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End of semester

Portfolios are due Thursday, Dec. 13 at 8 pm. You may still make minor edits until about 8 am in the morning on Dec. 14, but the portfolio must be essentially done and posted by the evening of Dec. 13 or you will receive an incomplete in the class until your portfolio can be read at the beginning of next semester. Please be in touch with me by email on Thursday if your portfolio will be a few hours late. I will email everyone once I see your portfolio is complete, or if I see any glaring omissions I’d like you to fix before Friday morning. Feel free to email me if I neglect to do so.

Here’s what you need to do to accomplish that:

Your portfolio will consist of a cover letter plus three essays (chosen from Essays 1, 2, 3, and 4). Once you have some feedback on your Essay 4 (which I’ll try to give by the end of this week, Dec. 7), decide which of your four essays you’d like to put in your portfolio. To make your decision, you may want to look at the rubric that will be used to assess your portfolio. Feel free to check with me if you’d like some advice on what to include, but the decision is yours.

The fourth essay (the one that will not be in your portfolio) can be turned in (if it hasn’t already been graded) as late as noon on Friday, Dec. 21

Now focus on revisions you may want to make for the three portfolio essays. With time limited, the three areas I’d suggest you focus on are these:

  • grammar and usage issues as marked on your final drafts with yellow highlights for online class
  • focus at both essay and paragraph (topic sentences) levels
  • research skills (format of Works Cited and in-text citations)

If you have additional time, you may want to do more revision, based on comments on both rough and final drafts.

Consider the order of pieces in your portfolio. The cover letter, of course, will come first. Essays do not need to be presented in the order they were written; generally the advice is to start with your strongest piece. If you haven’t done so already, try to come up with a descriptive title for each essay, to give yourself a way to refer to the essays in your cover letter and also to focus the essay and engage the reader.

The next step is to compose a cover letter for your portfolio. Instructions and sample student essays from previous semesters are here. Discuss your essays in the order you will present them. I will not require that you turn in a rough draft of this letter, but I’d be glad to give you feedback if you want. For most students, it is a relatively easy task. Do remember that it is one of your portfolio pieces, so it should demonstrate your writing abilities of organization, focus, and development. It may also be a place to highlight your personal voice and sparkling wit.

IMPORTANT: Here’s a video from a previous semester (the outside looks different, but looks the same from dashboard) that goes over some of these things and shows you how to set up your portfolio on your blog:

 

Portfolio due Date: Thursday, Dec. 13, at 8 pm. 

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Weeks 12 and 13 (Nov. 19 – Dec. 2)

Read over at least one of the sample student essays here:

Write a short post on your blog (due by Friday, Nov. 30) that identifies thesis statement and organize (by outline or bullet-point list) the main reasons the author uses to support his/her point.

Rough draft of Essay 4 is due Tuesday, Dec. 4, to be posted on your blog by midnight.

(Note: I’m working on grading Essays 2 and 3, hope to have both back to you by the end of this week.)

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Week 11 (Nov. 12 – 18)

Read this page on sentence-level revision.

Consider the information as you revise Essay 3. For a short writing exercise, find and post three sentences from your own writing (it can be from Essay 3 or an earlier essay) that you’ve worked on to revise in a substantive sort of way (not just a bit of fiddling). Do a blog post on your own blog that gives the original and revised versions for these sentences, along with a quick explanation of why the revised version is better (using my framework–on the sentence-level revision page–for correctness, clarity, concision, and construction).

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DATE CHANGE: Final draft of Essay 3 is due Wednesday, Nov. 21 at midnight, to be emailed by midnight as an attached file. To share google cods, please use my gmail address: holly.pappas812@gmail.com. Please remember to format essay for paper: with your name, indented paragraphs, double-spaced text, Works Cited in separate page. I am working to get comments on your essays by Thursday.

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As a comment to this post, let us all know what you’re considering as a possible topic or topics for Essay 4.

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Week 10 (Nov. 5 – 11)

Peer review of Essay 3. Due Sunday, Nov. 11, to be posted both as comment on your partner’s blog and as a post on your own blog. As always, I have not assigned you a partner if your draft is not up; let me know if you post draft late and would like me to try to find you a partner.

Peer review partners:

  • Abigayle and Ginger
  • Casondra and Courtney
  • Chris and Josh
  • Liz and Ronelle

Questions for text-wrestling peer review:

  • Evaluate the quality of sources used. Identify any issues of relevance, authority, bias, or currency. Do sources appear to be appropriately college-level?
  • Are in-text citations used properly (are they used where needed and formatted correctly?). Are Works Cited entries formatted according to MLA guidelines? (You do not need to correct entries, but indicate what issues need correction, e.g., what info is missing? what’s wrong about formatting in terms of caps, italics, punctuation, etc.?
  • Are annotations sufficiently detailed, including info on both content of sources and source credibility?
  • Check for unintentional plagiarism (that is, use hyperlinks to spot-check sources to make sure writer has not used wording or sentence patterns too close to original)
  • Does short report contain specific info from sources? Identify focus (main idea) of each paragraph in report. Note if paragraph seems scattered, or includes more than one main idea, or main idea is not clear)

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Preparation for argument

For this week, read pages on argument, including links: Argue, Basics of argument, Types of argument, and Finding arguable research topics.

Also look over Essay 4 assignment. A research proposal will be due Sunday, Nov. 18 that includes both your topic and several possible sources, so be reading the newspaper, surfing around the web, keeping your ears and eyes open for possible topics. More info about proposal to come next week (as well as an exercise or two on some basic argument skills).

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Weeks 8 and 9 (Oct. 22 – Nov. 4)

For this week, read over the rest of info under research tab: Note-taking, Integrating sources, More on quotation, and On plagiarism.

I will be putting comments on your rough drafts of Essay 2 this week, so final draft of Essay 2 will not be due until Sunday, Nov. 4.

In the meantime, get started on Essay 3: Annotated bib and short report. Let me know (by Oct. 28, at the latest) by email what topic you propose to focus on for that assignment. Rough draft of Essay 3 will also be due on Nov. 4, to be posted on your blog. I will give two separate punctuality points for that date (one for annotated bib, and the other for report).

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Week 7 (Oct. 15 – 21)

Starting research. Read info on Finding and evaluating sources. Also read about Citing sources: how and why.

Do Exercise on finding, evaluating, and citing sources (note that the first part of this assignment, which shouldn’t take too long, is due by Friday, Oct. 19, to give everyone a chance to complete the entire exercise by Sunday, Oct. 21). It should take well under an hour to do that part of the assignment. Not all of your sources need to be of great quality; the assignment is about being able to tell good from bad, so a few stinky ones are just fine! For this exercise, your three topics are as follows (the link brings you to the google doc for that topic):

Social robots

Military robots

Factory robots (industrial applications)

Note that you do not have to use only these terms to search; try related search words as well.

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Peer review Essay 2.

Final draft of Essay 2 will not be due until Oct. 28, at the earliest; peer review is due by midnight on Sunday, Oct. 21. Please address the following questions in your peer review (to be posted as comment on your partner’s essay and as a separate post on your own blog):

  • How is the essay structured, and does it follow assignment guidelines? (If not, explain why and give suggestions for revision)
  • Is the summary complete and accurate? If not, please make suggestions.
  • Does the writer handle source ethically? (check to make sure that paraphrases are not unacceptably close to original wording; is Works Cited included?)
  • Are paragraphs focused, well-developed, and coherent? (Is there one clear main idea per paragraph? Identify any paragraphs that need revision for focus or coherence.)
  • Is the response substantive? (Does the writer make interesting, thought-provoking points or connections?)

Here are your peer review assignments (based on what was posted by Tuesday–people who posted late, please let me know if you’d like me to try to find a partner, but no promises. To receive credit yourself for peer review, you may find and post on anyone’s essay who does not already have a review.) Note that I’ve tried to assign you to review someone who’s picked the same article you did.

  • Abigayle and Alicia
  • Casondra and Chris
  • Courtney and Jake
  • Josh and Liz
  • Ronelle and Samantha
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Week 6 assignments

Sorry not to get this up earlier, but there’s nothing new…

Just rough draft of Essay 2, due on your blog by Sunday, Oct. 14, with these three articles to choose from:

If you’re pressed for time, concentrate on the summary, with perhaps just a quick indication of how you might approach response section.

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Week 5 assignments

REVISED DEADLINE for Essay 1 final draft and revision reflection: Now due Wednesday, Oct. 10 by midnight.

We have a variety of odds and ends this week.

Paragraphing.

Read the pages Paragraphs and Coherence: transitions between ideas.

For Writing Exercise #2, read and follow instructions on Sample student paragraphs page. Due by Sunday, Oct. 7, to be posted on your blog.

Revising Essay 1

First, read (and watch videos) about Revision; in particular, be sure to read the short essay “The Maker’s Eye” at the bottom of that page.

I will be working on commenting on rough drafts the beginning of this week, hopefully done by Wednesday, 10/3. Final draft of Essay 1 is due Sunday, Oct. 7 by midnight, to be emailed to me. For grading, please email me your essay as an attached file, in .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .pdf format. Note the late penalties as given in the syllabus; if you pass in your essay on time, you may revise it again after grading. You may also want to post your final draft on your blog to keep a record of your writing development.

Also, please post a short reflection on your blog (at least 250 words) about your revision process for the essay, discussing how you responded to feedback (agree, disagree, what specific changes did you make or not make). In your reflection also make some connection to what you read in “The Maker’s Eye.”

Starting Essay 2.

If you’d like to get a head start on Essay 2 (rough draft will be due on Oct. 14), here are your three articles to choose from:

Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords

Should We Welcome Robot Teachers?

A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship

 

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Week 4 assignments

There are two main activities this week, both due Sunday, Sept. 30 at midnight: reading about and practicing summary writing, and peer-reviewing each other’s work.

Reading journal post #1. Your other assignments involve critical reading, which is quite a bit more difficult than most people imagine. First, read these pages and links on reading:

Then read at least two of the following short articles:

I suggest that you print these out so that you can mark them up.

For at least two of the  articles (you can do more for extra credit), post a three-sentence summary (normally I don’t put upper limits on length, but for this assignment keep to a three-sentence limit) on your blog, following the guidelines in Writing summaries. When you use the title of the article in your summary, make the title a hyperlink> here’s a video to show you how to do that:

Peer review of Essay 1. First read Thoughts on peer review. Compare Ryan’s review here (which is an example of a very well-done peer review) to Caitlyn’s′s here (which is very brief and not very helpful to the writer who is trying to revise his/her own work). Then find your peer review partner below, and read that person’s essay. Post comments on his or her essay that respond to all of the following questions:

  • Does the essay conform to the assignment guidelines? If not, be specific with suggestions about how the writer can more closely meet the assignment requirements.
  • Consider the writer’s use of specific detail. Identify any particularly sharp, effective use of detail (by para. number or context). Indicate places where you think the writer might add more detail (either because something is unclear or could be made more vivid or engaging or understandable). If paragraphs seem too general, ask questions or make suggestions that might help him/her develop scenes.
  • What seems to be the main “message” of the essay? (Look at the intro or concluding paragraph.) Does the writer make some interesting point(s) that you can connect to on a more universal level? Point out any resonant lines that seem to have particular significance or emotional power (which may or may not be developed in the rest of the essay).
  •  How does the structure of the piece work? What is its time frame? Does the order of paragraphs seem appropriate? (If not, suggest possible reorderings.)
  • What is/are the most successful aspects of the draft? What/s working well? You might indicate a particular part of the essay or point to the author’s voice or tone, choice of subject matter, vivid descriptions, wonderful style, etc.

Peer review partners (The person paired with you is your assigned partner; you may review additional people’s essays for extra credit. If you read a different person’s essay and find something to praise or respond to, feel free to make brief comments there as well–though these will NOT earn you extra credit.) If you have not yet posted a rough draft, you will not be assigned a peer review partner. If you get a draft posted in the next few days, feel free to let me know via email me, and I’ll try to find someone to review your draft.

  • Abigayle and Jake
  • Courtney and Jessica
  • Casondra and Liz
  • Ginger and Ronelle
  • Alicia and Josh
  • Chris and Tyler

Please post your peer reviews both as comment on your partner’s essay and as a separate post on your own blog.