2.26 Finishing up response unit, getting started on persuasive writing

Portfolios:  You spent the first part of class working on completing your portfolios: making sure the summary unit was complete + finishing up the response unit.   As announced in class, if you have any work for the summary unit that you want re-assessed, post a note on the landing page (Reflection on portfolio) listing the assignments you want me to look at.  This is the last point in the term when I will re-grade work from the summary unit.  

Planning the reflective essay:  We talked through the assignment sheet for the reflective writing on response essays.  It looks very much like the sheet for reflective writing on summaries - except that this time the requirement is to WRITE AN ESSAY which responds to the prompts.  We talked about what kind of brainstorming you would need to do in order to be able to write this essay.   You wrote me an email summing up what you heard in this discussion - and I wrote back to you with my version of what I thought I said about one way to plan for writing this essay.  As noted in our discussion, there are LOTS of ways to plan and organize essays.  At the same time, they all involve some kind of planning to decide on a general focus, some writing to develop that focus, some more planning to sharpen or deepen that focus, some writing or notes to plan the organization (maybe list of points or ideas and a proposed order), followed up by a draft.  

We noticed that you generally cannot write the introduction until after you have done some exploring (usually in writing) to figure out what you have to say.  This is because the introduction (in most forms of academic writing) sets up the focus in more detail than you will know until after you have done some writing.

Revising:  Later in class we talked about the revising process.  In general, you should revise in terms of one feature of the essay at a time.  Reading through to "fix" everything doesnt allow you enough chance to think in depth about how the focus is working, whether you have the best organization, what kind of development might be needed, whether you need to cut anything, and how your essay is working in terms of the genre/audience expectations.  We noted that using the criteria (the categories for evaluation) from the Writing Rubric and a good plan for organizing your check for what to revise.  

Another strategy for revising is to go back to the assignment sheet, and go through the criteria one by one to make sure you have written to all of the expectations listed on the sheet. 

We will work on additional strategies for revising in class next week.

Getting ready to write arguments
You looked over the Brandon King Essay and worked with your groups to get yourself some perspective on what King wrote.  In your groups you wrote back to a set of questions.  These questions were meant to help you get a grasp on what he is saying + how he sets up his argument.

What is King's most important point?
What are his supporting points?  (and where does he set them up)
Who is is audience and what was his purpose in writing this essay (who is he in conversation with and why)?
Any important terms or backstory which King introduces to help him make his points?

Identify at least one example of King's:
 ethos moves - how does it work to establish his authority? 
pathos moves - how does it work to connect to the target audience's values/beliefs/identities?
logos moves - how does it work to convince you with logic and reason? 

As we discussed King's essay we paid attention to how it was "built" = the organization of his paragraphs, what each paragraph "did" (some things paragraphs do is to set up the focus, develop a point, connect back to the focus, sum up several points, and so on), and how the paragraphs fit together in terms of the focus.  We noted where he set up his focus, and how his focus "organized" or structured the essay.

You did a great job on this!

For next class
Read: Bob Herbert's essay (mentioned in King), p. 564
Write: practice argument with a focus on the issues raised by King

Grades:  I will be grading your portfolios today and tomorrow.  As I reported, I had the wrong scale for the summary unit.  I gave you a total of 100 points for the summary assignments.  I should have given you 50.  You will notice on the "grade-so-far" sheet that I send back with the response unit, the summary scores have been halved, so that the total is now 50 instead of 100 points for the summary unit.  So far you have earned points out is a total of 215 possible points:

Participation (9 classes) :  /90

Baseline : /25

Points from summary unit: /50

Points for Response unit: /50

Have a great weekend and see you on Tuesday.

2. 23 Finishing up Response: Getting ready for Persuasion

In the persuasive writing unit we will be focusing on using pathos and ethos moves, in addition to logos, to create effective arguments.  Class discussion was meant to illustrate the limitations of "facts" and reason in persuading an audience, and to think about the ways ethos and pathos are widely used elements in effective arguments (and how they often are underused in beginning writing assignments).

You will use the essays from They Say/I Say both as model texts for how to build arguments, and as the base material on which to build your persuasive writing.  With that in mind, the class chose the following authors for the persuasive writing unit.

Bob Herbert
Cal Thomas
Brandon King
Robert Frank
Barak Obama

You spent the rest of class workshopping your response essays to get ready to turn in your work for the response uint: due Thursday.

We started by compiling a list of the kind of feedback you as an author might ask for regarding your draft. This list was as follows.

• Does the TS set up (the opening) state the main idea of the essay accurately?  (and does it set  up the points the IS respondes to?)
• Does the essay use the best TS/IS moves? (names the essay + the author, credits the author with the points from her/his essay, uses TS verbs, makes connections between the TS/IS)
• Does the essay cover all of the TS in the set up?
• Does the essay include enough development/examples in the IS?
• What is the focus of the response?  Does the TS set up that focus?

We then reviewed the protocol for group workshops :

Begin by assigning roles: note taker, time keeper, facilitator

Note the group members names + roles on the notes 

for each author:

• author should state what kind of feedback/group comments s/he is looking for
• read essay aloud

the group members then:

• say what is working well in the essay
• ask any questions about points/ideas/language that they did not understand
• reply to the author's requests for feedback
• go through any of the points on the list above which need review

Turn in the group notes + post your plan to revision to your portfolio.

Strategies for revising

We then talked briefly about HOW to revise - what kinds of moves you would need to make in order to strengthen your draft.

I classified these moves as:

 brainstorming (invention writing for when you need to develop a point, re-think/re-write the focus, or think about the overall purpose/organization of the essay.  brainstorming/invention writing is useful throughout the writing process!)

addition: adding more writing (after brainstorming) to develop points, add new points

re-organization: moving what is already written into a different order (usually done through listing the points you have written, and then thinking about whether they are in the best order, or noting  the points in a paragraph, and then re-ordering the sentences when ideas or the logic feels out of order)

deletion: deleting material that does not connect to/develop the focus

substitution:  substitution one word/phrase/section for another.  At the sentence level, this is part of the editing process (substituting TS template language for less academic words/phrases); at the paragraph level you can replace less effective points/examples with more effective points (discovered through brainstorming).

Order for steps in revising. As you revise,  the general suggestion is to work through revisions for focus FIRST, then work on organization, then development, and only at the very end work on line editing for language/correctness.  This isn't always the order writers use, but it can keep you from "wasting time" on sections/sentences from your essay that you end up deleting.

Choosing the best essay + writing about what makes it best:

With your group, you then chose your best response essay and wrote a brief statement stating what makes it your "best" & what further revisions (if any) you made to make it your best.  This statement should be pasted in at the top of the document you turn in as your "best" response.

For next class:

Read; Brandon King's essay on the American Dream

Write: Post to your portfolio all writing for the response unit including the best essay (with your discussion of why you chose that essay as best pasted in at the top).

What to include for the response unit

Draft response to (Carey, Ungar, or Hacker + Dreifus)
Revised response to (Carey, Ungar, or Hacker + Dreifus)
Draft response to Addison
Plan to Revise Response to Addison + Revised Addison essay
Best Response
Reflective writing on Response writing

2.19 Workshop on response essays

Grades:  Each of your should have received a grade-sheet with a grade so far.  The sheet listed all the assignments + other class work that received credit, and provided your score in each category.  If you have questions about your score or how the grade was tallied, be in touch.

As I said in class, if you had missing work, or if you received a score that you want to improve by revising your work, I will be re-grading work from the summary unit at the portfolio-check for the Response Unit (due at the end of class, Thursday, February 26).  You will make a note of any work that needs to be graded/re-graded on the landing page of your portfolio.  I will go over this in class on the day you turn in portfolios.  I will not be accepting make-up work, or work for re-grading from the summary unit after February 26.

Workshops on developing response essays: During classtime we worked on writing response essays two different ways. For the first class, we talked over Addison's reply to Perlstein about the value of college education.   In this discussion we looked at the essay Addison was replying to, talked about the "times" Perlstein was writing about  and the vision of "college" from that point in history, and then considered Addison's more contemporary perspective.  We noted how the identies of students have changed, that the economics of paying for a college education have changed, and that what students want out of their education has also changed.  Through out that discussion we kept referring back to Addison's points about community colleges, and Perlstein's points about "the way college used to be."

Some things you noted about Addison's essay:
she uses language in a way that shows she felt disrespected by Perlstein's representation of how college is "not what it used to be" Their is an edge in the way she refers to what he says (for example the way she uses the terms "hand wringing" "shudder" "University of Privilege" and so on
she feels that Community Colleges are places like the "college of the past" = where students engage in self discovery,  but CC is for working class students rather than people with privilege.
she begins with "they say" - but in a way that seems to assume her readers are familiar with Rick Perlstein's original piece (see link at the last post)
She is writing a response essay!  (her essay has the form of a response essay=> starts with TS, makes a series of points about the TS where she develops her perspective in terms of the points set up in the TS

After our discussion you wrote a general statement of your take on what Addison's essay was about. As you read out your statements to the class = we noticed that they all had a slightly different take!

You then checked the text for points you would need to mention as you developed that representation of the essay's focus.

Then you worked on a statement of what you would say in response -what new information, ideas, perspectives you wanted to contribute to the conversation .

Workshop on revising response essays
During the second part of class we took a close look at the assignment sheet, and using the description of the assignment along with the criteria for the grade, we developed a kind of checklist for what a good response essay needed to do.
Then you worked in groups to provide feedback for a sample response essay (2 sample response essays are posted to the side of the blog - we only got to go over 1).

You gave GREAT feedback, and I am hoping by thinking about what the sample essay's author needed to work on, you got some ideas for what to work on what you for you own essay.

For next class:
Read:  Look through the readings on the American Dream:  Think about which essays you want to read for the persuasive writing unit.
Write: 1) revise the response essay on the essay of your choice (Ungar, Hacker + Dreifus, or Carey); 2) write a draft response essay to Addison. Post your writing to the response page on the portfolio.

In class on Tuesday we will talk about which readings from the American Dream section that you want to work from for unit on persuasion.

We will spend the rest of class workshopping your draft response essay + the revised response essay, and choosing your "best response essay" (the essay you will revise for a grade).

Have a great weekend!

Liz Addison is replying to Rick Perlstein

Take a look at what Addison is replying to.

What's the matter with college?

2.17 No Class Today - Snow Day

Make sure you are caught up on all your assignments, and see you on Thursday.

2.12 Finishing up the Summary Unit - writing response essays

We did two things in class today: we pulled together all the material from the TS/IS text you will need to write a response essay, and I talked through how to make sure your portfolio is complete for the Summary unit.

Getting ready to write a response:
We started class by asking each of you to report to the class what your planned to write for your response essay ( to discuss the brainstorming you did for homework).  As you talked about your ideas, we noticed that there are really 3 ways to respond (see Chapter 4 in TS/IS): agree (with a difference); disagree and explain why; agree + disagree simultaneously.

For essays where you disagree, we emphasized that you need to state why you disagree (explain) and give evidence (from your personal experience, something you 've read => an example, study, personal story) which supports your position.
For essays which agree: you need to raise and idea or evidence that is NOT mentioned in the essay. This can be a new point, a specific example/story/reference to research which agreeswith/supports the author's point but in a different way than stated in the essay,
 For essays which agree and disagree, you will put forward new material or different ways of seeing things for both sides.

We took a look at the templates for stating positions for the three ways to respond, and noted patterns in the kinds of language they used.


Completing the summary unit to earn your "grade-so-far."
We went over the writing that will be graded for the summary unit, piece by piece.  The list of what to include in your portfolio is posted in the previous post.

Naming documentes. I requested that you give the assignments you attach as document smeaninful  names: Ungar draft; Ungar revised, Reflection on Summary, etc, so I will be able to see at a glance what is in your portfolio and what is not.  Titles like Summary, or Revised summary are not so helpful.

Inserting links to Google.doc pages.  Each of you should past the link to your google doc group summary into the summary page.  To do this, go to your google.doc (you sent me the link in an email, so you should have access to it), put the cursor in the URL, copy by pressing control C, go to your portfolio, click the "pencil" icon (so you can edit the page); place your cursor in the field for the page, and hit control V.  Then, be sure to save this change (click the save button).  This will copy the link to the document into your portfolio. Any additional changes you make to this document will be added and I will be able to access them from the same link.  Make sure the "Share" settings allow for anyone with the link to view your work.

Reflective writing.  The directions for the reflective writing are posted to the right under Assignments, Reflective writing on summaries.  I suggested that you open the assignment sheet, and write directly into that document.  Answer each question listed on the assignment sheet.

Best summary.  For the "best summary," you should select on of the three summaries you wrote for homework as your best.  If you think you can make it better still, you may revise it one more time, then attach it to the Summary page in your portfolio as your Best Summary.


For next class:
Read: Addison, "Two Years are Better than Four," p.211.
Review Chapters 4, 5 & 6 as you need them (pay attention to the templates/moves for academic writing).
Write: Draft response to the reading of your choice (the one you talked about in class).  Note: if you find you want to change your mind - go ahead.  Just make sure to write back to one of the three essays we have already discussed: Carey, Ungar, or Hacker + Dreifus.

The portfolio writing is due by Saturday morning.   I will begin grading Saturday.  If there is some reason why you cannot turn in your work by that time, let me know in an email.  Otherwise I will grade what is posted, and we will talk about possiblities for make-up work in class.

In class on Tuesday we will do two things.  It will be donut day - where we will talk over the Addison reading with donuts (bring your own coffee).  We will use this talk to help you brainstorm a response essay.  For this part of class we will NOT be in a computer classroom, so bring yourbook, your laptop, and whatevery you need to write down your brainstorming ideas.

When we go back to the computer classroom, we will  spend time workshopping your draft response essays on one of the first 3 readings.

Have a great weekend and see you on Tuesday.

What to post for the summary unit

Grade so far

Participation: ( 6 classes): (60 points)

Baseline essay, revised essay, rubric scores + reflection: (25 points)

Group summary + group revisions for Carey: (5 points)

Draft summary + revisions - Ungar:  (10 points)

Draft summary + plan for revision - Hacker + Dreifus: (10 points)

Reflection on summary unit: (25 points)

“Best” Summary (your choice of one of your earlier summaries, revised to be your best): (50 points)

Total points for grade so far: 185 points

2.10 Workshop for summaries; writing a response

Over the weekend each of you should have received an email providing feedback on the baseline essay (+ your scoring for your work and your reflections on what to work on) and on the Ungar summary.  We started class with some general comments in terms of what I am seeing that we need to work on as a class.  The most important issue (which is not a surprise) => is that you need to work on using acadmic forms: making the They Say/I Say moves described in your textbook, and using the kind of language and phrases they suggest for making those moves.  OK!   We will work on that.

The second most important issue seemed to be development.  You seem to do well at identifying a focus and setting up some points.  Which is good!   But we need to work on what you say to develop your point.  Developing ideas is about invention writing: listing, freewriting, associating to your topic, writing random ideas, talking to friends/classmates (anyone!) searching the internet = connecting to some of the stories you can tell, "studies"  you can describe, examples you can refer to, and so on.  So we will work on that, too.

What have we learned about writing summaries, so far?

We have learned that summaries condense and select material from an article = they provide a shortened overview.  We also talked about how summaries can be written for different purposes - and you have written summaries for 2 different purposes.  Your first summary was to provide an overview of Carey's main point + his supporting points; your assignment for Hacker and Dreifus was to write a focused summary.  A focused summary sets up what you will say in reply to the text you are summary; it says what the author says, but in a way to set up what you will say back.  

We made a list on the board of what a focused summary should do that looked something like this.
A focused summary should:

• Statesthe overall focus of the text it is summarizing at the very beginning (does TS first)
• Name the author and the title for the textit is summarizing 
• Use academic forms + language-names the author by first & last name at the first mention, by last name for every mention after that; puts the title of the essay in quotes; refers to the nonfiction as essays, readings, texts, articles (not stories); uses the language from the templates.
• Briefly set forward the most important supporting points of the essay 
• Elaborate (spends more time on) the points which are the focus of your reply
• Conclude with a transition to a statement of what you will "say back" to the text you summarized.

Another way to put this might be to put it like this:

• A summary is a conversation between the writer and the text.
• Using language from the templates can set up for a particular focus for the summarys.
• A summary needs to make references to the material from the text that you will reply to.
• 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 use summaries in different ways.

Revisiting Hacker and Dreifus

We spent the next part of class reviewing Hacker and Dreifus' overall point (that colleges need to do more to ensure that students get a good value for the money they pay for their college education), and listing/discussing the supporting points for this argument.  

They state six points (listed in bold text), and as we discussed the essay we noted that these points could be grouped into two kinds of arguments.  The first argument was about how students need to be taughte (engaged, with room to explore); and the second was about how colleges/universities need to change their administrative/teaching staffing and responsibilities.  

After we talked over the points these authors made, I reminded you how in the TS/IS text the authors point out that there are 4 ways to respond: agree, disagree, agree with some things but disagree with others (be on the fence); and open up the discussion by pointing out what the authors failed to consider, didn't develop fully or etc (adding a new perspective).  

Gathering ideas for a response:  I asked you to write a "focus" for a response for each of these perspectives.  There are several important reasons for spending some time thinking about AND writing about what you will say back to a text BEFORE you begin summarizing it.  First, you will summarize a text differently, depending on what you are going to say back to it.  

And second, and just as important, you need to explore some of the things you MIGHT say, before deciding what you WILL say.  If you choose the first idea that comes into your head (with out testing it, or thinking about what you might say about that idea=> you might discover it is not such a great idea after you have put considerable time into it); also, if you try to find the language to write your response at the same time you trying to open up your ideas => you are engaged in two very different kinds of mental tasks. One requires you to be precise + choose the  right language; the other requires you to open up and let the ideas flow.  Trying to write your "thesis" (what you will say) at the same time you are trying to figure out what you will say - can lead to writer's block.  So give yourself a break.  Do some brainstorming BEFORE you start to write your essay.

Summary workshop

During the next part of class you workshopped your draft summaries of Hacker and Dreifus.  You worked in groups of 3 and in each group there was: a facilitator; a notetaker, and a timekeeper.  The notetaker wrote down the role of each participant in her notes; the facilitator kept dicussion on topic (followed the list of tasks stated below); and the timekeeper made sure each author got a fair share of time on his/her summary.

After you were in groups and decided roles for each participant, you did the following.

Decide on the order you want to present your writing, then each author (presenter) should do the following.

1. Talk to the group about what you think you did well

2. State the focus of your summary + what you want to say back to it

3. State what you want feedback on

4. Read your summary out loud to the group

After the author has presented his/her work, the group should do the following.

1. Say back what is going well in the summary

2. State what you hear as the focus of the summary

3. Talk back to the author about what he/she said s/he wanted to wrok on

4. Create a list of what to work on/what to revise make the summary stronger.

To earn credit for the workshop, the notekeeper should turn in the list of what each author should work on.

You did a great job on this for a first try!   Good work on this and we will be doing lots of work like this.  The better prepared you and your classmates are for the workshops, the more you will benefit by them.

Writing response essays:

During the last part of class we talked through the assignment sheet for response essays (posted to the right).  If you have any questions - be in touch.

For next class:

Read: Chapter 5  (p. 68)and 6 (p. 78) in TS/IS.  These chapters offer suggestions for writing response essays.

Write:  1) a plan for revising your summary on Hacker + Dreifus (you do not need to revise the summary, you do need to write a plan to revise it); 2) brainstorming for a response essay to one of the essays on the cost of higher education which we have read so far (post this to the response page in your portfolio)

During class Thursday we will have a workshop where you finish up your work for the summary unit, and get started on writing a response essay.
Good class today, and see you on Thursday,

2.5 Summaries, summaries, summaries!

Announcements:  
Baseline essays: I will be sending you feedback on your baseline essays before next class.  I will be looking for the baseline, the revised baseline, your rubric score + your discussion of what you see as your issues as a writer.  I still do not have essays from some of you, but at this point it is time to move on.

Group work:  Some times you will have working groups set up in class, and a new group member might be added (someone who was not in class) might be added after class.  I will be in touch with you to request your group's permission - and I will be looking for a response.  Be in touch!   We need to work together to make sure everyone in class has a chance to get their work done.

Group summaries:
The group summaries are posted to the right.  We spent the first part of class developing criteria for evaluating how well these summaries were going, and then we took a look at the work by Group 1 and Group 2.

Our criteria were as follows:
Audience/genre:
Names the author/article and sets up the overall focus of the article at the very beginning of the summary
Uses academic language moves (as set up in the TS/IS templates)
Attributes the ideas from the text to the author (according to . . .; the author writes that. . .; etc)

Focus
Identifies the overall idea and the supporting ideas in the text
Does not include irrelevant material or comments about how you feel about the text

Organization
Starts with the overall focus of the article, then develops the supporting ideas, and comes back to the overall focus
Makes clear distinctions between TS and IS

Good job on this!

Writing a summary to set up your response (this was the focus of Ch 2 in TS/IS)
In general, there are 4 ways to respone: agree; disagree; agree with somethings and disagree with others; or introduce new material / open up a new way to think about the idea.  We reviewed the main points of Ungar's article on Liberal Arts Education, and you then took a minute to think about how you would respond.  Depending on what you have to say back => you will summarize the piece differently.  You will emphasize the points you will talk back to, and generalize or skim over the points not relevant to your response.  

We looked at the assignment sheet for writing a focused summary to set you up for writing your response to Ungar.  After discussing some possible ways to respond to Ungar, you spent the rest of class writing a summary to Ungar.

For next class:
Read:  ANDREW HACKER AND CLAUDIA DREIFUS, Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?  TS/IS 179-183.

Write: 
1) revise the group summary in light of class discussion
2) finish the in-class summary of Ungar and post it to your portfolio (attach it to the summary page) by midnight tonight.  I will read your summaries and provide you with feedback by the end of Friday.
3) using the assignment sheet posted to the right, write a summary of Hacker & Drefus and post it to your portfolio on the summary page.

I think we made good progress today.  Good writing!   If you have questions, send me an email.  Have a great weekend and see you Tuesday.

2.3 Reading strategies + pre-writing practices for summarizing,

Catching up/getting on the same page.  For those of you who have been turned in the assignments as they were posted, please have patience; and for those of you who came to the course late or ran into other obstacles, hang in there, and we will hopefully all be on the same page by Thursday.

As I said in class, I generally grade work in "batches" - so that I get a feel not just for how individual students are doing on a particular assignment - but also how the "class" is doing. This gives me information about issues where I was unclear & places where what I assumed (mistakenly) that you knew or understood something that you did not => it directs my teaching. At the same time, all the research on teaching says students need IMMEDIATE (or as close to immediate as you can get) feedback on their work to benefit from teacher input.  So I am working on that.  And hopefully, once the portfolios are set up and we are all more used to our communication systems - all your papers will come in during the class when they are due - and my feedback to you will come back during the next class or maybe even IN the class when they are due.

So far you should have:
written the baseline essay and attached it to the Baseline page in your portfolio
revised the baseline essay and attached it to the Baseline page in your portfolio
created your course portfolio (see sample portfolio to the right)
scored your baseline essay using the GE Writing Rubric and pasted your scores in on the Baseline page of your portfolio
written a short reflection on how well you thought you did on the baseline, what you need to work on, and what grade you'd give yourself

And you should have read:
Introduction to TS/IS (p. 1)
Chapter one of TS/IS: "They Say" (p.19)
Kevin Carey's piece on "Why do you think they're called for-profit colleges?" (p.215)

Assignments do for next class are due at the end of this post.

Strategies for writing a summary: Using writing to discover your ideas and your voice
We spent the next part of class working on PROCESS for writing a summary.

The first and most important work you need to do in order to write a strong summary = is to make sure you understand the main ideas in the reading.  This seems so obvious you might wonder why we bothered to say it - but really - this is the most common stumbling block for students.  We all want to skim through once (= we 'read' it) and then get straight to writing the assignment.  This is generally a bad idea.  The more time you spend with the reading, the less painful the writing assignment will be.  DO NOT HURRY THROUGH THIS STEP.

We used several strategies to discover the main idea of Carey's piece as we worked on it in class.
1. We thought about the title in order to figure out his focus.  If you know the focus of a piece (or at least have an idea what it is) you can be a more effective reader.  You will know what is important + how each points fits with the focus.
2. We skimmed the intro (and should have skimmed the conclusion) to confirm, develop, get a more detailed idea of what the focus was.
3. We skimmed topic sentences (or heading is an article has them) for some information about the sequence of his points.
4. We made sure we understood unfamiliar terms + ideas (for-profit colleges v. non-for-profit colleges, entreprenuer, etc).

This is like - pre-reading.  It sets you up to read effectively & focus on the main points.

Using writing to read. Next (in theory) you read the piece carefully: taking notes; asking yourself what point each paragraph made and how each point connected to the focus.  You might do this as you read, or on your "second read" where you go back through to make sure you know what the author wrote.

On the second read, you pay attention to where the author made his different points (i.e. Carey begins by "bashing" for-profit schools, and then says what's good about them = what does this organization contribute to the "meaning" readers take away from his piece?  What might it imply about what "side" he is on?) and how he makes his points ( i.e. Carey does a lot of letting the story tell itself, or quoting ideas + "facts" supplied by others - how does this affect the credibility of his argument?  How does it shape the emotional tone?) During this read you write down your observations + questions about the piece => we did some of this work in class.

Free-writing.  After you had a good hand on what the essay was about, you did some free-writing to find your voice - the way you would re-state these ideas in your own language.  Free-writing is both about turning off your editor and giving yourself permission to explore what you think about the essay without writing perfect/correct sentences; and it is about just getting your words out there in the language you would use to talk about the reading.  It sets you up to write your essay even if you don't look at what you wrote.  It is like priming the pump.  While the first activities are done with the book open - freewriting is done with the book closed.

Planning.  Thinking about how we might write about this essay. At this point, we went back to the templates to think about the audience expectations (the kind of language your teachers are going to be looking for in your writing).  You looked at the second half of Chapter 1 (They Say) and noted the different moves the authors suggest for writing the 'They Say ' (summary) of different kinds of arguments (pieces of writing that set forward a point).  You chose the last one - the one for an issue with more than one side.  YES!   That is definitely what we are dealing with.

At that point we also talked about some of the other conventions expected for academic writing: refer to the author by first and last name at the first mention, and by last name only for all other mentions; set up your summary by naming the author, the essay, and the overall focus of the essay; use "academic" verbs to report what the author's point=>the author discusses, explores, writes, states, argues, etc = not "talks about" "says".  Also, academic readings (unless they are fiction) are generally referred to as articles or essays => not stories.  The term story is reserved for literary works or anecdotes; scholarly or journalistic work is generally not referred to as a "story."


Writing a one sentence statement of focus
Next, you wrote a one sentence overview of the focus.  Don't be married to this statment - you can change it as you go along - but it is a good idea to start with a "focus" for what you think the essay is about - and to put that focus in writing, so you can refer to it while you work on your summary.
Then you may want to list the points you think you should cover.
THEN (finally) you start drafting the summary itself.  Remember, this is a draft.

You worked in groups to write summaries for Carey.  Your groups were:
Group 1; Samir, Jasmin, Diego, Selena
Group 2: Aguida, Tajanik, Darian, Isaiah
Group 3: Mohamed, Yun, Bryan, Erica
Group 4: Haley, Ashton, Esther, Steven

If you were not in class, send me an email, and I will check with the groups and try to find you a place.

For next class:
We will continue to work on writing summaries.  We will create and use a rubric for summaries to evaluate your group summaries.  And you will write through the pre-writing process to work on a summary for your next reading in the "Cost of Education" group of readings.

Read: Chapter 2 in TS/IS "Her point is" (p. 30); and "The New Liberal Arts" by Sanford J. Ungar (p. 190)
Write: finish your group summaries and post them to your drive document;

Also - for yourself: Use writing to help you figure out what Ungar's overall focus is, and what are his supporting points.  Make notes!   These are for you.

Great class today!   I feel like we made some real progress.  Keep on it - and see you Thursday.