- Remember to watch this TedTalk, paying special attention to how she cites various sources. Then copy her! You can also learn a lot about keeping an audience involved. Of course, her speech is argumentative and yours may not be, but she has a lot of killer rhetorical moves to steal from. This is especially important for those of you who were not in class on Friday.
- I'm working on your unessays and am enjoying reading all the good work you've done! That said, there is so much room for improvement in many of them and I think we could all learn a lot by doing that work, so I want to let you all know that you will have an opportunity to rewrite both of your unessays. We will cancel the last assignment and spend more time on rewrites. More on this in class on Monday, but I wanted to let you know since I am posting their respective grades as I go.
- Forum Group One: Think about whether you want to be graded individually or as a group for your presentation. I'll be asking you on Monday.
- For every forum group, one way to look at this forum is as a literature review in the form of a presentation. You might have already done a literature review in high school, and you will surely do one in one of your classes at GU. A literature review in economics looks very different from one in biology, but each focuses on many of the same skills, one of which is synthesis. Check out this informative eLecture from Harvard on Synthesizing Sources. Think about how you can integrate these skills into your presentation. I expect everyone to have viewed this before your present.
I hope everyone is enjoying spring break so far. I thought I had scheduled this post to go up Monday, but I must have made a mistake! Sorry about that. That said, here is some info and some reminders:
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Hey all! Sorry for getting week eight's calendar up late. Thank you for your patience. Before I get into this week, I want to make sure you all check the calendar during spring break. There will be no new blog post assigned, but I will be posting helpful resources. Some of you asked for the criteria I will use to grade your forum presentations. Here it is. And the link will be available to the left under Course Docs & Links. Monday, February 29th: In Class: Work on forums in class HW: Forum homework Wednesday, March 2: In Class: talk about group tag; Research: primary research meaningful HW: Forum homework HW: Blog #7, prompt below Friday, March 4: In Class: Presentation Skills HW: Forum homework HW: Blog #7, prompt below Blog Post #7, part 1:
Whether it's a movie, a funny story, or an article, I'm sure you have all summarized something before. This week's blog post is pretty strait-forward and should give you a head start on your group Annotated Bibliography. First, remind yourself of how to write a summary by reading through this handout on what a good summary does. Don't skip this! I'll be using it in conjunction with the blog evaluation criteria to grade your posts. Next, find one important source that you might use for your forum. Choose either a "True Summary" or "Interpretive Summary" and then summarize your article (these are terms from the short handout linked above). Make sure to cite your source along with whether you've chosen "True" or "Interpretive" and why you thought that type of summary would be most helpful to the work you are doing. due: Friday, March 4 at midnight tags: "your group tag" "blog 7 research question" "your name" Blog Post #7, part 2: Using the comment function, read three of your peer's summaries and give them feedback using these questions:
If someone already has three comments, choose someone else's blog post to comment on. You should all give and receive feedback from three peers. For this week's blog post, you can go back and edit them throughout spring break to incorporate the feedback you receive from your peers. To show what you changed, please change the color of that text. due: Monday, March 7th at midnight Most of you have done a good job of figuring out engaging research questions this week. Nice work there! I want to take a moment to make sure you're all on track. As I mentioned in class, you should all be moving on to researching and discussing your research. To do well on this project it is important you all engage meaningfully in your research question, not divide up the work and complete it on your own. Remember part of the reason we did the education unit is so you all have a model for how to engage meaningfully in the research process during this project (and as you go on to do research projects the rest of your college career). Although I found the sources the first round, you did the engaging with very little guidance from me. For the forum project, you need to do the research and then engage in your sources similarly. So your goal is not to merely find and present some stuff, you should be learning and shaping your opinions on your topic.
To accomplish all of this, I do not believe you cannot do this whole project well in the three hours of class time next week with no outside work. To use class time accordingly, I recommend that you are assigning each other homework and doing what you can outside of class, then come to class ready to discuss ideas. I am expecting to hear a lot of interesting conversation next week in class. If you're interested in reading your peers' research questions, take a look below. Many of these are evolving. If I've made a mistake/not posted yours/it has changed, let me know in the comments below and I'll fix it!
Monday, February 22: In Class: finalize Forum Groups; five minute question free-write; come up with group guidelines and work plan; Coming up with a Research Question HW: Forum homework HW: Blog #6: Introduction to Topic and Research Question Wednesday, February 24: In class: Introduce Annotated Bibliography; Talk about research HW: Forum homework HW: Blog #6 Friday, February 26: In Class: Foley Search Engine HW: Forum homework HW: Blog #6: Introduction to Topic and Research Question Blog #6: Introduction to Topic and Research Question First, you should let your readers know what your research question is. If you'd like, you can include how you arrived at it, but this is not required. The rest of the blog should be spent trying to get your readers to care about your topic. Here are some ideas to get you started: Why are you interested in this research question? Why should people be interested in your topic/question? Why is this an important topic for us to be discussing? Who stands to benefit from a discussion about this? Who stands to lose? Who are the major players/what are major factors influencing your questions? How does power play a role in your research question? What do you already know about this topic? What do you want to find out about? Do you have any hypotheses? Any guesses to the information do you think you'll find? Do you think you are more or less knowledgeable about this than your peers? due: Monday, 29th before class tags: "your group tag" "blog 6 research question" "your name" Created by Poynter, a group who aims to help foster journalistic excellence, below is the most helpful guide to plagiarism I've ever seen.
And get ready, I'm about to try and use Beyonce to get you to read this article, which talks about issues of plagiarism in popular culture. Lame and embarrassing, I know. But that's how desperate we English teachers are to get someone to pay attention to issues of plagiarisms. So anyways, the article discusses recent issues of plagiarism with a popular French vlogger, Malcolm Gladwell, and, you guessed it: Beyonce. It is entertaining and informative. And if you follow the links, you can check out an annotated version of Beyonce's new video, "Foundation," which has quite a bit going on under the surface. Since you will be asked to post research sources during the forum onto the blog, which exists in the real internet world, it is important that you understand how to ethically source your work, so I hope my efforts at pandering at your pop culture knowledge works. Hopefully your long weekend is providing you a chance to catch up on some work and sleep! Any maybe even a little outside time; it feels so much like spring, and since I'm sure you want to be outside as much as I do, so I'll keep this short and to the point. If you're working on your unessay and would like some examples, check out this compilation of student writing. If you'd like me to take a look at your unessay, feel free to bring it by office hours on Wednesday, which are from 10-11:45 in the Writing Center. Speaking of the Writing Center: they're awesomely helpful and you should go work with them, no matter what stage of writing your involved in. Last, if office hours don't work for you, I am happy to come in and chat on Tuesday, just let me know when would work so I can make arrangements. Monday, February 15: No Class HW: Keep working on your unessays HW: Blog #5: Writer's Memo Wednesday, February 17: In class: Peer Review (paragraph purpose: narration, exposition, definition, description, comparison, process analysis, persuasion), and Writer's Memo HW: Work on Unessay and Writer's Memo Friday, February 19: In Class: Introduce Forum and Annotated Bibliography; brainstorm topics HW: finish Unessay--due Monday, February 22 Blog #5: Writer's Memo
There are many different ways to go about writing a writer's memo, and if you want to use a question and answer style in a bulleted list, explained here, go for it. Or you could take the Unessay Criteria and explain what level you believe you scored in each category and why. Both of those would work well. But if your creativity muscles are exhausted after the unessay, you can just use this very straightforward prompt right here, which was adapted from this writer's memo assignment: Paragraph #1: Trace the evolution of this draft. When did you decide on this topic? What topics did you reject in favor of this one? How did your topic evolve from what you knew at first to what you know now? How do you feel about it? What’s meeting your expectations? What is not? Is there something else the reader should know before starting? Paragraph #2: Discuss the specific revisions you’ve made to the project so far. What revision suggestions did you get? From whom? Which did you choose to use? Why? Which did you reject? Why? Where in the project did you make these changes? What effects do these choices have on your project/your readers? Why? Be specific about who helped you and what the reviewers suggested! Paragraph #3: Come up with at least three questions that you really want answered by your me on this draft. What are you struggling with? Wondering about? Bothered by? Etc. Ask for the help you want. Paragraph #4: What are you most proud of? What did you do well? Where did you shine? How does this work compare to other work you've composed in the past? Please turn this in with your unessay on blackboard and post to your class blog. due: Monday, February 22 by class time tags:" blog 5 writer's memo"; "your name" This is an exciting week because we get to start working on our unessays. My favorite thing about the unessay is that you will be making the choice about what you are writing and to whom you are writing, so I have the pleasure of seeing how you have been processing all of the information. There are no wrong thoughts or right thoughts, just engaging writing and well-supported opinions. You've been flexing your engaging writing muscle these past weeks with your blog posts, but if you're still unsure about what it means to write engagingly, we'll discuss that in more detail on Friday. And if you're wondering what I mean by well-supported opinions, you have a very helpful reading about that assigned on Monday.
Although earlier I claimed that we will start working on the unessay, we've actually spent the last four weeks on some of the most important parts of writing: researching (I did this part for you this time), reading, discussion, responding, idea generation. Hopefully something has sparked your interest and you're ready to dive into one subtopic more thoroughly. If not, keep chatting, keep researching, keep reading! Monday, February 8 In Class: How did doing the ARJ change your reading experience?; Discuss Ivory Tower: Two groups: how it is composed and what it is saying HW: "What are Opinions?". This will be enormously helpful in the composition of your unessay Wednesday, February 10 In Class: Revisiting the change of mind blog post; Medium v. Genre; Introduce “Unessay”; Small Groups: Unessay Unprompt (Brainstorming Worksheet); schedule a conference with me or Writing Center HW: Finish Unessay Unprompt HW: Unessay Friday, February 12 In Class: In Class blog reading-Bring laptops/tablets/smart phone!; Blog Post X: How to be engaging. Unessay--elements of good writing HW: Unessay HW: Complete and post Blog Post X, if you'd like. Due Monday, February 15 by midnight. Tags: "blog post X", "your name" I will be changing my office hours from Mondays and Tuesdays to Mondays and Wednesdays. So, they'll look like this: Mondays from 10-11:50 in English Annex Wednesdays from 10:30-11:45 in Writing Center I will still be available to meet any Tuesday, but you'll just have to email me and let me know what time you'd like to meet. For those of you who are working on your profile pieces, here are a few examples, both long and short, of different types of profiles:
Monday, February 1:
In Class: Discuss "The Problem We All Live With" HW: Poke around on Ivory Tower website. Watch this video. HW: Work on Blog #4 (see prompt below), due Monday, February 8 Wednesday, February 3: In Class: Watch Ivory Tower in Class HW: Work on Blog#4--don't save this for the last minute! There's a reason you don't have any other outside of class work this week. Friday, February 5: In Class: Watch Ivory Tower in Class HW: last group, complete Annotated Research Journal for Ivory Tower for Monday's discussion HW: Work on Blog #4 Blog #4: First off, read this guide to writing a profile. Did you read it? That's all right, I'll wait. Okay, now that you've read it, you probably have a pretty good idea of the blog assignment this week: you will be interviewing, then writing a profile about someone who has experience in education (students, teachers, administrators, homeschoolers, ect.). Interviews are a great way to get put your biases aside and see a topic from a new perspective, plus they help us learn to incorporate quotes into our writing in a meaningful way, which is something many college students (both undergraduate and graduate) struggle with. Your interview questions should be aimed at something about the educational experience (any level is fine), but if it goes to a more interesting place, by all means, follow it. You can always start your profile with something like: "I sat down to talk to Sarah Smith, director of Student Services at Brown High School, about her experience as an education administrator; we ended up talking about growing up in the mountains with three needy little sisters. Let me tell you how we arrived there." If you'd like to include a picture of the person (good idea!), make sure you get their permission. And, if you find the perfect person to interview but can't get it scheduled until Sunday afternoon, shoot me an email and we'll discuss an extension. I want you do be able to do a good job on this, so if you need more time, let me know. Blog tags: blog 4 interview; your name Due: Monday, February 8th by class time Pssst: don't forget to include your name somewhere on the blog post! ByMonday, January 25th:
In Class: group contracts; your educational history HW: finish reading and annotating "The Road to Rome" by Jonathan Kozol for class on Wednesday HW: Start working on Blog #3 (prompt at end of this blog post), due next Monday, February 1st HW: one group complete Annotated Research Journal for "Road to Rome" (you will know if this is your group) Wednesday, January 27th: In Class: quiz on "Road to Rome"; if necessary finish up educational work; student-led discussion on "Road to Rome" HW: read and annotate "How to Not Teach" by Derrick Jensen HW: one group complete Annotated Research Journal for "Walk on Water" Friday, January 29th: In Class: quiz on "How to Not Teach"; How is it Written?; student-led discussion "How to Not Teach" HW: listen to and annotate “The Problem We All Live With” HW: one group complete Annotated Research Journal for "The Problem We All Live With" HW: Read through this web page on Development--I know that it is dry, but it will help! There will be one question on Monday's quiz regarding this reading. Blog Post #3: In weeks three and four, we will be discussing the power administration has over student learning. For this week, you will write a letter to someone in a position of power in the educational system outlining an important problem you see in the educational system. Although you are highly encouraged to use "Road to Rome," "Walk on Water," and "The Problem We All Live With," as sources, you should not merely reiterate their arguments. You can address any level of education, from Pre-K to Graduate School. I encourage you to assess your position in comparison to the topic on which you write. For example, you might chose to write about higher education, but remember that you have a very difference perspective than an upperclassman, a non-traditional student, an administrator, or myself. You should honor that position. In other words, think about where you fit in that rhetorical triangle we discussed last week. For this post, make sure you are researching the person to whom you are writing so you have a good idea of that audience portion of the rhetorical triangle. Also make sure to follow letter conventions. Although you may or may not be writing to a politician, this search should help you get started. You are welcome, but not required, to work with a partner on this blog post either sharing research and topic, or even going so far as to publish your post together. Blog tags: blog 3 education; your name Due: Monday, February 1st by class time I know you are probably already sick of reading this, but: if you have questions about this blog post and you think your peers could benefit from the answers, leave your question as a comment below. To leave a comment, click on the green "O Comments" directly below this sentence. |
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April 2016
AboutKate Reed, your English Composition Instructor, will post weekly homework and in class activities here. This is the place where you ask questions and figure out what's going on. Categories
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