Share the Love! (10-15 min)

Review your assessment letters, memories of peer review, and other times you read other work from classmates. What was your favorite paper that you read from a classmate? Why? What did you like about it? What did they do that you might have tried to do in your own writing?

Do some review and private writing for about 5-10 minutes. We are going to hear from everyone.

SURVEYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do this one if you haven’t. It is about if you are cool with me anonymously using your writing as examples in future educational situations.

Also do the course evaluation if you want to. It is in your email. You can also log in here and find our class to do the evaluation: Baruch College (smartevals.com)

Things we liked:

Pacing of writing; staying on topic

Structure and organization: paragraphing and sections that you can follow

Details in papers, providing context: making it more understandable so you aren’t guessing

How personable and personality and relatable while still remaining professional. When there is personality or different types of way, makes it interesting

Fluency in writing. Making it personable. When I felt connected to them. Wasn’t too complicated. Write stuff you are motivated to write about, comes through as interesting for readers. Can sense passion when they are adding details

Formatting in essays. Built ideas on top of each other; making lots of connects throughout (to argument, to previous points). Putting a lot of time into something and sticking with it.

Checking in with the Plan (10 min)

Let’s look at your plan once more. If you are all finished with your preparation for our class, make some changes that incorporate what you will work on for your other classes. Here is the Google Doc planning document again.

Partner up and talk about the next thing you are going to do.

ENG 2100, Fall 2023 (20-30 min)

Spend about 10 minutes or more and write a letter to future students in ENG 2100. The next time I will teach this class will be in Fall 2023. In your letter, include the following:

• Things you wish you knew when you started
• Advice for working on writing in all classes when starting college
• Anything else you’d want them to know, have fun with it (I’ll share your notes with them next semester)

Write your letter here: Google Doc for Letters

Keeping At It (10-15 min)

I got this pipe here. Technologies come and go, but some stand the test of time. Keep working at it. Time well spent.

If nothing else, I hope you walk away from class with this:

• What you say and write has value. What you say and write should be heard and read. I know this because I have heard and read all of you! (I mean EVERYONE here, all 19 students here have said and written wonderful things that are valuable and meaningful).
• When you hear, read, view things, I hope you continually ask: why did they say/compose/write it that way? Why not another way? What reasons were there to put it that way?
• When you hear, read, view things, I hope you also continually have a plan for evaluating claims in a world where there is a lot of uncertainty but plenty can confirm our own biases.
• I hope you put similar questions to your own writing and composing: why say it this way and not that way? What if I said it this way? Where am I getting the information from and how confident am I in it? (and why?)
• The above means careful reading and listening practices!
• I hope you think about the process of your writing and think about people who can help you. That means thinking about the conditions of your writing and the peers/tutors/teachers that can help you if you have questions.
• Finally: different contexts means different approaches. Keep thinking about what are good habits/processes/practices generally but because of any context you are in, you will ALWAYS have to adapt your approach at the level of word, sentence, organization, design, layout, genre, form/mode of express/media, and so on.

Whether you like it or not, we are all connected to other people and the larger environment we inhabit. Language and rhetoric are ways to coordinate that activity. People and objects can be coordinated through rhetoric in both good and bad ways. I hope you can use language and rhetoric and know how others use it so you can participate in something larger and make knowledge that can help you and others.

I will hang out a little bit longer for questions or anything else you need. I’m also available for 1-on-1 meetings this week–email me if you want to schedule something.

Last things (2-5 min)

-Final Reflection Assignment due December 20. Make sure you indicate which option you selected.

-Any grade boost revisions are due by December 20 (make sure you follow Blackboard instructions about cover letter, types of feedback to incorporate, etc.)

-All makeup work needs to be submitted as we discussed (see grade status email)

-I’ll get you feedback on final projects later on in December/early January

-Do course evaluation survey if you haven’t already!