Author Archives: JSylvor

Just letting you know that I have finished reading your Analytical Research Papers.  You can access your papers on turnitin.com.  As always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions or want to discuss your paper with me.

Good luck with finals!!!

For your final journal entry of the semester, please reflect on your own experience of the past four months.  You can focus specifically on English 2150 or think more broadly about your whole semester.  Here are some questions to get you started.  Don’t feel like you have to respond to all of them; they’re just here to get your creative juices going.  Please be sure that your response is at least 350 words.

–What efforts and achievements (big or small, visible or invisible) do you want to acknowledge?  Give yourself credit for all the things you did RIGHT this semester.

–Describe something important you learned through your reading and writing this semester.  What is something that you will take with you into your future studies?

–What did you discover about yourself this semester?  Maybe think about both strengths and areas of challenge that emerged for you this year.

–What has been the biggest disappointment about this shift to distance learning?  What is your biggest regret or frustration?

–Describe a peer who has inspired you this year.  What have you learned from him/her/them?

–What do you hope to do differently next semester? Why?

–How is the you of May 202o different from the person you were when you entered Baruch last August?

–What was your biggest screw-up this year?  How can you let it go and move on?

–What advice do you have for incoming freshmen?

–What was the biggest surprise of your first year of college?  (Your answer can NOT be “a global pandemic”!

Good Morning, Friends.  I am just checking in to make sure that we are all on track with finishing up our work for English 2150 over this next week.

• No conferences today since you are turning in your essays, but I am available via email if you need to reach me or want to set up a meeting time.
• Analytical Research Papers are due TODAY!!!  (uploaded to turnitin.com)
• Creative Re-Mix Projects:  Ideas should be posted to the blog today (if you haven’t already), and you should be working on executing your project!) Reach out to me if you need guidance on this.
• Journals – This continues to be part of your required work for the course.  Keep writing!  On Monday, I will be posting a final journal prompt for you to be completed by next Friday, May 15th.
• “Dear Reader” letters are due by Friday, May 8th.  Send them to me at [email protected].
• Zoom Calls – On Monday at 10:00, I will be having drop-in office hours.  Use this time to check in with me about your Creative Re-Mix.  On Wednesday (May 13th) at 10:00 am, we will be having our final call of the semester.  Please be prepared to present your Creative Re-Mix to the class.  You should either post your materials to the course blog in advance of the call or have your work uploaded to your own computer screen to share using the “screen-sharing” feature on Zoom.

Hang in there, everyone!  I know this has been a crazy semester and a strange end to your first year of college, but you are almost there!!!

Professor Sylvor

In case you are still struggling to figure out how to format your Works Cited page and how to include in-text citations, I am linking here to a resource from the University of North Carolina that provides very clear guidance.  You may want to look here for examples and instructions about following MLA 8th Edition guidelines.

How to Format a Works Cited Page

How to Include In-Text Citations

If you still have questions about any of this, please feel free to reach out to me.  Remember that every time that you include information, ideas, or quotations that you encountered in one of your sources in the body of your paper, you need to include a parenthetical citation that tells the reader where the material came from.   This could be the name of the author with the page number of the source (if applicable), just the name of the author, or (in cases where there is no author) the title of the article.  Failure to cite your sources is a serious academic offense, so when in doubt, CITE YOUR SOURCE.

This week you have a couple of items on your to-do list for English 2150:

1. Analytical Research Paper As you know, I have extended the due date for this assignment until Wednesday, May 6th.  When you upload your essay to turnitin.com, you should see an assignment that is labelled “Analytical Research Paper – Revision Assignment.” This is where you will be uploading your final version of your paper.  Let me know if you encounter any difficulties with this.
2. Dear Reader Letter  Compose a “Dear Reader” letter to accompany your analytical research paper.  Please take 30 minutes to write a letter reflecting on the experience of writing your analytical research paper.  These letters can be emailed to me as attachments ([email protected]) and are due no later than Friday, May 8th.  You may want to address the following questions:

— What question was I hoping to answer in this paper?

–Where does my personal interest in this topic come from?

–Which parts of this process went most smoothly for me? Why?

–Which parts of this process were a struggle for me? Why?

–What’s the most important thing I learned about my topic?

–What’s the most important thing I learned about myself while writing this paper?

–What am I most proud of about this paper?

–What do I wish I had been able to do better? What would I do differently next time?

–What else would I like my reader to know?

3. Creative Re-Mix.   As you know, you are moving directly from the Analytical Research Paper into your Creative Re-Mix.  The Creative Re-Mix is an opportunity to extend your coronavirus-related research in a different, more personal direction.  Your work can take almost any form provided that it is related in some way to your subject (even if the connection is not super-direct!), it reflects creative work on your part, and it can be shared with the class on our blog and/or on our Zoom call.  Please post a description of what you are planning to do for the Creative Re-Mix to our class blog no later than Wednesday, May 6th.  Do this even if you and I have already discussed your plans in conferences.

Hi Everyone,

I am reaching out to you to let you know that I have decided to give you a little extra time to complete your Analytical Research Papers.  They are now due by Wednesday, May 6th.  This extra time should allow you not only to complete your research and writing, but to work on smoothing out and correcting any surface level errors in your writing and to create a Works Cited page that conforms to the MLA guidelines.  If it’s better for you to submit the paper on Monday, you should, of course, stick to that plan!

Instead of our regular class on Monday at 10 am, I will be holding drop-in office hours, so please stop by if you would like the chance to ask me questions or to get more feedback on your drafts.

Do not forget that your Creative Re-Mix Projects will be presented on May 13th at our last class.  If you haven’t yet figured out what you are going to do, that’s also something we could brainstorm during Monday’s office hours.

I hope you are all well and enjoying this beautiful weekend.

Take care,

Professor Sylvor

Please use our Wednesday Zoom link to log-on for your appointments to discuss your Analytical Research Papers with me.  Be sure to send me the most up-to-date version of your paper if you’ve made changes since first uploading your draft.

10:00 Kevin

10:15 Steven

10:30 Abubakr

10:45 Diomeudy

11:00 Munsura

11:15 Raymelis

11:30 Dylan

11:45 Eliana

For this week’s assignment, please share a photograph that you have taken during this period of isolation and social distancing.  You can use something already in your photo roll, or you can take a picture for this assignment.  It could be a photograph taken inside your home or elsewhere.  Perhaps you are in the photo; perhaps there is no one in the photograph.   The content of the photo is entirely up to you, but the photograph should reflect some aspect of your own experience during these last six weeks.   Please compose a one-line caption for the photograph, then write a description of the photo and its significance.  What is it? Why did you choose it?  How would you describe the mood of the photograph? What can’t we see in this photograph?  What does this image convey about your experience?

This assignment must be posted to the blog by Sunday, May 3rd.

Hi Everyone,

This is a friendly reminder that the drafts of your Analytical Research Papers are due tomorrow.  Please upload your draft to turnitin.com before our 10am Zoom call.  During our call, I will explain how peer reviewing will work for this project.  Even if your draft is incomplete, upload it before class in order to receive credit for this step in the process.  Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Good luck with the writing!

Professor Sylvor

We will be having individual conferences again on Wednesday to discuss your progress on your research paper.  Please be sure that before we meet you have shared with me your bibliography, outline, and any other materials you think might be helpful.  Use the info under the “Zoom” button above to log on to our call.  Have a good week!

10:00 Raymelis

10:15 Abubakr

10:30 Munsura

10:45 Kevin

11:00 Steven

11:15 Dylan

11:30 Eliana

11:45 Diomeudy