Hi Everyone,

Its my last blog post so I’ll make it short and sweet. Remember that we are meeting this Thursday from 10:30-12:30 to give our final presentations. Be there and be ready to present! I’ll have snacks for us. See you then.

Hi Everyone,

For those of you who did not make it today click here for the guidelines for you final assignment.

On Tuesday, please bring a “work-in-progress” of your final assignment to share with your group. I’ll also give you time to work on your project in class. So please be sure to bring either your laptop, your tablet or your favorite pen/pencil/paper so you can be productive during class.

If you are looking for more inspiration, you can click here for a link to the Moth, here for a link to Op-Docs, and here for Vimeo’s staff picks page.

I know you’re all busy but please use the time between now and Tuesday  to get started on this project. See you then.

Hi Everyone,

Good luck finishing up your essays, I know they’re going to be great! Just a couple of reminders:

1) Be sure to upload your essay tomorrow as a PDF (make sure to convert it to a PDF before you turn it in). Also, please put your first name or last name or both in the title of the saved file (i.e. “Charles_Rowe_2150 Final Essay.pdf”).

2) Write down at least three possible ideas you have for how you would like to “revision” one of your three projects from this semester. We’re going to brainstorm revisioning methods and look at examples on Thursday so please come prepared.

Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

Thanks, as usual, for a great discussion today. Good luck finishing up your essays. I’m certain you will all do very well. Remember that you must upload your essay by NO LATER than 9AM on Wednesday, December 2nd.

Also, if you are looking for more advice about the revision process, take a look at this essay, which I mentioned at the beginning of class today.

See you on Tuesday!

Hi Everyone,

Click here for the peer review form if you did not get it today. Please type out your responses and bring them to class on Tuesday.

See you then.

Hi Everyone,

For Thursday, please bring a hard copy draft of your final essay. I am aware that many of you will not have an 7-8 page draft by Thursday. However, please write as much as you possibly can by Thursday. This will be highly useful to you because it will give you some much needed breathing room in which to revise your final essay before it is due. Write as much as you can! And if you don’t finish, be sure to write some notes to your peer reader about how you plan to finish your essay (at the end of your essay).

That’s it! See you on Thursday.

Hi Everyone,

It was great talking with you all about your research projects today. I’m excited about the work you’ve engaged yourselves in and look forward to reading your final projects.

For Tuesday, please:

1) Complete, to the best of your abilities, the précis assignment. This assignment is ENTIRELY designed to help you. Do it and bring it to class.

2) Write a more formal proposal for your essay using the template I handed out today, which you can find here and please bring it to class.

3) You will notice that sentences 3/4 of the proposal template are dedicated to answer the “So What? Who Cares?” question. Please read this very short chapter from They Say/ISay, which should help you strategize ways to answer this question. Please bring this chapter to class (on your laptop/e-reader/etc. or printed out). We will discuss it for a portion of class.

You’re going to get into small groups again on Tuesday and present your proposals to your group members as well as discuss your answer to question #1 on the précis assignment so please be prepared.

Good luck and have a great weekend!

Hi Everyone,

Remember that we will not do an in-class precis on Thursday but instead you will write your precis and bring it to class on Tuesday (the 17th), when we will read over them together. For those of you who wish to get started early, click here for the assignment (I’ll bring it on Thursday as well).

For Thursday, please:

1) Bring your “They Say/I Say” quotation exercise (that was due today) to class. We’ll be discussing your responses at the beginning of class.

2) Read this essay about  using “I” in academic writing and write a very brief (a couple of sentences) response to this question:
Based on this essay, why should you use “I” in your final essay for this class? OR if you don’t think you should use “I” for this essay, why?
PLEASE make sure to bring the essay to class, as we’ll be discussing it.

3) Write down one new and important piece of information you have found in your research. This means between now and Thursday you must look closely at least one source and write down what is most important about the source to you. I’ll put you into small groups to share what you have found so far. I’ll ask each of you to say, “Hi my name is____, my paper is about___, the most interesting thing I’ve discovered from my research so far is_____.” So be ready to do this on Thursday!

See you then. Please feel free to email me any questions about your essays in the mean time.

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for a great discussion today (the observer is going to come next Thursday now). For Tuesday please bring in a “draft” of your proposal for your essay. It should be about a paragraph long and should state the basic premise of what you plan to do in your essay. Remember it is a draft.

We’ll have a librarian in class on Tuesday so please write down at least one question you would like to ask her about how to conduct research through the library’s resources. Any question at all! There are no “dumb” questions.

Remember to do exercise #1 in the “Art of Quoting” excerpt I handed out today (here’s a pdf as well) and bring it to class. Please also again bring the “What Is Academic Writing?” essay to class (I want us to talk about pages 13-14).

Here’s a pdf of the entire first section of They Say I Say for those who are interested in reading more.

Finally, for those of you interested in writing on Orwell, I’ve decided to post the introduction and first chapter of Edward Said’s Orientalism here. You can use this as a source if you wish.

Hi All,

Click here for a pdf of your research assignment. Please let me know if you have any questions or need any clarifications.

Your reading for next class is here. Please write responses to the following questions and bring this essay (either printed out or in a digital format) and your responses to class:

1) In one sentence (in your own words), define “academic writing.”
2) In a few sentences, explain what you believe the author means by “writing situation.”
3) (This is a modification of discussion question #2 at the end of the essay) Compare two different writing situations you’ve been in. What similarities were there? What differences were there? For example, how does writing an essay for your history class differ from writing a paper for your economics class? Or, how does a philosophy essay differ from an english essay?

We’ll be talking about the essay and your answers in class as well as doing a style exercise I’ve devised that might actually be fun. As I mentioned, an observer is going to come on Thursday since she did not come today. Also, I’ll have all of your essays back to you by Wednesday or Thursday.

Oh yeah, and get to work on  your research paper as soon as you can! Get a head start so you can enjoy your Thanksgiving break.