Look over these Course Goals and Unit Subgoals that relate to “intermediate” considerations at the level of paragraphing, analysis, etc.

• Identify and engage with credible sources and multiple perspectives in your writing: Identify sources of information and evidence credible to your audience; incorporate multiple perspectives in your writing by summarizing, interpreting, critiquing, and synthesizing arguments of others; and avoid plagiarism by ethically acknowledging the work of others when used in your own writing, using a citation style appropriate to your audience and purpose.
• Using examples effectively in your writing to help illustrate things you are trying to explain or argue
• Learn the differences between genres at the level of words, sentences, paragraphing, document design, mode, etc.
• Learn how to analyze vs. summarize
• Find, evaluate, and synthesize evidence in texts we analyze
• Establish links between claims and evidence
• Develop information literacy (e.g., finding information via search engines/library databases/stacks, evaluating source credibility and relevance, analyzing primary vs. secondary sources, using citation tools)
• Write with other voices (e.g., paraphrasing, direct quotes, summary, footnotes, endnotes, managing claims and evidence with other voices, qualifying claims, counterarguments)

The sort of things you can think about here: What have you noticed in earlier introductions, conclusions, or body paragraphs in terms of using examples, writing with sources, establishing links between claims and evidence, establishing the exigence or reason for writing, etc. that has changed from earlier drafts to newer drafts?

The above is just an example to think through, but utilize the full list of course and unit goals above to think through possible questions and things you can notice in how your writing grew from early on to where it is now (and feel free to use writing from other classes to help you think about this if you want!

In a comment below, using notes from last week when you close read your own writing as well as through returning to skimming through your writing again, talk through specific evidence from your writing that you might use to write about your writing in terms of “intermediate” aspects of writing. Use about 100-200 words to do this.

Remember: nothing has to be “perfect” here…you can write about things that improved but you still would like to keep improving! That is honestly how most of this stuff is: frustratingly always-in-progress. But, life is kind of always in process and sort of never finished, so, yeah.

After commenting below, click on the button to continue the module: