by making specific references to points in the text
- Writers us summaries in different ways
This is a good list about what summaries are and how they work.
How are you doing? During the next part of class you took stock of your process for writing a summary, and assessed how well the summaries you write meet the expectations for a "good" summary. You used the prompts (Reflecting on Summaries, posted under Assignments to the right) to describe what you have learned and what you need to work on.
Discussion of Olson's essay on Wal-mart. We spent the beginning of the second part of class identifying the main points in Olson's essay. Then you went back to the essay and pulled out the "evidence" in Olson's essay and noted the page numbers - so you knew where to look if you wanted to quote. Below is a copy of our notes from the board. We identified 5 major points, and a few pages/ideas to elaborate on what each of those points discussed. They are not necessarily in the order they appeared in in the essay,
Workers not getting paid enough - opening story, 606; 607 - workers can't aford health insurance
Saff is overworked (stores are under staffed) - "workers asked to stay and help out after they have checked out 613; "working upaid overtime = saving your job" (quote from Wal-Mart worker Judy Danneman 613)
Wal-Mart= important factor in US economy provides 800K jobs p 608. 2% share in economy. In the US 27 M workers earn 8$ or less,
2M at Wal-mart
Wal-Mart is anti union p. 618 fire union workers who join the union
Emlimated departent (meat packing) when those workers unionized
Made being in union personal against magare 618
History Sam Walton 610
Writing a response: Next we looked at the assignment sheet and talked (posted to the right) over Chapter 4 in TS/IS. Chapter 4 states that there are basically 3 ways to respond: agree, disagree, or agree/disagree at the same time (by pointing out parts you agree with and other parts you don't agree with, or some combination). We noted that the authors emphasise that you can't just agree or disagree and re-state what the essay says. If you agree, you need to bring new material to the discussion to support your agreement, and if you disagree you need to explain why. The templates in this chapter are worth noting.
1. Name the essay you chose to reply to (King, Herbst or Olson)
2. State a focus (what you want to say)
The whole class shared ideas - and it sounds like you are in a strong position to get started on this.
For homework, I asked you to:
List points you will make
Do some freewriting or write some associations/discussions about what you will write for each point
(at this point you might want to look for some support in the essay)
Make a bullet points to indicate the order of your points
Remember that as you work on the points you want to make, and as you go through the essay looking for material to support your ideas => you might come up with an even better idea. If that happens - RE-WRITE your thesis! Figuring out what you want to argue (your main focus), and the points you will make to support your focus is a circular process. Take advantage of the way you can get stronger during each time around!
For next class:
Write: Finish your reflective writing on summarizing and paste your reflections into the landing page for Drafts/Summaries.
Post your brainstorming for your response essay to the page for Drafts/Invention, sub-page Response. We will use what you have written here for a workshop on Tuesday.
Read: Chapters 5 & 6. Chapter 5 will help you keep the They Say and the I Say parts of your writing distinct, and Chapter 6 gives you language for arguing points that counter what you have to say.
G
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
9.16 Revising Summaries and Quotation
On Thursday 9.18 ENG 1031 meets in CAS 352, and ENG 1032 meets in CAS 245.
I started class Tuesday by drawing your attention to the revised calendar. The plan for finishing work on the summary and response essay is pretty much mapped out. At the end of that unit we will be choosing the essays you want to read for the persuasive essay, so be looking through readings in the section on the cost of college education, the section you chose for this essay.
Quotation: During the discussion of what TS/IS had to say about using quotations, you identified the following points as central:
We then looked over the handout on quoting and paraphrase with particular attention to the bullet points on WHEN to use quotes, and HOW to construct them. The points on how to shorten or reword quotes using brackets [ ] and ellipses will be particularly imporatnt for you => since quotes sometimes do not havequite the right focus or wording to fit into your writing without making minor changes to their wording.
Using quotes. During the next section of class we worked together on revising one of the focused summaries you worked on for the Brandon King essay. Revising a summary so that it makes more definite references to the reading you are summarizing.
Strategies for revising. During the next part of class we looked at Group 1's summary, and worked on it as a while class to make a plan for how to revise it.
We began by asking: do we have all the main ideas in this draft that I am going to need to write this assignment? These ideas included:a statement of King's overall focus; the points King makes to develop his focus which we will refer to in our focus; a statement of our focus (the transition to our response).
On reviewing the essay we decided that all these elements were present, but sometimes in ways that were too general or in the wrong order. Our plan for revising the essay included the following.
Development: Add more about what King says about: the changing American dream, different dreams, and his definition of the American Dream.
This part should include a quote or two for the most important statements (we decided a quote might be important either for the definition or for his explanation of why dreams change).
Organiation: Put King's main idea earlier (at the beginning). Set up some context before presenting our "I Say".
You then spent some time in class getting started on this revision.
SECOND HALF OF CLASS
Summarizing Herbert. During the second half of class, you used what we have practicing for identifying main points, finding a focus, and writing summaries to summarize Bob Herbert's "Hiding from Reality."
We started out by doing some whole class brainstorming to identify Herbert's points. We noticed that his focus was on the responsibility of the American people, the government or "we" for "fixing" problems with the American Dream. We stated that his overall position was pretty much that the American Dream was in ruins, and we were in denial about what we needed to do to fix it.
The supporting points in his argume focused on the WAY the government (we) were going about tryig to represent and/or fix what was happening.
In the example about the economy - he pointed out that reports on jobs make it look like things are getting better when in fact they aren't . And the example about schools points out that because our leaders are not experts (or even competent) - and because they are in denial about what is really wrong - their solutions are unworkable.
Ideas for replying to Herbert:
1) agree= government needs to get out of denial and be more responsible for its role in mending the American dream
2) enter an on-going debate, or argue that his focus implies addition points he has not fully explored: Herbert overlooks the responsibilty of the American people - doesn't talk about their role; or Herbert overlooks the role/responsibilities of employers/corporations/the rich.
3)disagree = if Herbert had chosen different examples about jobs and schools - he could not support this argument; the American dream is fine (as King argues) etc
4) agree with part of what Herbert writes=> agree with points about schools and their importance to the American Dream
For next class:
Write: Finish revising the summary we worked on in class & post it to your portfolio. It should be named LastNameRevGrpSum.
Finish and post the summary you wrote of Herbert. Post this summary to your portfolio page as YourLastNameHerbert.
Read: Ch 4, and "Up against Wal-mart," p. 606.
I started class Tuesday by drawing your attention to the revised calendar. The plan for finishing work on the summary and response essay is pretty much mapped out. At the end of that unit we will be choosing the essays you want to read for the persuasive essay, so be looking through readings in the section on the cost of college education, the section you chose for this essay.
Quotation: During the discussion of what TS/IS had to say about using quotations, you identified the following points as central:
- don't leave dangling quotations=> be sure to integrate the quote into the discussion of your ideas
- blend the authors words with yours
- don't use too many quotes
- choose quotes carefully => they must be relevant to your discussion
- frame your quote (set it up, present the quote, discuss what it shows)
- use the author's exact words
We then looked over the handout on quoting and paraphrase with particular attention to the bullet points on WHEN to use quotes, and HOW to construct them. The points on how to shorten or reword quotes using brackets [ ] and ellipses will be particularly imporatnt for you => since quotes sometimes do not havequite the right focus or wording to fit into your writing without making minor changes to their wording.
Using quotes. During the next section of class we worked together on revising one of the focused summaries you worked on for the Brandon King essay. Revising a summary so that it makes more definite references to the reading you are summarizing.
Strategies for revising. During the next part of class we looked at Group 1's summary, and worked on it as a while class to make a plan for how to revise it.
We began by asking: do we have all the main ideas in this draft that I am going to need to write this assignment? These ideas included:a statement of King's overall focus; the points King makes to develop his focus which we will refer to in our focus; a statement of our focus (the transition to our response).
On reviewing the essay we decided that all these elements were present, but sometimes in ways that were too general or in the wrong order. Our plan for revising the essay included the following.
Development: Add more about what King says about: the changing American dream, different dreams, and his definition of the American Dream.
This part should include a quote or two for the most important statements (we decided a quote might be important either for the definition or for his explanation of why dreams change).
Organiation: Put King's main idea earlier (at the beginning). Set up some context before presenting our "I Say".
You then spent some time in class getting started on this revision.
SECOND HALF OF CLASS
Summarizing Herbert. During the second half of class, you used what we have practicing for identifying main points, finding a focus, and writing summaries to summarize Bob Herbert's "Hiding from Reality."
We started out by doing some whole class brainstorming to identify Herbert's points. We noticed that his focus was on the responsibility of the American people, the government or "we" for "fixing" problems with the American Dream. We stated that his overall position was pretty much that the American Dream was in ruins, and we were in denial about what we needed to do to fix it.
The supporting points in his argume focused on the WAY the government (we) were going about tryig to represent and/or fix what was happening.
In the example about the economy - he pointed out that reports on jobs make it look like things are getting better when in fact they aren't . And the example about schools points out that because our leaders are not experts (or even competent) - and because they are in denial about what is really wrong - their solutions are unworkable.
Ideas for replying to Herbert:
1) agree= government needs to get out of denial and be more responsible for its role in mending the American dream
2) enter an on-going debate, or argue that his focus implies addition points he has not fully explored: Herbert overlooks the responsibilty of the American people - doesn't talk about their role; or Herbert overlooks the role/responsibilities of employers/corporations/the rich.
3)disagree = if Herbert had chosen different examples about jobs and schools - he could not support this argument; the American dream is fine (as King argues) etc
4) agree with part of what Herbert writes=> agree with points about schools and their importance to the American Dream
For next class:
Write: Finish revising the summary we worked on in class & post it to your portfolio. It should be named LastNameRevGrpSum.
Finish and post the summary you wrote of Herbert. Post this summary to your portfolio page as YourLastNameHerbert.
Read: Ch 4, and "Up against Wal-mart," p. 606.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
9.11 Summaries and templates
Class on Tuesday, 9.16 will meet in CAS 307.
Today we worked on incorporating the template language from TS/IS into summaries of King's essay. We noted that before we could decide which template to use, we had to figure out how we were going to USE the summary (what it's purpose was). That is, we had to know what ideas/discussions we were going to use the summary to set up. So that means, before we could summarize King's essay, we had to figure out what we wanted to "say back" to King's essay.
So after we reviewed what TS/IS had to tell us about templates for representing the "they say" part (Ch 1), and about how to write summaries (Ch 2), we made a list of points we might "say back" to King's essay. This list included the following:
1. There is no real definition of the American Dream, perspective is what counts (King's article does a good job of writing about the American Dream). This postion agrees with King and might use templates for presenting standard views.
2. Ideas for what the American Dream is change. This position also agrees with King, and might used templates from the section on "on-going debates, or standard views).
3. King focuses only on the economy in his definition of the American Dream, and there are other important issues. This position would work with templates for summarizing articles that have unstated implications.
4. The economy is central to the American Dream. This essay would agree with King, and could use templates for stating standard views.
5. A very wealthy upper class strengthens the American Dream by providing jobs & spending money. If you agree - you could present this as a standard view; if you are going to question it, you could use templates from ongoing debate.
6. King presents a limited or mistaken definition of the American Dream Templates from ongoing debate or implied or assumed ideas could work for this.
7. The American Dream is a fantasy. Again - this would draw from templates that contest the main points of a reading (the last two).
Process for writing a summary that you will use to make a point/ set up a discussion.
You then divided into groups and worked on writing summaries of King's essay that would set up one of the above arguments/discussions. To get ready to write this summary, I suggested that you:
Good work today!
For next class:
Read: TS/IS Chapter 3 (p. 42). AND Hiding from Reality, 564.
Write: Using the experience from today's class, revise your draft summary of King's essay. Post the revised summary to your portfolio as an attachment to the summary page (there will now be two documents attached to the summary page, the draft summary & the revised summary).
Today we worked on incorporating the template language from TS/IS into summaries of King's essay. We noted that before we could decide which template to use, we had to figure out how we were going to USE the summary (what it's purpose was). That is, we had to know what ideas/discussions we were going to use the summary to set up. So that means, before we could summarize King's essay, we had to figure out what we wanted to "say back" to King's essay.
So after we reviewed what TS/IS had to tell us about templates for representing the "they say" part (Ch 1), and about how to write summaries (Ch 2), we made a list of points we might "say back" to King's essay. This list included the following:
1. There is no real definition of the American Dream, perspective is what counts (King's article does a good job of writing about the American Dream). This postion agrees with King and might use templates for presenting standard views.
2. Ideas for what the American Dream is change. This position also agrees with King, and might used templates from the section on "on-going debates, or standard views).
3. King focuses only on the economy in his definition of the American Dream, and there are other important issues. This position would work with templates for summarizing articles that have unstated implications.
4. The economy is central to the American Dream. This essay would agree with King, and could use templates for stating standard views.
5. A very wealthy upper class strengthens the American Dream by providing jobs & spending money. If you agree - you could present this as a standard view; if you are going to question it, you could use templates from ongoing debate.
6. King presents a limited or mistaken definition of the American Dream Templates from ongoing debate or implied or assumed ideas could work for this.
7. The American Dream is a fantasy. Again - this would draw from templates that contest the main points of a reading (the last two).
Process for writing a summary that you will use to make a point/ set up a discussion.
You then divided into groups and worked on writing summaries of King's essay that would set up one of the above arguments/discussions. To get ready to write this summary, I suggested that you:
1. Decide what you wanted to say back to King - and then go back to the reading and pick out the points in his essay you will have to mention (the They Say part) so that you can set up your reply.
2. Make a list of the points from King that you will need to mention (get specific! Look at the essay. If you try to do this from memory, your essay will probably come out too general).
3. Figure out the order you want to make your points.
4. Check out the templates and decide which will work for you.
5. Write the summary.
You wrote your summaries - and we created a rubric to score them.
Genre/audience (30 points)
Focus (30 points)
Organization (20 points)
Development (20 points)
As we applied this rubric it was clear to me that the information I gave you on the assignment sheet wasn't detailed enough to give you a complete idea of what to expect for each category. So here are some expanded descriptions based on what we talked about in class.
Genre/audience:
Names the author and the essay
Uses the right "templates" for setting up, presenting, and closing the summary
Gives credit to the author (according to Author. . ., Author writes that. . .)
Focus:
Keeps focused on the "They Say"
Includes all important points from the reading that will be raised in your (later) discussion of the reading
Does not bring in unrelated materials
Organization:
Begins by identifying the reading
As part of the set up, indicates why you are writing about this topic (see intro to Ch 1)
Provides general points before providing development
May include a transition to your topic as the concluding sentence
Development
Hits all the points you plan to mention in your discussion
Provides specific references to the reading
FYI: In this form - genre/focus/organization/development are defined for the kind of summary you will write to support a response (a point you want to make about the reading). This is not the only kind of summary writers use, but it is the kind of summary we are working on for the next assignment.
I'm hoping that as we talked through how we would score the essays, you got some ideas for ways to revise your draft summary.
Good work today!
For next class:
Read: TS/IS Chapter 3 (p. 42). AND Hiding from Reality, 564.
Write: Using the experience from today's class, revise your draft summary of King's essay. Post the revised summary to your portfolio as an attachment to the summary page (there will now be two documents attached to the summary page, the draft summary & the revised summary).
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
9.9 Portfoios, baseline reflections, andsSummaries
On Thursday 9.11 ENG 1031 meets in CAS 352, and ENG 1032 meets in CAS 245.
Portfolios. We started class by setting up the portfolios you will use to workon and turn in most of your writing for this course. A sample portfolio is posted to the right under course documents. We got most of the permissions fixed so I could take a quick look - and if you don't hear back from me that means you are good. If something is causing trouble for you - send me an email or we can set up some time for us to have a conference.
Baseline essays. After you set up your portfolios, we talked for a minute about the baseline essays. In general, my read of the baseline essays suggests that we should focus on:
We will also spend some time on organization, both the overall organization for academic essays, and the organization of paragraphs and sections - but you are actually doing pretty well with this one. Also, most of you are pretty solid on spelling, grammar and sentence correctness.
We will also work on writing process. The most important gains for you in this course will be to learn a process to use to plan your papers BEFORE you open up a document and start composing sentences, and to develop effective practices for revising. Actually, we started on this today in our talk about summaries.
Reflection on baseline essays. During the last part of the first hour, you posted your baseline + revised baseline to your portfolio. Then you scored it according to the rubric. This scoring process included a sentence or two to explain your score (why you took off points). After you scored your essay you wrote a short essay where you described:
We used a section by section format - rephrasing (rather than writing down quotes) the main points of each section. Research shows that readers who put what the read in an essay into their own words retain more of the reading, write better papers, and get higher grades. I'm just saying. You decide what you want to do. We then made a list of important terms => terms we would need to mention if we were summing up this Introduction. This is the first part of good process for writing a summary. At the same time = you can't use that list of "what's in the essay" in the order it is written: the purpose of a summary is to consolidate/encapsulate = shorten up the material from the essay, and to do that you usually need to combine and rearrange the author's points. So after you have your list of points - think about the best order for presenting them and how you will combine + rearrange them so that you hit the main points in fewer words.
Portfolios. We started class by setting up the portfolios you will use to workon and turn in most of your writing for this course. A sample portfolio is posted to the right under course documents. We got most of the permissions fixed so I could take a quick look - and if you don't hear back from me that means you are good. If something is causing trouble for you - send me an email or we can set up some time for us to have a conference.
Baseline essays. After you set up your portfolios, we talked for a minute about the baseline essays. In general, my read of the baseline essays suggests that we should focus on:
- close reading of the texts you are writing about (most of you took a position on whether to build on the shore or not, but these replies did not really deal with the central points of the reading, which was about the importance of barrier islands, and the negative effects of building artificial barriers to "harden" the shoreline),
- making sure you are in a "conversation" with the assigned readings
- developing context (background and other explanation for why you are writing about what you are writing about)
- providing detailed examples, illustrations, information to support your points (development).
We will also spend some time on organization, both the overall organization for academic essays, and the organization of paragraphs and sections - but you are actually doing pretty well with this one. Also, most of you are pretty solid on spelling, grammar and sentence correctness.
We will also work on writing process. The most important gains for you in this course will be to learn a process to use to plan your papers BEFORE you open up a document and start composing sentences, and to develop effective practices for revising. Actually, we started on this today in our talk about summaries.
Reflection on baseline essays. During the last part of the first hour, you posted your baseline + revised baseline to your portfolio. Then you scored it according to the rubric. This scoring process included a sentence or two to explain your score (why you took off points). After you scored your essay you wrote a short essay where you described:
- what you did well in your writing
- what you need to work on
- and what you need to DO to strengthen the weaknesses in your writing.
Summaries.
You started the second part of class by working in groups to identify the main focus and supporting points of the Introduction to They Say/I Say. After reviewing how to skim an article by making use of the organizational features of academic writing (titles, headings, the fact that each section will focus on what is stated in the heading and each paragraph in that section will develop that focus in a different way, as well as the facts that topic & concluding sentences generally state the focus for a paragraph, and introductions & conclusions to essays often provide short overviews or reprises of what the essay focuses on), you created a list of the points => which we then put on the board.
We used a section by section format - rephrasing (rather than writing down quotes) the main points of each section. Research shows that readers who put what the read in an essay into their own words retain more of the reading, write better papers, and get higher grades. I'm just saying. You decide what you want to do. We then made a list of important terms => terms we would need to mention if we were summing up this Introduction. This is the first part of good process for writing a summary. At the same time = you can't use that list of "what's in the essay" in the order it is written: the purpose of a summary is to consolidate/encapsulate = shorten up the material from the essay, and to do that you usually need to combine and rearrange the author's points. So after you have your list of points - think about the best order for presenting them and how you will combine + rearrange them so that you hit the main points in fewer words.
Assignment sheet. As pointed out in TS/IS => no summary includes EVERYTHING, and what it does include will depend who you are writing to and why you are writing (audience + purpose). We took a look at about half of the criteria on the assignment sheet for your first summary. You will be summarizing Brandon King's essay on The American Dream. And you will use the assignment sheet and Chapter 1& 2 as directions for how to write that summary.
The American Dream. You spent the last section of class identifying Kings main focus and supporting points, and listing the terms that you will need to hit in your summary. I also directed your attention to the templates in They Say/I Say that indicate how to write summaries for when you are going to agree, disagree or respond in some more complicated way.
Amazing! What a lot of work we did in this class!
For Thursday:
Read: Chapters 1 & 2 of TS/IS
Write: Finish posting your writing about your baseline essay to your Portfolio, and send me your link if you haven't done so already.
Write: a draft summary of King's essay. Post your notes/brainstorming/ planning process AND your draft essay. That way, when we workshop your summaries in class, you will have your notes there to use as a resource. Your planning writing and the draft summary should be attached to the file cabinet page in your portfolio for Summaries.
Good writing - and see you on Thursday!
Thursday, September 4, 2014
9.4 Course readings and using the University Writing Rubric
We will meet in CAS 307 for class on 9.9
We started class by looking through the readings in TheySay/I Say, and deciding which sections we wanted to write about for our course. You chose The American Dream, College Education, and Fast Food as your three topice, in that order.
We started class by looking through the readings in TheySay/I Say, and deciding which sections we wanted to write about for our course. You chose The American Dream, College Education, and Fast Food as your three topice, in that order.
I copied your list of ideas for things to write about for these topics. They were:
American Dream: Mistaken assumptions, The difference in image, How American Dream is affected by the time/place, and What are the main problems of America
College Education: Learn how to earn a living,Professional education for better pay
Fast food: For/against, Health more important than business,Obesity rate increase,Most fast food places have a dense populaton in the “inner city”
Essays for each unit: You chose The American:Dread Alive or on Hold, Hiding from Reality, and Progressive Wal-mart, Really as the essays we will work with in this section. We decided we would choose essays for the other two unitw when we got to them.
Sounds like we should have good material to work with!
Using rubrics to assess writing
During the second part of class we practiced using the University Writing Rubric. Before we applied the rubric to the sample essays (posted to the right), we talked about what the audience/genre expectations were for academic writing.
Content: Our list on the board state the following features that academic readers look for in terms of content:nake a side, focus on the topic from the reading (make a conversation with other texts), hit issues/questions raised in the reading, include your observations, present examples/evidence/illustrations to develop your points (rather than just stating the points over and over again), relate your evidence/illustrations to your postion, refer to the reading.
Form: We also noted that academic writing generally has:
- an introduction that sets up the essay's focus and explains background information;
- a body where each paragraph relates to and develops that focus in a different way by making a series of points and by using detailed, specific illustrations, examples, references to other texts (and so on);
- and a conclusion that draws the discussion to a close.
When we applied the rubric to the sample essays, we noted that the criteria (audience/genre; focus; development, organization, grammar/mechanics, and revision => were not mutually exclusive. For example, focus and genre/audience were related in that if the essay did not reply to or connect back to the prompt/reading the essay was meant to discuss - the rating would suffer for both those criteria. Other critera were related as well.
You did a great job applying the rubric, and even more important, you made excellent observations about what the writers could do to strengthen their writing.
Applying what we did in class. This exercise was meant as practice using your knowledge of what a particular reader/or writing assignment "expects" of your writing as a way to work on your writing assignments. Once you can "see" and talk about what you need to work on in your writing - it is only a matter of time and practice until you get it. Good work on this today!
For next class: We will meet in CAS 307 for both classes.
What we will do in class. I will hand back your diagnostics and we will start by talking over the general patterns I saw and what those patterns suggest about we want to focus on as a class during this semester.
Next- you will set up your portfolios using google.sites and you will post your diganostic to your portfolio, and you will do some writing about what you want to work on.
During the second part of class we will talk about the readings. We will work on strategies for identifying the main points/supporting points, and we will begin talking about how to summarize those points in an academic voice.
Homework assignments:
Read: TS/IS
Introduction (p 1-14); Brandon King, The American Dream: Dead, Alove, or on Hold? p.572.
Write: take notes (for yourself); write down what you see as the main idea + supporting points for each reading.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
9.2 First day of class
During the first hour, you wrote the baseline essay (diagnostic) and sent it to the course email, ENG1031@gmail.com. For homework, you will revise/finish this essay and email the revised version to the course email as well.
We spent the second hour of class going over the Syllabus and getting to know each other a little bit. Hopefully - this will be the last class where I do so much talking. As I indicated in the course overview - this is a "learning through doing" class: the more you talk/participate=> the more you will get out of the class. In-class time will consist mostly of activities that get you to talk, write and think about how and what to write. I thought we got off to a good start - and am looking forward to reading your writing.
For next class:
ENG 1031 will meet in CAS 352 (if I am notified of a change, I will edit this notification).
1. Revise your diagnostic essay and send it to the course email: ENG1031@gmail.com as an attachment. Bring the prompt and assignment sheet back to class so I can collect them.
2. Check out the class blog (which I guess you are doing if you are reading this). Review the syllabus and calendar and if you have any questions - bring them up in class. The other documents are mostly from earlier courses and are just there as placeholders/examples.
3. Buy your book, browse through the readings, and bring the book to class so we can work on planning what we will read for your writing assignments.
Thanks for a great first class!
We spent the second hour of class going over the Syllabus and getting to know each other a little bit. Hopefully - this will be the last class where I do so much talking. As I indicated in the course overview - this is a "learning through doing" class: the more you talk/participate=> the more you will get out of the class. In-class time will consist mostly of activities that get you to talk, write and think about how and what to write. I thought we got off to a good start - and am looking forward to reading your writing.
For next class:
ENG 1031 will meet in CAS 352 (if I am notified of a change, I will edit this notification).
1. Revise your diagnostic essay and send it to the course email: ENG1031@gmail.com as an attachment. Bring the prompt and assignment sheet back to class so I can collect them.
2. Check out the class blog (which I guess you are doing if you are reading this). Review the syllabus and calendar and if you have any questions - bring them up in class. The other documents are mostly from earlier courses and are just there as placeholders/examples.
3. Buy your book, browse through the readings, and bring the book to class so we can work on planning what we will read for your writing assignments.
Thanks for a great first class!
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