Survey (5 min)

Went through feedback and here are the results. I might check in again in a few weeks:

• Came up a few times that people are struggling with time management and staying organized. Check out our Slack channel on this called #organization-in-college. I posted a few things there as did some other students. Also available are services at SACC which is good for study skills help as well as the Writing Center for more writing-specific things.
• Just a bit over half of you voted for the Slack option for the Reading Annotation alternative assignment. So we will go with that. I think our next reading assignment is not for another week or more, so I’ll remind you all about this as we get closer to that.
• Time and Learning Modules. It seems that about 70% of you are committing 5-10 hours a week to this class, which is pretty much what it should be–some doing more, some doing less. Still, I think I can help reduce this a tad. Some have mentioned the Learning Modules can be a little heavy at times. I’m going to try to bring that time down (starting this week). However, it may still feel heavy at times, especially when I’m trying get you to do work related to major writing projects.
• Communication and socialization seems to be going well! Some did mention maybe more icebreaker stuff to get to know one another. Let me know if you have ideas! I can make more time for that in future classes and Writing Group meetings.
• Zoom and Writing Group meetings seem to be going well.
• Perhaps a bit more structure for Writing Groups. I agree, I think it is tough. One thing I hope will help is that I’m going to make some time in class for you to meet with your Writing Groups. Won’t be every class, but will try to do this more often.

 

Doing Rhetorical Analysis (25 min)

Hopefully the QSR this week helped you think more about how to structure a rhetorical analysis by thinking hard about how Chau’s essay is organized. Everyone gave a solid effort who turned one in, so I’m giving everyone full credit. But I do think people got tripped up on summarizing how the piece was organized rather than analyzing the piece’s organization.

Analysis is always about claims, evidence, and linking claims to evidence. Here’s an example of someone who I thought followed this model as an example:

From an organizational lens, the author of “One Step Towards Equality, Two Steps Back for Asian Americans,” Tristen Chau, starts by introducing readers to the problem of Asian stereotypes by providing a brief summary of the origins of Asian people in America. [EVIDENCE] This is an effective way to start her argument [CLAIM], since most of her audience is likely non-Asian, and thus unfamiliar with the subject of discrimination against Asians. [CLAIM] By writing this paragraph, she sets the essay on the right foot, which allows the rest to follow through with ease.[COMMENT JOINING CLAIM TO EVIDENCE]

Using the first paragraph as a stepping stone, Chau moves on to today’s racial stereotypes, which she asserts are worsened by the media industry, which she argues puts profit over fair representation of Asian Americans. She achieves this in many ways. [CLAIM] In multiple instances, she inserts a quote from a credible source to support/elaborate on her argument. [EVIDENCE] These citation don’t appear at the same time, but rather spread throughout the essay. This structure is excellent in building her argument because it allows readers to be reminded from time to time that this is not just a problem contrived by the author herself, but rather one supported by other credit-worthy people. [COMMENT ON EVIDENCE]

 

The evidence could be a little more specific at times here, but this is a good template for thinking how you analyze a text.

Rhetorical Analysis Through Observation

I noticed that some of you are having trouble getting started. I want to emphasize that the key is to trust your instincts and just make a bunch of observations first. Just start noticing things and taking notes. THEN, take notes on your notes to think about patterns and themes that are worth making an argument about.

Things to do:

1. Pick a text
2. Scale
3. Take notes
4. Find patterns/themes/etc.
5. Choose a lens
6. Context
7. what you see/what you make of it/why it matters
8. state claim/give evidence/comment on evidence

Where we at with this do you think?

Let’s try out #s 3-8 here below with this image.

What do you notice in the below picture?

Final Comments Before First Draft

Think of this first draft as just getting started. You do not need to have a full, completed draft. You can do things like leave notes to me and your Writing Group that say things like “In this spot, I’m thinking about doing X but haven’t quite figured out how yet, what do you think?” First drafts are just to get started and from here on out the two remaining major writing projects will have first drafts that only get *preliminary* grades–final grade is a full 20 points per project on your course grade. (for Literacy Narratives, wanted these to be separate assignments so you got practice in revising a draft toward more rewriting rather than changing a thing here or there)

Also, to help, I’ll have your Literacy Narrative Revisions back to you by this weekend (hopefully by early Saturday).

 

 

Writing Group Time (10 min)

To get ready for submitting a draft on Tuesday, I want you to take some time with your Writing Groups to:

• decide who is reviewing what
• decide the deadline to get some version of a draft to others in group
• decide deadline for getting feedback to one another
• decide on any other elements of Writing Group that would help make best use of time (e.g., having a “writing session” together online)
• Activity Accountant: keep everyone on task, facilitate these decisions
• Community Builder and DJ: help morale, provide some fun stuff and useful music
• Group Historian: Let me know about logistics for this round of feedback for one another by Tuesday, October 13 at 11:59pm

 

 

Writing to Make Knowledge (10-15 min)

What makes writing relativity so tricky is this: Built into ordinary language–in its use of tenses, for example–are many implicit assumptions about the nature of temporal relations that we now know to be false (17).

“at the same time” is language to describe something that knowledge in physics would say is impossible…but it does help us describe things.

Language is something artificial, but it is also all we have to describe things and think about things! Ahhhh!

Is this why writing is hard? What do you think?

 

I’m convinced that you don’t understand the real significance of the research you’ve been struggling with for the past year until you begin to write about it (22).

What do you think Mermin means by this? How does writing help you understand something?

 

Finally: what is the difference between “writing” and “writing up”?

 

 

Next Time (2-5 min)

-Meeting with Group 3 at 3pm on Tuesday, October 13 and Group 4 at 3:30pm on Tuesday, October 13

-Learning Module 5 by 5pm on Tuesday, October 13

-Rhetorical Analysis Draft 1 by 11:59pm on Tuesday, October 13

-Group Historians: let me know by 11:59pm on Tuesday, October 13 how logistics for this round of feedback were set up