Calendar – Section 1

Week 1—Introductions and Self-Assessment

January 18 (Thursday)

  • Introductions, Welcome to class
  • Syllabus
  • Best class and worst class
    • Expectations
    • Strategies
  • For next class:
    • Entry Prompt (Please bring 4-5 Copies to Class) (est. time: 90 minutes)
    • Practice sharing Entry Prompt as a Google Document
    • Please bring laptop to class tomorrow

Week 2—Settling in and Engaging Text

January 23 (Tuesday)

  • “What Makes Good Writing Good?”
  • Peer Review Entry Prompt
  • Active Reading (From Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards)
  • Start of Term Self-Assessment
  • For next class:
    • Formal Draft Entry Prompt (est. time: 90 minutes)
    • Please bring laptop’s to class tomorrow! Setting up Blog in-class tutorial.

January 25 (Thursday)

  • Setting up Blog in-class tutorial
  • Active Reading Handout and In-Class Exercise (From Klinkinborg’s Several Short Sentences about Writing
  • Visit website—Effective Altruism
  • For next class:
    • Read Rhys Southan’s “Is Art a Waste of Time?” (Please refer to “Some Thoughts on Active Reading”) (est. time: 45 minutes)
    • Finish moving into your digital space (est. time: 30 minutes)
    • First Blog Post:
      • After you have read and marked Southan’s text, please choose two places that you noticed and expand your thoughts using the exploratory writing methods we worked on in class. In other words: choose at least two marginal comments that you make and “Follow The Thread.” Please incorporate an image of your annotated text into your blog. You may choose to handwrite or type your exploratory writing. The important thing is that your brainstorming session is legible as it appears on your blog. Remember to post your finished link as a comment on the class site (formatted BLOG 1: YOUR LINK) or you will not get credit for you work! Your class blogs should run around 200-300 words. (est. time: 45 minutes)  FOR HELP WITH INSERTING IMAGES, PLEASE VISIT: Help with Inserting Images into Posts and Pages 
    • Please bring laptop and Southan to class

 

Week 3—The Changing Reality of the Text

January 30 (Tuesday)

  • Discuss Active Reading Strategies in light of Southan’s essay
  • Individual-to-Small Group discussion about Southan
  • “Glossing” the essay exercise: Section C  Section J
  • For next class:
    • Visit the Effective Altruism website: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ and spend some time looking around. Notice how you react to the website. Think: does this visit influence how you think about Southan’s essay? How? (15 minutes)
    • Reread Southan’s essay. Use a different color pen or pencil to layer your active reading notes, one on the other. Write Blog #2 comparing your second reading experience with your first. Did you notice something new? Did you react differently to one of the author’s claims? Did you read something critically when, at first, you read it as a believer or vice versa? Finally, and most importantly, did “glossing the text” help you better understand a passage? If so, which, and to what extent? In your explanation, please include a hyperlink to at least one resource you used to “gloss the text.” Remember: when you’re “glossing the text,” you don’t need to be too particular about your source. Feel free to use Wikipedia or the Dictionary.com. Remember, you aren’t conducting research, just trying to clarify a reference or term that you can’t initially place.  Don’t forget to copy your link as comment onto class blog. (est. time: 60-90 minutes)
    • Please bring laptops to class on Thursday

February 1 (Thursday)

  • Class Discussion: Rereading Southan. What’s the point?
  • Listen to TED Radio Hour, “How Art Changes Us” (Mark up Transcripts)
    • Develop connections: text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world
  • BREAK
  • Hand out Prompt #1—Making Connections
  • Making Connections: Synthesis and Meaning Making
  • Small group: Visit TED Site and explore photographs
  • What is Art? In class small-to-large-group exercise.For next class:
      • Select a TED talk from the list. Watch the TED talk, and continue to make connections for your first essay. Your choice TED talk will serve as your second text. You may choose to annotate the transcript digitally or with a pen. All transcripts are linked here: Titus Kaphar, Haas&Hahn, and Benjamin Zander.
      • Read Chapter 1, “They Say” from They Say I Say (pages 19-28). As you annotate, pay attention to the things that you notice and mark when you read for information. Notice the way that you mark. For example, are you underlining more? Less? Making more or less text-to-self connections? How does this rhetorical situation differ from the rhetorical situation presented by Southan’s essay? How do these rhetorical differences influence the words that you notice and the methods that use choose to take note of these words? (est. time: 40 minutes)
      • For Blog #3: Type 2 summaries—one of your choice TED talk and the other of Southan.Keep in mind that you are writing what “they” say.Your choice TED talk and Southan do not neatly oppose one another. This is okay. We are going beyond compare and contrast. Your goal will be to find ways to connect these texts to make new ideas. After you have typed 2 summaries into your blog, take out a sheet of paper and choose one of the synthesizing methods we discussed in class and brainstorm connections between the texts. Remember, this can be messy. That’s okay! Feel free to doodle, scratch things out, write upside down.Please post an image of your brainstorming session into your blog.Finally, below your brainstorming image, begin to articulate what YOU say. This can be casual. Feel free to include any insight you gleaned from your brainstorming session. Did you settle on an opinion or a sentence that you plan to use in your paper? Did you find a connection between the two texts that you did not previously see?Don’t forget to paste a link to your blog as a comment into the class blog!(total est. time: 90 minutes)
      • Please bring laptop to class on Tuesday

Week 4—Revision as Process

February 6 (Tuesday)

  • Hyperlinks and The Timeliness of Blogs
  • Guernica and the Recursive Process
  • Small to large group work
  • BREAK
  • In class exercise: Establishing Stakes and the Introductory Paragraph
  • For next class:
    • Read W-2 (Academic Contexts) and W-3 (Writing Processes) (6-16) in Little Seagull. Please bring book to class.
    • Blog #4:
    • PART 1—Intro Paragraph Peer Review
      •  Visit the Stakes and Introductory Post
      • Choose from the introductory paragraphs— Find one writer’s choice to compliment. Analyze why you think their choice worked.
      • Find one text you want to help make stronger. Please make your suggestion as specific as possible. For example, if the position statement lacks a so what, can you suggest a so what? If the introduction is too cluttered with detail, what could that paragraph stand to lose?
      • POST YOUR REACTIONS AS A COMMENT AND TAG THE APPROPRIATE PEER.
    • PART 2—Reflection on Intro Paragraph Peer Review:
      • ON YOUR SITE AS BLOG #4
      • Write a 100-150 word reflection on your experience complimenting and critiquing a peer’s text. Please list one thing you learned that you can apply to your own intro paragraph and LINK to the page with your comment.

February 8 (Thursday)

  • Little Seagull Discussion: Outlines Pre and Post and Mid (pages 45-48)
  • Content and Form
  • Claims and Evidence—Revisiting Southan—Index Card exercise.
  • For next class:
    • Finish Free Draft with two questions and/or areas of focus. Due on Tuesday. Please bring 4 copies. *Take 2 volunteers for in class workshop.

Week 5—Peer Review 101

February 13 (Tuesday)

  • Free Draft Due! Exchange papers.
  • Peer Review Strategies and Assignment
  • In Class Workshops
  • BREAK
  • Multimodal Composition 101
  • Assign Podcast/Video/Etc.
  • For next class:
    • Prepare Peer Review. Remember to bring in 2 copies of your 150-word comment.
    • Blog #5: Revisit the categories for comments listed on your Peer Review Assignment sheet—ideas, evidence, and organization. Then revisit the comments you made on your peers’ papers. Please identify and type up a comment that you feel represents each category—three comments in all. After you have labeled your comments, elaborate on why you feel that the comment fits under the category.
  • Lastly, please describe your experience prioritizing global edits over local edits. (totall: 200-300 words)Don’t forget to post the link to your completed blog.

February 15 (Thursday)

  • Peer Review
  • Peer Review Discussion
  • BREAK
  • How to Make a Revision Plan Strategy
    • Look at examples.
    • Read Peer Comments on your draft
    • Complete “Revision Plan Strategy” and post as Blog #6
  • For next class:
    • Blog #7: Read W-4 (Developing Paragraphs) in Little Seagull pages 17-29. This section presents strategies for (a) tightening an unfocused paragraph, (b) developing a claim and overall argument, and (c) smoothing out choppy or incoherent sentences. Please revise (or completely rewrite) two paragraphs based on your reading. Please document and share these changes along with the sections in W-4 that inspired you to make them. (You can take a “before and after” screen shot or cut-and-paste into your blog.)
    • Briefly summarize the changes you made and discuss how you feel these changes have affected your composition overall.Bring Little Seagull and laptop to class

Week 6—Writer as Driver

February 20 (Tuesday)

  • February 20 (Tuesday)
  • For next class:
    • Blog #8: Read They Say/I Say “The Art of Quoting” pages 42-50.
    • Part 1: Return to your paper in progress and revise at least two quotes based on the advice in They Say/ I Say on how to frame every quotation.Part 2: Add, swap, or alter one of your existing quotes so that your choice citation is more relevant and powerful in the context of your argument.
    • Please bring your laptop to class. We will revise papers in class.

February 22 (Thursday)

  • Revision Strategies
  • Break
  • What is Art Discussion
  • For Next class:
    • Formal Paper 1 Due
    • Please bring They Say/I Say to class