Just posting a reminder that your first drafts of your Textual Analysis Essay are due tomorrow, Wednesday, November 2nd. Please bring three copies of your draft with you to class. No excuses!!! (And remember – a rough or unfinished draft is a million times better than no draft at all!). Email me if you have questions. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!

• The first step in writing the Textual Analysis essay is selecting the text you want to write about. Once you have made your choice, go to our shared Textual Analysis Pre-Write Document. Scroll down until you find a page that has not been filled in and use it to record your early thoughts about the text that you have selected.
• We will be working on our essays in class together on Monday. For class, you will need to have a hard copy of the essay you are writing about. You will also need to have either a pen/pencil and paper or a laptop/tablet. Please annotate your hard copy before you come to class, marking quotations that you think are significant and making notes in the margin with your own questions and observations.

You can find the assignment for your second formal essay of the semester above, under the “Essays” tab. For this essay, you will be working closely with one of the readings we’ve done together and offering your readers a more specific way of understanding some aspect of the text.

Please take a look at the assignment. We will be going over it in class on Wednesday, October 26th.

•   You may remember that our course is called “Language, Identity, and Representation.”  We have talked a lot about language, and we’ve talked a lot of identity, but we haven’t addressed representation yet.  By representation, we mean the ways that individuals, groups, and experiences are depicted, written about, and presented to us.  To begin thinking about representation, I would like you to find a piece of media whose representation of a particular identity strikes you as being exactly right, totally problematic, or somewhere in-between, and be prepared to share it in class on Wednesday.   The term “media” is very broad; your selection could be an advertisement, a music video, a television show, a meme, a newspaper story, a comedy routine, a film, a character in a novel, etc….   Think about something you’ve seen that you have had a strong reaction to – either because it handles representation in a way that you really like and appreciate or because you found it offensive or troubling.  In advance of class, please create a new post and share the piece of media you have selected.   If you have selected something long like a tv show, please select and share a short clip that would illustrate what you have in mind.  Explain your choice in a few sentences. What have you selected? What representation are you highlighting? What do you find noteworthy about the representation? Your selection must be posted by noon on Wednesday.

Believe it or not, we are halfway through the semester. This is a great time to pause and reflect on how the course has been going for you and to think about what you hope to accomplish in the remaining half of the semester. Please respond thoughtfully and fully to the Mid Semester Reflection, which you can access HERE. Your reflection must be completed by Sunday, October 23rd.

If you have questions about your attendance record, missing assignments, Literacy Narrative feedback, or anything else pertaining to our work together, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Building on our reading of Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and our discussion about it in class on Monday, please compose a personal response to the text. Turn to one of the seven sections of the essay (marked by red titles), choose one, and use the theme of that section as a jumping off point to think about something pertaining to that theme that you have encountered or considered in your own life. Share this reflection in the form of a blog post. Your post should be a minimum of 400 words and must be posted by noon on Wednesday.

For Monday, October 17th, we will be reading Gloria Anzaldua’s essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” in Join the Conversation. You can find the assignment and instructions for annotation on Perusall. Please have your annotations complete by 9:00 am on Monday, so that I can review them before class.

If you have not yet purchased the text / figured out how to use Perusall / or completed any of our annotation assignments, please be aware that these assignments are REQUIRED. We are at the midpoint of the semester; you can’t put it off any longer without serious consequences. Please see me (or send an email) if you need help with this.

Even though the college is closed on Tuesday, 10/4 and Wednesday, 10/5, it is a busy week for us.

• On Monday, 10/3, please have your most up to date draft of your Literacy Narrative with you in class, either as a hard copy or digitally.
• If you would like to get feedback on your introduction tomorrow, please add your most up to date draft of the Literacy Narrative to our Literacy Narrative – Pre-Write Folder or email it to me by Monday morning, so that I can take a look at it before class.
• Please read and annotate Donald Murray, “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts” in Join the Conversation. You can find the link to this chapter and the details of the assignment on Perusall. Keep Murray’s advice in mind as you revise your Literacy Narrative. Post your annotations by Wednesday, 10/5.
• Literacy Narratives Due – Friday, 10/7. See the details in the assignment under the “Essays” tab above for information about how to submit your essay. Don’t forget to give your Literacy Narrative an engaging title that will draw the reader in and that gives us a sense of your Narrative’s subject.

We will meeting for half hour conferences together with our Peer Review groups from Wednesday’s class. The schedule is below. You are only required to come to your half-hour, but this is a mandatory class session. Anyone who did not submit a draft of the Literacy Narrative should have already contacted me to discuss your situation. Please keep in mind that the draft is a required part of each formal essay, and as I’ve explained before, you cannot pass English 2100 without successfully completing each of the formal assignments.

12:00 – 12:30

Group One: Kareem, Gissele, Mehnaz

Group Two: Rifat, Daniel, Dora

12:30 – 1:00

Group Three: Jeffrey, Radiya, Tanvir

Group Four: Ricardo, Milosis, Jason

1:00 – 1:30

Group Five: Karla, Janiel, Shumaiya

Group Six: Jaylynn, Yana

1:30 – 2:00

Group Seven: Jessica, Jiahua

Remember that when you come to class on Wednesday, you will need to bring three copies of the draft of your Literacy Narrative. This is an essential step on the way to a finished essay; you cannot receive credit for a finished essay without submitting a draft. Some of you may be continuing in the direction that you established in your Pre-Write; others may be choosing to explore something different. Please make sure that you take a look at the comments I left at the bottom of your Pre-Write documents. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions about this assignment.