Writing Workshops:
During the workshop, you will be reading the papers written by the other students in your group and offering feedback. You will be focusing on several areas:
- language/style
- organization/structure
- the ideas/content
For each paper, every member of the group should volunteer to be responsible for one of these three major areas. You should read each essay ahead of time, the night before the workshop. No matter what your role, as you are reading, you should note the things that are working well, and the things that are not working so well. If you are focusing on language/style, you should ask yourself: are the sentences grammatical? Do they flow? Is there any unnecessary repetition? Are there transitions? If you are focusing on organization, you should consider whether the paragraphs have topic sentences, whether each paragraph remains focused on the topic it introduces, and whether there is a logic or a thread connecting the various ideas considered in the essay. If you are focusing on the ideas, you should consider whether you think the argument makes sense, whether it is persuasive, whether it is supported with evidence, and whether it goes beyond clichés and commonplaces. As you are reading mark anything that seems not quite right, even if you are not sure what the problem is. And mark anything that you find particular impressive. You should focus primarily on the area you’ve been assigned, i.e. language/style, organization/structure, or the ideas/content, but you may also bring up other issues if you notice them while you are reading.
You can make notes in the margin, but I would also like you to write one paragraph at the end summarizing your response to the essay. Please type this up and give it to the student whose essay you are workshopping. And save a copy. I will be asking you to submit all of your responses to your group members’ essays with the second draft of your paper.
During the discussion the group should read each paragraph of the paper carefully together and then comment on it before moving on to the next paragraph. Please try to offer constructive feedback; indicate the things that you like about the essay and then tactfully point to areas that need improvement.
Group 1:
Group 2:
Group 3:
Group 4: