Work for week 4

NOTE extension due date for Essay 1 final.

Here are the assignments connected to peer review of Essay 1 (due Wednesay, June 26 by midnight) and final draft of Essay 1 (due Wednesday, July 3 by midnight).

1. Read about the peer review process.
2. Do peer review for your assigned partner, and post both as comment on your partner’s blog and as post on your own blog.
3. Read about revision process.
4. Revise Essay 1 for final draft.
5. Write a reflection on revision process.

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1. First, read info about peer review Thoughts on peer review.
2. Next read the peer review questions for this essay below:
   • Consider the writer’s use of specific detail. Identify any particularly sharp, effective use of detail (by para. number or context, as in “I really get a clear picture of your plate of stew”). 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 possible, include questions for the writer: “Could you describe a specififc time when you made popcorn?”, “This seems to be the crucial scene of the essay. Maybe add some dialogue here?)
   • Indicate by paragraph number which paragraphs seem to be primarily scene and which are mostly summary. Scenes should make you feel as if you’re right there with the writer, in a particular time and place watching events happen. Summaries are more of an overview of what happened over a period of time.
   • What seems to be the main “message” of the essay? What does the author seem to be saying about the significance of this food item, or what’s the ?  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). Does the author include any commentary on the experience and what its significance was to him/her?
   • How does the structure of the piece work? What is its time frame? Is the order of events clear? How well does the lead work to engage your attention? any suggestions for possible changes in order?
   • What is/are the most successful aspects of the draft? What/s working well? You might indicate a particular part of the essay (lead, fight scene, reflection at the end) or point to the author’s voice or tone, choice of subject matter, vivid descriptions, wonderful style, etc.

• Below, you’ll find your name paired with another student (unless you haven’t posted your essay yet–see below). Go to that person’s blog to find and read their memoir with the above questions in mind”answer all of the questions posed.As a comment on their post, answer the questions above, being as specific as you can. Comments should be addressed to the writer (for example, use “you” rather than saying something like “In this piece Susie does xyz.”) Then copy your comment and post it on your own blog, making clear with a title that it’s peer review of Essay 1 and whose essay you reviewed.
• Note on 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.

Peer partners:

• • • Amanda and Laura
    • Anna, please do Jaslyn; Jaslyn. do Natou’s; and Natou, do Anna’s
    • Ava and Ryan
    • Carley and Justin
    • Celia and Hannah
    • Jenny and JessStec
    • JSophia and Shauntee
    • Luis and Tilly

3. Before working on your revision of Essay 1, read over this material on revision process: Revision (be sure to read the short essay “The Maker’s Eye “at the bottom of the page, for use in reflection below) and Sentence-level revision.

4. Next,  revise your Essay 1, to be emailed to me as an attached file (.docx please, if possible) by Wednesday, July 3. Please wait to complete your revision until you get feedback from me, which I hope to have  done by Friday.

I also encourage you to post final draft on your blog, as a separate post from rough draft, to preserve a record of essay’s composition (and, for practical reasons, to make sure I can access it in case there’s an issue with attached file in email).

5. After you finish your revision,  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.”

Checklist for the week:

• Read about personal essays and some thoughts on choosing a topic for memoir.
• Read about getting started and prewriting stage of writing process.
• Essay 1 Assignment–rough draft due on your blog by Sunday, June 23 at midnight.

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1. Read this page on Personal writing and a post I’ll do by Tuesday on choosing a topic for this particular essay (after I put comments on your Essay 1 prewriting posts).
2. Read this resource on Brainstorming from UNC at Chapel Hill.

Here’s another good page on prewriting you might want to check out from UC Berkeley: Before You Start Writing That Paper...

For those of you who struggle with getting started on writing projects, here are some links to read about some of the psychological aspects writers often face:

• Tips on procrastination
• Writing anxiety
• “Shitty First Drafts,” a famous essay on writing by the novelist/essayist Anne Lamott

1. Read over assignment for Essay 1 , use some of the prewriting strategies that work well for you, and compose a rough draft, to be posted on your blog by midnight on Sunday, June 23.

Here’s the checklist for assignments due Sunday, June 16, to be posted on your blog by midnight:

1. Read info on writing as rhetorical act and as interplay between specific and general.
2. Read the essay “Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System.”
3. In a post on your blog, respond to questions below about the corn essay.
4. Read assignment for Essay 1 (which will be due at the end of Week 3).
5. Write a prewriting post on your blog that lists some possible topics you might write about for Essay 1, with a brief explanation.

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1. First read general info about writing on these pages: Writing, as rhetorical act, and as interplay between the specific and the general.

2. Read the essay “Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System.” Robin Wall Kimmerer’s website gives a short bio that may be of interest. I thought I’d start with this essay because when I read it this summer, I decided to return to food as a theme; my father was a corn breeder, so the essay was personally interesting to me, but also I find her writing gorgeous and inspiring.

3. In a blog post of 250-300 words (to be posted on your own blog), address these questions:

What do you think the title means?

• What does the essay seem to be about (can you find or write on sentence that sums up the main point of the essay)?
• How would you explain the rhetorical aspects of the essay (purpose, audience, genre)?
• What places in the essay (if any) did you find confusing or hard to understand? You can quote sentences you did not understand.
• What places in the essay did you find surprising or interesting or disturbing?
• Quote three sentences that seem to you to be examples of effective specific detail or admirable word choice, and explain what you like about these sentences.

4. Read the assignment for Essay 1. This will be your main work for week 3, but let your subconscious get going considering some possible ideas. I will write a “pep-talk” post, as well as link to some samples for inspiration.

5. Write a blog post of at least 150 words that gives some ideas you might write about for Essay 1. This could be in the form of a list–you do not have to use complete sentences.

Recommended: I came across a video of a podcast discussion between Chef Jose Andres (of World Central Kitchen fame) and Anderson Cooper that touches on the relationships between food, family, and culture that may give you some ideas for Essay 1. Here’s the link.

Tour of course blog:

Setting up your own blog:

 

NOTE: The syllabus for the class is posted in dropdown menu labelled “intro” above header picture, with link given below.

Checklist for assignments for the week, due by midnight on Sunday, June 9, to be posted on your blog  This first bulleted list will give you a summary of work to be done, to use as a checklist; look below for full description, as well as links for info to read online):

1. Read intro material on blog as noted below. Also read the short pages Paper vs. Screen and Setting up your blog. Post a comment on Paper vs. screen, indicating how you prefer to read and write.
2. Set up your blog and email me its URL, along with the name you’d like used to identify yourself and your section number.
3. Do a first blog post that shares something about your experiences with and attitudes towards writing (can also connect to your feelings about reading).
4. Browse through this list of TED talks on food, and select a video for your second post (info below).

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1. Read the post Welcome to College Writing and the syllabus. If you have any questions about the syllabus, please leave a comment on the syllabus page so that everyone can see my answer–if you have a question, probably others do too! Also read the short pages Paper vs. screen (posting a comment as instructed on the page) and Setting up your blog. These pages are all listed under the Intro tab above, but it may take you a little while to feel comfortable navigating around. I will always give hyperlinks to info I’d like you to read, so you shouldn’t ever have to be searching around the blog; please let me know right away if you can’t find something or if a link is broken.

2. Set up your own blog, follow the procedure to “Join a class” described in the instructions, and send me an email with the blog URL, your name, and the name you’d like me to use for your blog link.

3. As a first post on your blog and an introduction, write a chunky paragraph or several (about 250 words, or more, if you want) that tells us something about who you are as a writer and/or a reader.  You might want to think over questions such as the following: what were some memorable pieces of writing (or reading) you did as you were growing up? what writing do you do these days (think about writing to connect to friends and family, work-related writing, writing for self-expression and/or to relieve stress)? how do you write? where? do you have favorite utensils? favorite kinds of paper? who were some influential writing teachers you had and why? what were the stages in your development as a writer and reader? what do you see as your strengths and weaknesses as a writer or reader now? what would you like to work on during this semester with respect to your writing? You may also want to include where you stand on the paper vs. screen issue. Of course, you do not need to answer all of these questions!  Any questions of that sort (or other similar ones you might think of) are fair game for this “assignment.”

Feel free to approach this as “creatively” as you’d like. Some of my students in the past have responded to this prompt with a poem. If you’d like to include something visual, a photograph or several, to illustrate your words, go right ahead!

4. Watch one of the TED talks on food listed here and then compose a second post  of at least 250 words briefly summarizing and then responding to the videos (you don’t need to cover the whole thing, just what interested or surprised or disturbed you or what connections you made to your own life or other things you have read), or some other thoughts the video prokoked for you.

 

I’m happy to welcome you to the course blog for English 101 for Summer 2024. This will be the central space for the course, an electronic version of our classroom where you will be able to go to find assignments and class notes, as well as to read the writing of your colleagues.

Please bookmark this site on your computer (or make a note of its URL if you use multiple computers).

First I’d like to mention a few things that may be different from this course and other sections of English 101:

As you can see, I use blogs instead of Canvas, for both my online and face-to-face courses. In addition to this course blog, you will also each be setting up your own blogs, which you will use to post rough drafts and informal writing. I believe that blogs are a tremendous technology that allows writers both to set up their own personal writing space and to share that writing easily with others. The sense of audience writers can get from this is invaluable. Though this may cause some of you some anxiety (exposing your work-in-progress to the eyes of others), I want to emphasize its potential to create a community of supportive writers. Also, looking at the work of others can often be a great way to get both ideas and inspiration for your own writing! (If you’ve never blogged before, don’t worry!! It’s easy; I’ll provide a short video to show you how to get started, and I’ll be available the first week and later to meet with anyone who wants some face-to-face help.)

Last fall I finally came up with an analogy that I think captures my feelings about Blackboard vs blogs:

Blackboard is like a foreboding castle at the top of a hill that students approach in the dead of night to slip essays into an almost-too-narrow mail slot; blogs are like village of multicolored cottages, with villagers skipping down the lanes, bringing each other armfuls of flowers and vegetables.

(Note that I will be posting comments but not  grades on your blog entries; all final drafts will be turned in on paper or through email. I will use the grading feature in eLearning to record grades–checking your grade will be the only reason you should need to sign into eLearning.)

In addition to the blogging, the other maybe-unusual aspect of this course is the course is theme-based. This semester the course will be centered around varous topics related to food. See the page above for info about my rationale for using theme-based classes in 101 and some ideas about the topics we might be considering.

For more info about the set-up of the course,  you can  access the syllabus from the links across the top of the page under the first column titled “Intro”–it will stay there for the whole course, as will major assignments for the class. If you’d like to look or work ahead, check out the assignment links there as well. For the first week, your work is given in the post above, Work for Week 1. This work will be due Sunday, June 9 but please go ahead and email me your course blog as soon as you get it set up. If you have any problems understanding how to set up a blog o9r how to find your way around the course, blog, please email me asap to set up a time to Zoom (or you can make an appointment to come by my office if you prefer meting face-to-face.) For students registered also for ENG 092, we will be going over all of this and setting up student blogs at our first meeting on Monday, June 3.

You’ll be able to see this better once I get some student blog links posted. I’ll do an updated version of a blog tour in a few day to show how this will all work.)