Running List of Past Daily Assignments 

Assignments for Friday, 8/30

1.     Turn in your student profile before you leave class on Wednesday (8/28).

2.     Get your required materials (esp. your field notebook—the recommended type is specified on the syllabus)

3.     Read the syllabus and come to class ready with questions. There will be an open-note, open discussion quiz.

4.     Reread your notes from 8/28—consider especially the ideas of (a) writing within a “parlor” or larger conversation and (b) learning and knowledge as precursors to good writing.

•       Notebook prompt #1—Write: What ideas are you processing in response to either of these two ideas?

5.     Read the attached readings from Madeleine L’Engle, Helen Keller, and Lera Boroditsky.

•       Notebook prompt #2—Write: Referencing specific details from the assigned readings listed here, what do these readings tell you about the relationship between thought and language?

6.     Mystery assignment: Look at the attached mystery pages in this handout. DON’T LOOK UP ANYTHING ONLINE ABOUT THEM. You’re not being graded on “finding the answer”; you’re being graded on HOW you investigate the document. For now, I want to know what you notice from reading. Just read the pages and make a few rough notes in your notebooks.

•       Notebook prompt #3—Write:

a)     What is this? 

b)     If you WERE going to look something up online to figure out more, what would you want to be searching for? Come to class ready to discuss.

  

Assignments for Monday, 9/2:

1.     Remember to come to the Harrison-Small Building!!! We’ll be in the Byrd-Morris room on the 3rd floor (there’s usually a staff member on the ground floor to help direct you—text someone if you have any trouble).

2.     Reconsider the “mystery assignment” in light of Friday’s class discussion and your additional pages. “What is this?”

3.     Notebook prompt #4: Write in your journals (about 2 pages, handwritten)—

a)     What does this author seem to be doing with this project? (What’s the purpose?)

b)     What kinds of material are you looking at in the pages you have?

c)     What kinds of background work do you deduce went into what you see on the page?

 

Assignments for Wednesday, 9/4

1.Bring your journals to class on Wednesday, along with all “mystery document” handouts so far and, of course, your notes.

2.Read the new material handed out in Monday’s class. DO NOT SEARCH ONLINE. You definitely have content now that will get hits, and skew your impressions. I want YOUR thoughts! Read, consider the special collections presentation and HOW researchers approach documents like these, and then write in your journals (about 2 pages)—What do you see about this material now that seems new to you? And/or, what steps have you been taking and would you like to take next in investigating this text?
*No need to write anything on this one unless you want to, but come to class ready to discuss.

3. Notebook prompt #5: Reflect on our time in Special Collections on Monday. Write about whatever struck you most (about 2 pages).
*If you’re not sure what to write about, a few things you might consider:

·      What kinds of materials did we get to see in connection with each “text”? (As in, for Mark Twain’s Jumping Frog, which we might otherwise just think of as a single book, what all did we see?) With all those different pieces in mind, what counts as “a text” anyway? If I told you to go read Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, which edition would you think I meant and why?

·      What did seeing so many steps involved in creating the texts we saw in person (from Phillis Wheatley, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, Charles Darwin, and others—I’ll post the complete list of artifacts when I get it from the librarians)—what did seeing all that make you think about in terms of your own research and/or writing?

Assignments for Friday, 9/6

  1. Read through* the full PDF of selected archival materials for Carson’s Silent Spring.

  2. Read through* Carson’s Silent Spring, Chapter 3

  3. Watch the 1962 CBS special, “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson”—I see they’ve taken down the earlier link. Here’s a new one:

  4. Write a 2-page essay in MLA format over the prompt below.

This essay is graded only based on completion—finish and submit it, and you’ll receive full credit (as part of your process work for the larger Analysis/Synthesis assignment). I’m reading these primarily for 2 things—first, to see how well you know MLA format already (I’ll tailor future class time accordingly, to fill in gaps as needed but to avoid going over a lot of information you already know); second, to get a sense of how you all are engaging with the Carson material in the context of our 1510 class, so I can modify upcoming class sessions based on interests and needs. With that in mind:

Essay Prompt (due Friday, 1 hard copy to turn in at the beginning of class):

·      Write about 1-3 aspects of the rhetorical situation around Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, based on what you have read so far. (Don’t look things up outside the material you’ve been provided through this class.) So for example, you might:

o   Reflect on what public assumptions she was facing and how she seems to be trying to persuade readers in
Chapter 3.

o   Consider the complications she faced in raising an issue at odds with major economic powers.

o   Discuss the issues at stake in arguments about scientific data based on sociopolitical pressures/perspectives.

o   Look at the style/voice Carson chooses in Silent Spring, Chapter 3, and consider how that voice might resound (or not) with general readers in 1962, scientists in 1962, and general readers today.

·      Tie observations to specific moments in source material, whether print or video, and cite your sources as best you can.

·      Use MLA format to the best of your current ability (i.e., look up minor items if you need to, but don’t hurt yourself trying to learn things you don’t know).

·      To the best of your ability, include a clear thesis (that is, one sentence stating your main/controlling idea) and distinct paragraphs with topic sentences and transitions.

·      Include a note at the end of your paper, telling me:

a)    what you felt most confident about in writing this essay

b)    where you felt most ill-prepared in writing this essay 

*“Read through”=familiarize yourself with the basic materials available; make some broad observations, and mark a few specific items for yourself to read carefully in the next round of reading. Even with this abridged set of materials, there’s too much content here for you to read carefully given course time constraints! So your job for now is to get a sense of what’s happening, and then know that you will revisit these materials again and again throughout the unit; so plan to re-read SOME of the material carefully and multiple times.

  

Assignments for Monday, 9/9

  1. I’ll be reading your mini-essays over the weekend, and going over my notes from Friday’s class.

  2. You should take notes as YOU see fit in your journals, just to make sure you don’t forget ideas and questions that come up regarding Rachel Carson, class discussions, and the major essay assignment.

  3. Re-read Silent Spring, Ch. 3, a little more carefully this time—take notes in the margins/underline and highlight/etc.—focus on a few specific passages or details or patterns you see.

  4. Bring your notes to class on Monday. We’ll start brainstorming ideas and discuss potential thesis statements/directions for the major essay.

 

Assignments for Wednesday, 9/11

Assignments for Friday, 9/13

1. *Read through* the three Einstein pieces:

a.     Excerpt from “The Theory of Relativity” (first page is titled “On the Idea of Time in Physics”)

b.     “How I created the theory of relativity”

c.    “A Peek into Einstein’s Zurich Notebook”

2. Notebook prompt #6:

a.     After reading through the Einstein material, write your reflections on the following—

Having now read through 3 sets of “surface texts” (1. Carson’s Silent Spring, Chapter Three; 2. Sack’s “Effects of levodopa” and excerpt from Awakenings; and 3. Einstein’s excerpt from “The Theory of Relativity,” and having also read through at least a portion of the archival material “underneath” these surface texts—what difference has seeing the archival material made for you in understanding each surface text? In other words, why and how does the archival stuff matter to you, as a reader?

Assignments for Monday, 9/16

It’s thesis/outline workshop day! Bring:

  1. At least THREE visual outlines (here is a rough example from the blackboard), with

  2. At least TWO VERY DIFFERENT thesis statements.

*You don’t have to write thesis statements in beautiful form, just in enough detail that a reader could get your idea. 

*You should be as specific as possible with your main points (the biggest circles) and subpoints (the smaller circles, where you’ll include examples from the texts—add pg numbers if possible, or at least a description, like “the story about the boy and dog who got sick”). Use the size of your circles to kind of indicate how “big” the ideas are. This is all rough draft stuff; take it seriously, but don’t stress too much.

We want to see the potential for how different ideas could play out in an essay—you’ll discuss with your peers what you’re trying to say and the kinds of support you can use to develop different ideas. By the end of class, you should have chosen a direction and made notes toward revising one outline (which you’ll bring back, even better, on Wednesday).

Assignments for Wednesday, 9/18

  • Bring your laptop (or whatever you type papers on) to class.

  • Bring your MLA Handbook, 8th edition, to class.

  • Bring an updated outline to class. This time, go ahead and type it. Include:

    • Introduction paragraph and revised thesis statement

    • Major headings for your supporting points

    • Sub-headings for your evidence, and include specific page numbers from your source texts

  • Bring copies of whatever sources you’re using to class. Go ahead and underline or highlight or otherwise indicate AT LEAST 3 PASSAGES from your source texts that you want to reference in your essays somehow. We’ll be practicing several types of quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing in class—you should plan to include all of these in your final essays, and you can start putting them in while we’re all together (and you can ask questions about punctuation, citations, etc.).

Note: Here is my handwritten visual outline, and then here is my typed, “revised” version (with some notes from me to clarify) that you can use as an example. Based on this outline, just FYI, I would be bringing to class hard copies of the archive PDF pages I cite in my outline, plus Silent Spring and any other sources I pull between now and then.

Assignments for Monday, 9/23

  • Your final essay is due! In your archival envelopes, with all your process work. Use this checklist to make sure you’ve got everything.
    *Note: If you didn’t “send out” 2 papers for review in class, you should get a second person to look your paper over and write notes on it over the weekend; put that copy in your envelope when you submit. If you DID send out and didn’t get enough comments, feel free to get feedback from others, but you’re not responsible for doing so; just include the class copies in your envelope, and you’ll be set to go as far as grading is concerned. Feel free to text questions to me—615.509.7448.

Assignments for Friday, 9/20

  • Bring your laptop (or whatever you type papers on) to class.

  • Bring your MLA Handbook, 8th edition, to class.

  • Bring back copies of whatever sources you’re using to class, with your underlining or highlighting or whatever, in case you or your reviewers need to refer back to them.

  • Bring TWO printed copies of your complete draft to class. (It’s okay for this to be very drafty; just have all the pieces in place. If you’re stuck on a section, go ahead and type a note to your readers, like “I need to say something about X here but I’m having trouble/ran out of time/etc.—any feedback on what you’d expect here?”) We’ll trade drafts in class—one will go to a familiar person, and one will go out randomly.

  • Here are the slides from Wednesday’s MLA presentation, and here is the sample MLA paper handed out in class (thanks to the OWL at Purdue). Here is the complete list of Works Cited for this Unit—copy and paste the sources you’re using in your paper, and use the notes in red to help you create your in-text citations.

Assignments for Wednesday, 9/25

What is “a scientific approach to artful communication,” anyway?

Writing in the sciences is technical, using specialized language and conventional representations of data. We’re reading some scientific publications this term, but we are not writing scientific publications. Instead, we’re drawing on scientific approaches including the scientific method (observation, research questions, hypotheses, testing, refine hypotheses, etc.) and RAD principles (using content that is replicable, aggregable, and data-supported) to create written materials that are substantive—that is, as much as possible, tangible, or based on tangible subjects. Art has to do with how we present and craft our material for audiences, how we interpret and create meaning with our data. We’ll revisit these ideas for the rest of the semester.

  • Write:

    • Notebook Prompt #8 (for those keeping track, Notebook Prompt #7 was the in-class “gratitude and looking forward” exercise from last week):

How do you think (or if you prefer, hypothesize) that taking a scientific approach to your own writing in the rest of this semester (as you pursue your own research and presentation projects) will shift the way you write? What excites you about those possibilities? What hesitations do you have?

Assignments for Friday, 9/27

  • Finish your Wood Between the Worlds exercise (assignment sheet here; maps of some recommended places here). This exercise counts as Notebook Prompt #9.

  • Read excerpt from Born to Run (handed out in class; here’s a backup copy)

  • Write Notebook Prompt #10:

    • How does Christopher McDougall’s approach to research (in Born to Run) relate to your own ideas about research? What excites you about doing more active research? What do you see as the relationship between this kind of field research and the reading-published-stuff research that you’ll also need to do?

  • Make a list of topics you’d be interested in pursuing—crowdsource to find out what other people find interesting AND worthwhile—come to class on Friday with a few topics you’re seriously considering pursuing.

    • Consider briefly how you’d go about researching each of these topics, and esp. about what small empirical tests might be relevant and/or where you’re stuck in thinking up such tests.

Ah—and for section 45, this is the link I couldn’t find fast enough in class today, regarding undergraduate research vs. position papers: https://undergraduateresearch.virginia.edu/undergraduate-research-symposium/research-symposium-faqs# Relevant line: “The Undergraduate Research Symposium is not an appropriate venue for “position papers,” where students are presenting opinions rather than scholarly research.”

Assignments for Monday, 9/30

  • Scan and upload your entries for Notebook Prompts #5, #6, and #9 to File Drop in our Collab site. (Fwiw, I use the Microsoft OfficeLens app on my phone for scanning; it’s free to use.)

  • Refine your research topics a bit, and come to class on Monday with 1 particular topic area you’d like to pursue. (You can still change at this point, but you should use this topic in the class exercises for Monday.)

  • Go to the Brown Science and Engineering library classroom! It’s in Clark Hall, not far from Bryan; go through the mural room and turn left; you’ll see a large sign on the wall indicating where the classroom is. We’re meeting there on Monday instead of in our usual classroom. Be on time—the 50 minute class time is short, and the librarians will be trying to get a lot of material into the time period!

  • Bring your laptop to class! (Or tablet, or whatever. You’ll be using it as advised by our librarians.)

Assignments for Wednesday, 10/2

  • Initial topic proposals due! Complete this form and bring the hard copy to class for submission.

Assignments for Friday, 10/4

  • Revise your topic proposals based on feedback from Wednesday’s class. (I’ll be updating mine, too, and will post both as working examples on Friday. I’m narrowing my scope by revising my research questions and updating a source to correspond to that change; I may make some other changes. FYI, as you think about what you might need to do.)

  • Bring both the marked-up original and revised draft to class on Friday. I’ll staple them together and collect for review.

  • Think toward your empirical study. For mine, I think I’m coming up with something better than the strawberry DNA extraction. Ha. We’ll work together through worksheets in class.

Assignments for Wednesday, 10/9

  • Read these pages on data collection and analysis—especially with an eye to the methods and ethics of surveys. We’ll use this material both practically and in discussions on Friday about surveys and interviews.

  • Finish your Research Design Worksheet.

    • IF you’re not conducting a survey, feel free to implement your experiment any time.

    • If you ARE conducting a survey, feel free to get set up if you want to (draft your questions; choose your group; collect contact info.), but don’t send anything out until next week, when we’ve had a chance to talk through the reading and ethical issues, etc.

    • Here’s my completed worksheet, as an example—it’s not perfect; yours doesn’t have to be, either. Just take the assignment seriously/practically. And here is my original and revised topic proposals, too, if they help you at all.

Assignments for Friday, 10/11

  • Updated to add: please bring your laptops (or similar devices) to class on Friday. We’ll go online to start setting up surveys.

  • Get out your MLA Handbook, open PowerPoint or Google Slides, and watch this video. Here’s a copy/paste-able link to said video, in case clicking through isn’t working via Collab:

    https://youtu.be/oE4HX-l4yn8

    I didn’t say in the video, but you should also look at your Handbooks for the following:

    • I highly recommend reading the Preface (it’s only 6 pages long), because it will give you context for how MLA 8 works (and why).

    • You should reference pp. 11-58 for specifics on how to (a) find facts about your publication and (b) adjust information to the citations, like what to do you when you have more than one author, etc. These are pages to skim now, and come back to later as needed.
      *Here are the slides I used in the video:

  • Set up your presentation slides (as instructed in the video), including all the MLA citations for sources you have so far.

  • Keep a log of questions you have about citations (we’ll return to these on Monday).

    *Word to the wise: Don’t put off the presentation slides and citations—you’ll have plenty to do over the weekend; get these over with.

For Monday, 10/14:

  • WE DO MEET FOR CLASS ON MONDAY, in our regular classroom.

  • Complete this survey if you didn’t already.

  • Review this chart and make sure that any survey you plan to conduct qualifies for IRB exemption under 45 CFR 46.101(b)(2). *Chart from https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/decision-charts/index.html#c4.

  • Review THIS chart to make sure you’re not involved in medical testing, which involves a different set of standards for review.

  • As long as you’re not doing IRB-covered human subject research, go ahead and set up your tests, surveys, and/or interviews. You’ll want to have data collected by the end of next week, so go ahead and start collecting if you’re ready, or bring final questions on Monday and plan to launch after Monday’s class. (Launch=send survey invitations; conduct experiments and/or interviews.)

  • IF YOU WANT TO CONDUCT YOUR SURVEY USING OUR CLASS AS YOUR SAMPLE SET, SEND ME A LINK TO YOUR SURVEY BY 10 AM ON MONDAY MORNING. I’ll set these up so we can just all take them together in class that day.

  • If you have ANY concerns that you might be in tricky IRB-covered territory, don’t proceed with that portion of your data collection and bring your questions to class on Monday and/or to student conferences next week.

  • Bring your MLA questions to class!

  • Sign up for a conference time!<—Link to sign-up sheet now live; with apologies for the delay!!

Monday In-Class Assignments: It’s Survey-Palooza Time

Please take ALL of the surveys below. Thanks for participating in the beautiful research process as respondents!

  1. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/S2QCWKT

  2. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MBXLSSM

  3. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XVZPBFS

  4. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FHLRHXQ

  5. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5LXFSZT

  6. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NB8CNYJ

  7. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/F7RGRF8

  8. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FSHVMHQ

  9. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/38V8YSP

  10. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FPWPDQF

  11. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SPQFT62

  12. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HKNVNZP

  13. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HQJ3BND

  14. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HBQNRDK

Assignments for Tuesday-Friday (10/15-10/18)

Come to your scheduled conference!

Bring with you

  1. Your research design worksheet;

  2. all of your sources so far (in digital or hard copy for now, with any notes you've made already);

  3. your draft of your slides-in-progress, with MLA citations in place (and MLA questions you're having)--on your laptop is fine; you don't need to print out unless doing so helps you;

  4. your graded/marked-up first essay draft and any questions you have about the comments and/or revisions you'd like to pursue;

  5. your field notebooks, with all 10 of your notebook prompts so far (I'll assign grades based on completion);

  6. anything else you want to discuss!

What to expect

In most cases, I'll start by checking your field notebooks--I'll flip through and mark for completion (so if you skipped an entry and have 9/10 finished, you'll have a 90% on that grade item), and I'll ask you questions about some of your ideas. Then we'll touch base on your first essay and any questions you have, and if you want to discuss revisions in more detail, we'll set up a follow-up meeting. Then we'll focus on your current research--discussing how it's going, questions you have about the research process, and questions you have about the presentation/essay in advance of actually delivering/submitting those items.

Heads up for the week of 10/21-10/25:

  • We WILL meet for class on Monday. I’ll be giving you MY presentation as a model (10 minute limit, just like yours)—you’ll have copies of my slides and my discovery essay to use as references as you finish/write yours. You’ll also work in small groups to analyze what I’m doing in my essay (for good and bad; critique is welcome!), and we’ll discuss before we adjourn.

  • Presentations will take place in my office between Tuesday-Thursday of next week. Please sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-KxmX_S-qxX3-mv2dYXygDWVhzrsB8Q5GiiI74WeeXI/edit?usp=sharing

  • I’m extending the deadline for your discovery essays—if you’re ready to turn yours in at presentation time, I’ll take them for grading, but you don’t have to turn that portion in until Monday, 10/28.

  • In case it helps, here are my working slides, such as they are. They have not changed much since the last time I posted them; I’ve just made a few minor corrections and added an extra placeholder slide for now. I’ll post the revised version on Monday!

For Tuesday-Thursday (10/22-10/24):

  • Come to your scheduled presentation time.

  • Bring your slides in a format you can share quickly. Handouts are fine; sharing via a Google Slides link is fine—just have them ready to go when you walk in the door; don’t fiddle during the presentation hour. :)

  • Have practiced your presentation. You only get 10 minutes; that’s not very long. Feel free to bring a script to read or bullet points; whatever works for you, so long as you stay under 10 minutes.

  • As previously noted, you can turn in your companion Discovery Essay on your presentation day or wait until Monday, 10/28. Having now written mine and struggled to stay within the word limit, I’m revising your word count range to 1200-2000. These numbers include only the body text of your essay, not the Works Cited (or if you’re like me and really need the words, not the heading or

  • When you turn in your Discovery Essay, please also submit your process work. You can use this checklist. (<—Checklist will be uploaded shortly)

  • Here are my Discovery Essay and my presentation slides in PDF form. I'm giving myself a low-ish B for now (83) on both the presentation and the essay, since I don’t have my interview in yet. I’ll raise my own grade when I finish that component of the assignment. FYI.

For Monday, 10/28:

  • Discovery Essays due in class (hard copies)

    • I’m posting a grading rubric here, which I hope is helpful. Mostly, tell me the story of your research, and make sure you reference and cite all your required sources. I am not grading these essays for grammar/style—the point is for you to be narrating your research process (and documenting your sources along the way).

    • 5% of your course grade is the process work for this unit, and I included a breakdown of that process work on the rubric. That said, if you don’t have your sources or your survey results or whatever all printed out on Monday, I’m not going to mark you down—just make sure you’re getting them ready, because you WILL have to include them in your final archival box at the end of the semester. For THIS unit, I’ve seen your work—as long as you’ve completed all the required sources, you’ll get full credit on your process work. (In other words, if you haven’t completed your interview, you’ll be marked down on that until you complete it, but then your grade will go back up once you finish it.)

For Wednesday, 10/30:

  • Complete Notebook prompt #11: Think back over your research process for the past several weeks. What was one of your biggest surprises, either about the information you gathered or about how the actions of research take place? Reflect on that surprise for a few sentences—why was it surprising? What do you think it means? How do/don’t you want it to show up in your final paper?

  • Notebook prompt #12: In considering the readings we began on Monday (linked below):

    a) Which approach do you want to take to your own paper in Unit 3, a more straightforward reporting, or a paper that considers more at length the meaning of your findings?

    b) What are TWO style items from Helen Sword’s chapters that you’d like to focus on as you draft your paper, and why?

  • Sign up for your paper submission date (which will always be the class period PRIOR to when we workshop your paper).

  • Readings from Monday:

  • Heads up: I’ll hand out/post the Major Assignment sheet on Wednesday, but for your planning purposes, the word count on this final essay will be 2500-4000 words (prob. 8-15 pages, WITHOUT your appendixes, works cited pages, etc., depending on things like graphs, block quotes, etc.).

For Friday, 11/1:

For Monday, 11/4:

  • Complete your first essay drafts if your name appears below—email them to me by 9 am on Monday morning:

    • Kassidy Capriglione

    • Pete Miller

    • Shutian Chen

  • Everyone else, be sure you’re following when YOUR draft is due. The schedules are here:

  • Prepare to workshop MY essay draft:

    • Read the essay (hard copies distributed in class; here’s the digital file),

    • Complete this Google form PRIOR to class time,

    • Make any notes that seem appropriate on the hard copy—questions, comments, whatever. Put your name on the hard copy and be prepared to hand back to me at the end of Monday’s class period, and

    • Be prepared to discuss the paper, mostly per the Google form comments, though I’ll also ask for general feedback on what you thought was working well and not working well. This essay is a work in progress, as you’ll clearly see in the reading; read it critically and give me the most helpful feedback you can for while I’m revising the thing. YOU are my target audience, so if sections are boring or confusing or stupid, etc., I want the chance to make changes so you like it later!

For Wednesday, 11/6:

For Friday, Nov. 8:

  • Complete your first essay drafts if your name appears below—email them to me by 9 am on Friday morning:

  • Anushey Ahmed

  • Caleigh McDonough

  • Katharine Barbour

  • Aditya Hari

For Monday, Nov. 11:

  • Complete your first essay drafts if your name appears below—email them to me by 9 am on Monday morning:

  • Jacob Hunter

  • Ella Collins

  • Emily Feng

  • Clare Atkinson

For Wednesday, Nov. 13:

  • Complete your first essay drafts if your name appears below—email them to me by 9 am on Wednesday morning:

  • Tatev Gomtsyan

  • Kendric Huff

  • Benjamin Duck

  • John Michael Barstow

  • If you haven’t yet done so, please submit your responses to the Midcourse Evaluation Survey! (I read these responses carefully and use them to plan classes, adjust assignments, etc. Also, if something is really bothering you, this is an anonymous way for you to let me know so I can make any necessary changes!)

  • Prepare to workshop the drafts below. For each, complete the Google form by 11 am on Wednesday (when I’ll print reports for the authors), make appropriate notes on the hard copies (distributed in class), and be prepared to discuss the papers in class. Do remember that 15% of your course grade comes from peer review, and this workshop sequence is the bulk of that grade.

    • Section 15 (meets at noon), workshop:

      • Jacob Hunter’s paper; Google form is here: https://forms.gle/YWheMg4NC4JChVMD6

      • Ella Collins’s paper; Google form is here: https://forms.gle/KRPoabmv35X1y2ob6

    • Section 45 (meets at 1 pm), workshop:

      • Emily Feng’s paper; Google form is here: https://forms.gle/aJMwuRCHgBwjh15u9

      • Clare Atkinson’s paper; Google form is here: https://forms.gle/nErQ6Ri25wT1xPvs7

  • Be sure you’re following when YOUR draft is due. The schedules are here:

For Friday, 11/15:

  • Complete your first essay drafts if your name appears below—email them to me by 9 am on Friday morning:

  • Kasey Kiefer

  • Lavanya Agarwal

  • Teddy Hill

  • Jack Baldwin

For Monday, 11/18:

  • See below for Notebook Prompt #13!

  • Complete your first essay drafts if your name appears below—email them to me by 9 am on Monday morning:

  • Matthew Bonner

  • Lou Wilkin

  • Sebastian Cadillo

  • Kylie Conner

Notebook prompt #13: Consider conclusions, PART I. Freewrite a bit—either draft 3 separate conclusions for your paper (very drafty is fine!) or reflect on what each of these possibilities mean. There are, roughly speaking, three major directions a conclusion can take:

  • profound reflections on, deep insight into, or inspiring recognitions of the topic

  • call to action 

  • formal “implications” and/or “future work” summary

What would each of these mean for your paper? I’m attaching some drafts of these for my own paper here.

Other Resources (good on conclusions, but different genres than we’re working with, so . . .):

  • I liked this website’s explanations and examples, especially with regard to the “profound reflections, etc.” approach: https://www.oxbridgeessays.com/blog/how-to-conclude-your-essay-well/; 

  • The sample conclusion on this site is a reasonable call to action: http://owll.massey.ac.nz/assignment-types/essay-conclusion.php. One key with these is to be specific about who needs to do what, so really avoid the passive voice, and also try not to pawn things off on distant actors. For example, with an environmental paper, you CAN of course argue that political leaders and policy officials need to make systemic changes, but (a) be specific about which ones (as in, the House of Representative, or private think tanks, or the EPA, or ???<—put some thought into who’s really responsible and why) and (b) also give your target audience things they can/should do, so they don’t put down the paper frustrated by all the things someone else should do and they have no power to affect.

  • Googling “implications for future research” pulls up extensive hits from published works that make this move, in lengths varying from a few paragraphs to whole book chapters. Yours need only be 1-2 paragraphs long. Here’s one of many examples: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK259964/. Another source that may be helpful is this page, which lists 6 different types of “future research” suggestions—in the context of dissertations, which you clearly don’t need to be writing, but worth skimming nevertheless: http://dissertation.laerd.com/types-of-future-research-suggestion.php

For Wednesday, 11/20:

  • See below for Notebook Prompts #14 and #15!

  • Complete your first essay drafts if your name appears below—email them to me by 9 am on Monday morning:

  • Giuliana Rejalaga

  • Elizabeth Bishop

  • Anirudh Gadicherla

  • Julia Barron

Notebook Prompt #14: We’ve read most of the class paper drafts at this point. Reflect on at least TWO specific things you’ve learned from reading your peers’ work. You might talk about approaches you really liked or approaches that didn’t work for you in terms of organization, voice, development, whatever. Just think about things you can actively apply as you’re revising your own papers.

Notebook Prompt #15: Your revised drafts are due Monday, Dec. 2. These drafts should be complete in terms of organization and development—all the big-picture stuff. We’ll spend the last week of class “fixing up” these drafts in terms of style, grammar, MLA, etc. Take an hour to gather all your notes from workshop—the drafts from your peers, your Google form printouts, and of course your own notes. Look for patterns in the feedback; read especially the last Google form item, about the ONE THING that most needs attention. Now, based on all the above notes, make a short list for yourself: What are the top 3 things you’re going to work on as you revise this week and next??

For Friday, 11/22:

For Monday, 11/25:

  • Prepare to workshop the drafts below. For each, complete the Google form by 11 am on Monday (when I’ll print reports for the authors), make appropriate notes on the hard copies (distributed in class), and be prepared to discuss the papers in class. Do remember that 15% of your course grade comes from peer review, and this workshop sequence is the bulk of that grade.

For Monday, 12/2:

  • Bring your near-final drafts to class—you should have completed as many of your substantive (big-picture) revisions as possible at this point and be ready to just clean up style issues. Hard copy drafts might be easier for you to work with, but they are not required—print if it’s useful to you; bring your laptops or other devices along, too.

  • As much as you can, address the style issues we’ve covered already in class:

    • passive to active voice

    • nonspecific pronouns to specific nouns/noun phrases

    • getting rid of first-person as appropriate

    • including figures*

    • including headings*

    • including footnotes*

      *I’ve added slides on each of these to the Workshop Style Lessons Slides, linked below.

  • Make sure you’re caught up on all your Notebook Prompts. You’ll have 5 more to write this week (plus 1 more prior to the final exam time), along with finishing your essays.

Notebook Prompt #16:

Consider the idea of web hyperlinks in connection with style guide citations. (In other words, how do hyperlinks work like MLA?) Especially keeping in mind that in many academic contexts, incorrect or missing citations result in full dismissal of the source (i.e., if you didn’t cite it right, it doesn’t exist)—and now having corected your own MLA errors in Essay #2—how would YOU explain MLA to incoming first-year students so they would “get it right” the first time around?

Notebook Prompt #17:

Consider 3 major items in your essay: (1) What recurring images do you either see expressed on the page OR do you keep seeing in your mind as you think about the paper, even though the image isn’t “showing up” on the page anywhere? (2) Similarly, what phrases or vocabularly words are appearing that you especially like? Are they appearing more than once, and if not, how could you build on them a bit throughout the paper? (3) Finally, what themes do you see emerging from or guiding your paper? (It might help to think about what keywords you’d want someone to type into a database to find your paper.)

For Friday, 12/6:

  • Work on your drafts for final, RIGOROUS style checking. Look especially at the items below. Use writersdiet.com and http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ as they are helpful to you!

    • Clean up coherence/cohesion basics—

      • Make main characters the subjects of your sentences. (Strong nouns/actors should come first.)

      • Make important actions verbs. (Use strong verbs, not “being” verbs like “is,” “was,” “were,” and “be.")

      • Re-read (and/or have a friend read) your draft JUST to look at how the sentences connect to each other. Are there clear connections between every sentence? Or do any seem to be making logical leaps? Add transitions as needed. (Use the handout from class<—digital copy will be here shortly.)

      • Re-read(and/or have a friend read) your draft JUST to look at the main topics and themes. Write these in the margins next to each paragraph and/or section. Does the resulting “reverse outline” match what you meant to do? If not, add transitions (or move paragraphs) to make your ideas and connections apparent.

    • Work on coherence/cohesion advanced items if you have time—

      • Consider the theme you identify in your paper and look for places where you think that theme IS showing up on the “surface” of your paper. Put a star in the margin where you want it to show up and add it in.

      • Build a compelling image early in the paper, and make it recur at least 3 times throughout the paper, building in complexity OR function OR detail over the course of the paper. Be sure to include the image in your concluding paragraphs.

      • Consider using a recurring phrase or set of phrases, spaced fairly evenly throughout your paper.

  • Final drafts are due via email by midnight on Friday, 12/6.