Week 4 Module: Literacy Narrative Drafts and Workshop

Here is the recording of our class Zoom yesterday (Monday). Passcode to view: xAA*S8dE. If you missed class it’s okay–just watch the recording and fill out a Missed Meeting form within two days.

Great discussion yesterday! We have no blog post due this week, but I still wanted to assign you a couple things to look at/ read that speak to conversations we’ve been touching on.

Here’s a great clip of author James Baldwin dissecting a Yale professor’s question “Why must we always concentrate on color?”

Here’s a short essay called “On College” by the essayist/ poet Hanif Abdurraqib. And here is a prose poem wonderfully titled “When We Were 13, Jeff’s Father Left The Needle Down On A Journey Record Before Leaving The House One Morning And Never Coming Back” by the same author. Both are loose interpretations of what I mean when I say Literacy Narrative.

Here’s your collaborative list of some of the languages we speak in this classroom. Came out so great!

Here’s what you need to do this week:

1. If you haven’t done so already, upload your Literacy Narrative draft to the Google Drive folder with your name on it. Here are the instructions:
  1. Find the class Google Drive here
  2. Click Literacy Narrative → your working group (see above list) → your name
  3. Click “New” → “Google Docs” → “Blank document”
  4. Copy and paste your draft OR write your draft here
  5. Title it “Your Name DRAFT”
  6. Change the settings of the doc so that viewers can “suggest edits”
2. Complete peer editing feedback on your everyone’s drafts in your working group. Write your feedback directly ON their draft in Google docs. If they did not upload a Google Doc, either make a new doc with your feedback and upload it to the folder, or email/ Slack message your feedback to them. See the bottom of this Module for how to format your feedback. You should be finished with this task by our Wednesday morning Zoom.
3. Attend our Zoom workshop on Wednesday, from 8:30-9:30AM. [Note: I will be offering an alternative, asynchronous peer workshop for those who cannot make a live Zoom meeting].
4. Using feedback from your workshop, work on your draft over the weekend and submit it on Sunday, 9/20 at 5PM on Blackboard.

If you are having tech or accessibility issue at any time, or just struggling with getting your thoughts organized, please feel free to reach out to me. Don’t suffer in silence–I’m here to help.

Peer Editing Feedback

Read each of your peers’ drafts in your working group and write down the following feedback directly into each person’s draft. You will talk about/ go over what you write in your Zoom workshops.

1. Observe: What do you see? Summarize what is going on in the writing so far.
2. Warm: What is working? What are the strengths of this piece? Say more than just “I like it,” say why you like it, with sentences such as “This part is really working because…”
3. Cool: Does the piece satisfy the requirements of the assignment? Were there parts that confused you? Use sensitive language like “I got a little lost here because…”

Remember: we are all here to learn and grow together, not pass judgement or give non-constructive criticism. When all else fails, try to help the writer accomplish what they themselves want their piece to be 🙂