All of you who turned in a completed portfolio should have received an email to your Kean account with your tally sheet.
Unless I hear from you with corrections to your tally, that is the grade I will post to Keanwise.
I have looked forward to every class I had with you. Just thinking back on the semester makes me smile. I wish each of you the best in your lives and your work.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Monday, December 22, 2014
12.22 Grades
I am grading your final porfolios.
Missing work. It seems a number of you didn't post your reflective essays to your ENG 1031 portfolios? Your grades will be based on the ENG 1031 portfolio you have been keeping for me and which I have been grading throughout the semester - so you need to post all work that you want a grade on to the portfolio I have been reviewing all semester. I will not be reading the CollegeComposition Portfolio which you just created; that portfolio is for program assessment.
For those of you who didn't post your reflective writing to the course portfolio - I will check back one more time tomorrow morning. At that time I will go with what has been posted so far.
Missing work. It seems a number of you didn't post your reflective essays to your ENG 1031 portfolios? Your grades will be based on the ENG 1031 portfolio you have been keeping for me and which I have been grading throughout the semester - so you need to post all work that you want a grade on to the portfolio I have been reviewing all semester. I will not be reading the CollegeComposition Portfolio which you just created; that portfolio is for program assessment.
For those of you who didn't post your reflective writing to the course portfolio - I will check back one more time tomorrow morning. At that time I will go with what has been posted so far.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
12.18 Last day of class - watch for your grade sheets in your email
We went over the assignments and practices for this class and you gave me lots of good ideas for how to revise the course for next term
Grades reminder: I will be sending your grade sheets to your emails as soon as I read through your portfolios. After all the gradesheets are sent, I will wait a day or two (see previous post for reminder of the details of this process) and then post your grade to Keanwise. Be sure to check back here to see when I send out the grade sheets. I will post a note just so you know they have been sent (in case I get confused and skip over a name.)
Thanks for being such a great class. You kept me excited about our work together - and as I said in class, I can't wait for the College Composition review so they can see what good writing you did. I am wishing my best to each of your, and be sure to stop back to say hello once in a while.
Grades reminder: I will be sending your grade sheets to your emails as soon as I read through your portfolios. After all the gradesheets are sent, I will wait a day or two (see previous post for reminder of the details of this process) and then post your grade to Keanwise. Be sure to check back here to see when I send out the grade sheets. I will post a note just so you know they have been sent (in case I get confused and skip over a name.)
Thanks for being such a great class. You kept me excited about our work together - and as I said in class, I can't wait for the College Composition review so they can see what good writing you did. I am wishing my best to each of your, and be sure to stop back to say hello once in a while.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
12.16 Endpoint essay, finishing up the portfolio, grades
You wrote your endpoint essays and sent them to me via the course email. Whew! One more thing checked off.
College Composition Portfolios. We then worked through the College Composition Portfolios. I'm sorry I did not give you complete/accurate directions when I introduced it. I know that made you some extra work. With any luck - we got through all that today. What I forgot to tell you was that all assignments, each individual asssignment, needed to be pasted in on its own page. We spend most of the second part of class re-structuring thin college composition portfolios. The sample College Composition portfolio, and the previous post on what to post to your collcomp portfolio list what assignments you need to post to this portfolio.
We also discussed setting the permissions (available to anyone with the link, can view) and sharing (with me, and with collcomp@kean.edu).
If you have any further questions - we can talk them over on Thursday.
Grades: At the end of class I briefly talked through my process for sending you your grades. As soon as I have reviewed your completed portfolios (due at the end of class on Thursday), I will send you a final grade sheet, similar to the grade sheets I have sent throughout the semester. If you want points from the last grade-so-far revised => YOU MUST NOTE THE ASSIGNMENTS YOU WANT ME TO RE-EVALUATE AT THE TOP OF THE COURSE REFLECTION PAGE FOR OUR COURSE PORTFOLIO (not the collcomp portfolio). I will only re-grade material which you specifically (and accurately) request me to re-grade.
After I have graded everyone's portfolio, I will send your final gradesheets via your email. I will also post a notice on the blog that I have sent the gradesheets. After this notice, I will wait about 24-48 hours before turing grades in to Keanwise. This gives us a chance to make sure I added everything up right, evaluated your work in a way that makes sense to you, and etc. During this time period you are encouraged to let me know if there were any mistakes or issues that need to be re-considered. If I don't hear from you, I will assume you are OK with your grade. If I DO hear from you, we will discuss any issues you identify over email, and I will either revise the grade, or explain why I feel the grade needs to stay the same.
After all issues have been aired, I will post grades to Keanwise. At that point, if we discover there has been a mistake in calculating the grade, we will need to file a grade-change, or go through an appeal.
For next class:
We will meet in the non-computer classroom and I will bring food. We will spend class evaluating the course. Think about what could be done differently to help the course provide the best support for college writers that we can give them.
Good work today, thanks for your patience, and see you on Thursday.
College Composition Portfolios. We then worked through the College Composition Portfolios. I'm sorry I did not give you complete/accurate directions when I introduced it. I know that made you some extra work. With any luck - we got through all that today. What I forgot to tell you was that all assignments, each individual asssignment, needed to be pasted in on its own page. We spend most of the second part of class re-structuring thin college composition portfolios. The sample College Composition portfolio, and the previous post on what to post to your collcomp portfolio list what assignments you need to post to this portfolio.
We also discussed setting the permissions (available to anyone with the link, can view) and sharing (with me, and with collcomp@kean.edu).
If you have any further questions - we can talk them over on Thursday.
Grades: At the end of class I briefly talked through my process for sending you your grades. As soon as I have reviewed your completed portfolios (due at the end of class on Thursday), I will send you a final grade sheet, similar to the grade sheets I have sent throughout the semester. If you want points from the last grade-so-far revised => YOU MUST NOTE THE ASSIGNMENTS YOU WANT ME TO RE-EVALUATE AT THE TOP OF THE COURSE REFLECTION PAGE FOR OUR COURSE PORTFOLIO (not the collcomp portfolio). I will only re-grade material which you specifically (and accurately) request me to re-grade.
After I have graded everyone's portfolio, I will send your final gradesheets via your email. I will also post a notice on the blog that I have sent the gradesheets. After this notice, I will wait about 24-48 hours before turing grades in to Keanwise. This gives us a chance to make sure I added everything up right, evaluated your work in a way that makes sense to you, and etc. During this time period you are encouraged to let me know if there were any mistakes or issues that need to be re-considered. If I don't hear from you, I will assume you are OK with your grade. If I DO hear from you, we will discuss any issues you identify over email, and I will either revise the grade, or explain why I feel the grade needs to stay the same.
After all issues have been aired, I will post grades to Keanwise. At that point, if we discover there has been a mistake in calculating the grade, we will need to file a grade-change, or go through an appeal.
For next class:
We will meet in the non-computer classroom and I will bring food. We will spend class evaluating the course. Think about what could be done differently to help the course provide the best support for college writers that we can give them.
Good work today, thanks for your patience, and see you on Thursday.
12.16 Endpoint essay prompt
This semester, we have read the essays by Michelle Obama and Haygood. These readings discuss issue of obesity as it relates to lifestyle within United States in general, and within two particular cultural communities in particular. Plan and write an essay arguing your position on the issue. Support your position fully, drawing on your own experience as well as examples taken from the essays.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
12.11 Review for endpoint essay
Today's class was about preparing to write the endpoint essay. The prompt for the endpoint essay is standard for all of the college composition classes, except that each class is expected to choose the particular essays (from course readings) that students will write about.
After discussing the units and the essays in the units, our class chose to write about the fast food unit, using the essays by Michele Obama and Will Haygood.
We did a rhetorical analysis of the audience, purpose, and form of essay exams as a way to prepare for this exam (and to use as a model for thinking about essay exams for other courses).
Audience and Purpose: to write an essay to demonstrate knowledge of course material. This is the overall purpose and it means both that you will need to make specific references to course readings and that the focus of your essay exam needs to be grounded in the ideas from the readings.
Demonstrating mastery of course material means that you can:
accurately summarize/re-state the readings' content = what they say
generalize the principles or ideas from the readings
synthesize/apply these ideas by re-combining them and thinking about them in new ways and extending them to new contexts
Because you to synthesize/apply these ideas, your essay will need to "argue" for your synthesis (your new idea or way of thinking about what the course material says). So => essay exams (including this one) are usually persuasive writing which is based in an analysis of the course readings.
Obama:
history of audience
accomplishments of NAACP
relats focus to NAACP- dentified obesity as a problem for children in general & black children in particular
emphasize the power of the group
inform people about what they eat
relates obesity to how they used to eat (used to exercise more)
talks about cultural changes
Let's move
1. healthier foods in schools
2. get information about healthy eating to parents
3. work with doctors to make sure children are screened
4. food options in community
Let's cook
1. provide affordable recipes/ingredient lists
2. video series
3. breast feeding
WIC
main point: to inform audience about federal government's role in dealing with obesity, and to persuade them (the NAACP) to support those programs
Haygood
relates personally to his audience
uses narrative form throughout the essay to expose people of the town
doesn't blam people blames food industry
find more affordable ways for people to eat healthy
points out that there is no YMCA in the town
tells the story of one particular family, the Robinsons
don't have family cooking in the restaurants, mostly fast foods
makes note of Obama's speech and says it is as if she is talking about Manchester
points out Jill Day's research study of the town = findings: estimated that 1/3 of kids in Manchester would be overweight or obsese; correlated activity with with weight
related environment to how it affects the way children eat: she points out that no parks, all eating options are fast food (cheapest)
mayor - knows little about the literature of eating
mdeical community = people don't go to doctors = too expensive
We spent the last part of class posing thesis statements that would set you up to write an essay where you took a position regarding an issue or feature relevant to these two essays.
For next class:
Write/identify several thesis statements you might use to write a persuasive essay on fast food. Remember that you will need to refer to Obama and Haygood to develop this essay.
Identify points from Obama and Haygood that would would need to connect to in order to develop your argument.
Come to class prepared to write the endpoint essay during the first half of class.
We will spend the second half of class making sure you are well prepared to finish the portfolio.
After discussing the units and the essays in the units, our class chose to write about the fast food unit, using the essays by Michele Obama and Will Haygood.
We did a rhetorical analysis of the audience, purpose, and form of essay exams as a way to prepare for this exam (and to use as a model for thinking about essay exams for other courses).
Audience and Purpose: to write an essay to demonstrate knowledge of course material. This is the overall purpose and it means both that you will need to make specific references to course readings and that the focus of your essay exam needs to be grounded in the ideas from the readings.
Demonstrating mastery of course material means that you can:
accurately summarize/re-state the readings' content = what they say
generalize the principles or ideas from the readings
synthesize/apply these ideas by re-combining them and thinking about them in new ways and extending them to new contexts
Because you to synthesize/apply these ideas, your essay will need to "argue" for your synthesis (your new idea or way of thinking about what the course material says). So => essay exams (including this one) are usually persuasive writing which is based in an analysis of the course readings.
Obama:
history of audience
accomplishments of NAACP
relats focus to NAACP- dentified obesity as a problem for children in general & black children in particular
emphasize the power of the group
inform people about what they eat
relates obesity to how they used to eat (used to exercise more)
talks about cultural changes
Let's move
1. healthier foods in schools
2. get information about healthy eating to parents
3. work with doctors to make sure children are screened
4. food options in community
Let's cook
1. provide affordable recipes/ingredient lists
2. video series
3. breast feeding
WIC
main point: to inform audience about federal government's role in dealing with obesity, and to persuade them (the NAACP) to support those programs
Haygood
relates personally to his audience
uses narrative form throughout the essay to expose people of the town
doesn't blam people blames food industry
find more affordable ways for people to eat healthy
points out that there is no YMCA in the town
tells the story of one particular family, the Robinsons
don't have family cooking in the restaurants, mostly fast foods
makes note of Obama's speech and says it is as if she is talking about Manchester
points out Jill Day's research study of the town = findings: estimated that 1/3 of kids in Manchester would be overweight or obsese; correlated activity with with weight
related environment to how it affects the way children eat: she points out that no parks, all eating options are fast food (cheapest)
mayor - knows little about the literature of eating
mdeical community = people don't go to doctors = too expensive
We spent the last part of class posing thesis statements that would set you up to write an essay where you took a position regarding an issue or feature relevant to these two essays.
For next class:
Write/identify several thesis statements you might use to write a persuasive essay on fast food. Remember that you will need to refer to Obama and Haygood to develop this essay.
Identify points from Obama and Haygood that would would need to connect to in order to develop your argument.
Come to class prepared to write the endpoint essay during the first half of class.
We will spend the second half of class making sure you are well prepared to finish the portfolio.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
12.9 Reflective essays
We spent class discussing how to work on /revise the reflective essays. We clarified what the focus needed to be, and suggested a number of ways to organize an essay that would write to that focus.
Focus: how you have grown (gotten better) as a writer + what you still need to work on.
Areas where you might have grown (or need work) include:
1. writing process (invention - analyzing the reading, reviewing the assignment sheet, finding a focus, deepening the focus, identifying points to support the focus, finding the best order for the points, finding appropriate development; and revising. . . . you can make this list as well as I can by now),
2. understanding of the genres/academic writing (summary/response, persuasion, analysis =in particular rhetorical analysi)
3. resources/strategies for working on focus, organization, development, academic language, correctness
Organization: how you organize your essay will depend on your focus. Your focus should reflect the most important patterns in your writing & your process that have changed - or that still need to change.
You can organize your essay in terms of writing process (what you learned about pre-planng, invention + revision; genre (what you learned in working on the writing for each unit); or features of writing (what you learned about focus, organization, development).
Development: as I said in class, for the reflective writing on the analytic essays, the most important work the class needed to do as a whole was on development. You need to point to examples from the writing in your portfolio to "show" how your writing changed. Make specific statements about what changed from drafts to finished essays, what got better (or remained the same) in your process and the esssays you turned in as you moved through the semester.
You need to look at your writing in order to formulate these statements. Re-read your writing, and write down what revisions you made, how the comments to your work changed (or didn't change).
Good luck!
In the next class there will be some time to work on /discuss the analytic essays. We will spend most of class talking about how to plan/write in-class essay exams.
See you on Thursday.
Focus: how you have grown (gotten better) as a writer + what you still need to work on.
Areas where you might have grown (or need work) include:
1. writing process (invention - analyzing the reading, reviewing the assignment sheet, finding a focus, deepening the focus, identifying points to support the focus, finding the best order for the points, finding appropriate development; and revising. . . . you can make this list as well as I can by now),
2. understanding of the genres/academic writing (summary/response, persuasion, analysis =in particular rhetorical analysi)
3. resources/strategies for working on focus, organization, development, academic language, correctness
Organization: how you organize your essay will depend on your focus. Your focus should reflect the most important patterns in your writing & your process that have changed - or that still need to change.
You can organize your essay in terms of writing process (what you learned about pre-planng, invention + revision; genre (what you learned in working on the writing for each unit); or features of writing (what you learned about focus, organization, development).
Development: as I said in class, for the reflective writing on the analytic essays, the most important work the class needed to do as a whole was on development. You need to point to examples from the writing in your portfolio to "show" how your writing changed. Make specific statements about what changed from drafts to finished essays, what got better (or remained the same) in your process and the esssays you turned in as you moved through the semester.
You need to look at your writing in order to formulate these statements. Re-read your writing, and write down what revisions you made, how the comments to your work changed (or didn't change).
Good luck!
In the next class there will be some time to work on /discuss the analytic essays. We will spend most of class talking about how to plan/write in-class essay exams.
See you on Thursday.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
12.4 Reflective writing on portfolio
We started class by going through the assignment sheet for the reflective writing on the portfolio. The assignment sheet has 3 parts.
1. The front of the assignment sheet provides an overview of the task, what students should "do" and "not do" as the write there essay.
2. On the back side of the assignment sheet, the description of the essay's objectives is followed by three brainstorming questions. These questions are designed to get you thinking - in detail - about what has changed about your writing (and why) as a result of your participation in ENG 1031-1032.
3. Finally, at the bottom of the page on the back, the assignment sheet briefly describes a process for writing your essay.
After talking through the assignment sheet, we kind of rambled off into a free from discussion of social injustice - with occaisional one-on-one conferences for individuals who were trying to work on their essay. What a great discussion! If anyone has additional questions about how to move forward with the essay - send me an email.
For next class
Write: Draft reflective essay
We will spend most of class setting up a set of criteria for the reflective essay, and workshopping drafts submitted by student volunteers. This workshop will serve to provide some more concrete models for organizing and developing your essays, as well as to provide specific feedback to students who provide drafts for review.
Grades for Unit on Analysis
I will be grading the analysis units over the weekend, and hope to have all work returned by class on Dec. 9. The list of what to include for the analysis unit is posted here.
Have a great weekend, and see you Tuesday.
1. The front of the assignment sheet provides an overview of the task, what students should "do" and "not do" as the write there essay.
2. On the back side of the assignment sheet, the description of the essay's objectives is followed by three brainstorming questions. These questions are designed to get you thinking - in detail - about what has changed about your writing (and why) as a result of your participation in ENG 1031-1032.
3. Finally, at the bottom of the page on the back, the assignment sheet briefly describes a process for writing your essay.
After talking through the assignment sheet, we kind of rambled off into a free from discussion of social injustice - with occaisional one-on-one conferences for individuals who were trying to work on their essay. What a great discussion! If anyone has additional questions about how to move forward with the essay - send me an email.
For next class
Write: Draft reflective essay
We will spend most of class setting up a set of criteria for the reflective essay, and workshopping drafts submitted by student volunteers. This workshop will serve to provide some more concrete models for organizing and developing your essays, as well as to provide specific feedback to students who provide drafts for review.
Grades for Unit on Analysis
I will be grading the analysis units over the weekend, and hope to have all work returned by class on Dec. 9. The list of what to include for the analysis unit is posted here.
Have a great weekend, and see you Tuesday.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
College composition portfolio
The portfoliio must contain the following pieces:
1. Summary/response. For this section, students should post:
2. A persuasive/argumentative essay. For this section, students should include:
5. Reflective essay on what you learned in the course & how the portfolio demonstrates that learning
1. Summary/response. For this section, students should post:
- assignment that requires students to summarize AND respond to a text
- a reflection on the summary/response submitted for feedback
2. A persuasive/argumentative essay. For this section, students should include:
- planning work (brainstorming, freewriting, listing)
- a rough draft, preferably the version submitted to the instructor for comments
- a reflection on the rough draft (this can be a plan for revision)
- a final, unmarked draft
- planning work
- a rough draft
- a reflection on the rough draft (writing on what to revise)
- a final unmarked draft
5. Reflective essay on what you learned in the course & how the portfolio demonstrates that learning
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