Who is that writer(s)? What should others know? (15-20 min)

I will come around and give you credit for your final journal this semester.

Review what you wrote in your journal for today and also throughout the semester.

Write one thing you want to share about your journal-writing experience: something about your semester, something about college, something other topic you explored in writing in your journal, something about doing this kind of writing, etc.

Who was that person in February? Who was that person in March? In April? Now? Note the kind of language you used, the kinds of emotions coming through, the kinds of concerns you had.

A final letter

What should people know about writing in college? Most of you have just completed your first year of college. Some of you have been in college longer. You’ve written in first-year writing classes like this one. You’ve written in other college courses. There will be new college students all over the U.S. next year, thousands of whom will be in NYC and CUNY. About 2,000 of those students will be at Baruch College. What should they know?

We are going to write a letters to those students. I will share them with my students in the fall semester. However, there is the possibility I forget. I have forgotten before and feel bad about it. But let’s imagine I remember this time.

Here is a link to the Google Doc where you will write your letters. (make sure you know which letter is yours!)

After about 10 minutes, I want you to partner up with someone and compare notes. After talking with someone else, how might you revise? Look it over and keep working for another 5 minutes. Make sure you know which letter is yours!

Here (again) is the link to the Google Doc where you wrote the first draft of your letter.

Santa Claus(e), continued (20-30 min)

Return to your groups from Monday. Finish your sentence. If you are finished your sentence, review the sentence you have and decide if you want to make changes. You are welcome to add more clauses if you’d like to. Make it good!

Sentences we wrote

What are dependent clauses? What are independent clauses?

Once we are finished, let’s look at all of our sentences. How do we put them together? Where do we start? What should we add?

Let’s look at our paragraph. Does anything need to be changed?

Let’s transform our paragraph. Let’s make sure it is ONLY independent clauses. What does that look like? What does that sound like?

Let’s transform this paragraph again. Let’s make it as few sentences as we possibly can without losing information. What does that look like? What does that sound like?

Let’s transform our paragraph one final time. Let’s make it as good as we can. What might you do? Combine some sentences? Split some up? Anything else?

How can combining or splitting up clauses be a tool for you as a writer?

If time, go back to one of your drafts and choose any paragraph. Find a sentence that could be combined or split up. Why would you do that? How would you do that?

Re-visiting questions from earlier (20-30 min)

Let’s go back to our syllabus. Especially note pages 2-3 and look closely at questions 1-6. How might you answer each question? I’ll split you into groups to think about the question.

1. How can writing help us make knowledge (i.e., to learn about ourselves and the world around us)? Writing helps see the world from a different light, but once we write it down we can see it better. Professional writing, after we revise we can work together with others to learn. One of the most convenient ways to convey information. Helps you process your thoughts, to slow you down. It helps us grow because if you write your first draft and you re-read, you see how much you’ve grown–that helps you learn about yourself. Writing can teach you things by spelling out processes.
2. How can writing help us with expression, when we want to put something out in the world just to put it out there (e.g., processing emotions, a desire to make something beautiful)? Convey emotions and see yourself, to navigate feelings from outside of yourself. Or to reach other people with a message, with a perspective. Helps connect with other people, and seeing you’re not alone in something you thought you were. Put it on paper, it is more solid and it is out of your head; can separate from yourself from that emotion. Can teach others if you share your ideas or perspective. Helps you process your thoughts, to slow you down.
3. How can writing help coordinate activity to get things done (e.g., help people collaborate to accomplish a task)? Writing you are more thoughtful about your message to others, using a schedule, etc. helps deliver a better message than speaking. You give more thought in what words you want to use then it is more cohesive and easier for others to understand to get things done. Can go back and reference what is written which can be helpful when multiple people involved. When you have different schedules, writing allows for asynchronous work.
4. How can writing influence people’s beliefs? How can it persuade, how can it impact, how can it help motivate a new kind of world and a different kind of thinking that preceded any writing we did? Writing can be persuasive, you can get your thoughts in cohesive ways with evidence. You can take the time to analyze it and be influenced by it. Writing has a permanence, so you can take things from the past and build upon it to change views. Having a record, you can see how it affects beliefs. Slowing things down to take time to be persuasive. Can reach audiences better because it can be less intimidating, a little safer at times compared to debates. Can hurt your pride to be “wrong.” Can be safer space.
5. What is “writing” and how does it relate to or interact with other semiotic modes (like what our bodies and languages do, project, and perform [e.g., race, gender, culture]; digital vs. print writing; speech; audio; static images; video; layout/design; etc.)? How, too, does the influence of delivery and circulation also contribute to these myriad interactions and effects (e.g., the location a written speech is uttered, cell phone towers that allow text messages to travel to their recipients, the servers that help deliver emails or upload documents, the algorithms that determine when and why someone might see a social media post on a given platform, etc.)? Writing, there’s no face or voice. So you only go off of how people format their writing, choose specific words, etc. There is a difference between private writing vs. public writing. Public writing gets feedback. If writing for public, you want to make your writing very likeable or engaging. There is a permanence to writing, a convenience to it compared to speech/audio/video/etc.
6. What do we need to talk about in terms of “reading” when it comes to writing? Should we be learning about “reading” when it comes to writing? How does being a good “reader” contribute to our writing and vice versa? Important for you to learn about reading, since it goes hand in hand with writing. Need to consider reader’s perspective to improve writing coherence. Need to talk about purpose, audience, and tone. Where to put context so reader can understand. Who is your audience so you think about tone, words to use, etc. Re-read to revise. We reading other stuff to add to our writing. We write when we read, to understand. Thinking about grammar and how readability to help readers.

What else? Anything else about writing worth addressing based on your time in college so far?

Take 5 more minutes and think about ANYTHING else you might want to add to your letter before it is final.

Here (again) is the link to the Google Doc where you wrote the first draft of your letter.

Next Time (5 min)

-I want to talk with: Amira, Jocelyn, Suleidy, Milo, Fati, Gilayne, Khaz, Mark, David, Jhosanna, and episode 3 of MTA podcast [Sarah, David, Khaz, Fati, Mark]

-I also want to talk to podcast grade boost people for updates: Benny, Aidan, Luke, Ammar, Sarah

-Podcast contribution narrative by tonight

-Final reflection due May 21

-Any grade boosts that I will still accept by May 21

-Later on in May or June, you will receive a brief note from me about something I valued and will remember about you. I won’t have comments or feedback on your final projects. My door is wide open for you if you want to come to my office hours to talk about your final projects next semester. But you are ending the class. What do you think of your work? Own your learning. That is part of being an adult.

-If anyone wants to talk about their projects, I will stay after (or during, since we are likely ending early).