Running List of Past Daily Assignments 

Wednesday, 1/13:

  1. Turn in your student profile before you leave class on Monday (1/13).

  2. Purchase your field notebook (see details 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 1/13—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. DO NOT 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:

1. What is this? 
2. 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.

For Friday, 9/17:

  1. Reconsider the “mystery assignment” in light of Wednesday’s class discussion and your additional pages. “What is this?”
    *Reminder: DO NOT SEARCH ANYTHING ONLINE.

  2. Notebook prompt #4: Write in your notebooks (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?

For Wednesday, 9/22:

  1. Read through coursepack pp. 16-224 (posted here for now).
    *“Read through” = read the first couple of pages well; skim the rest (take 20-60 minutes) and look for patterns; choose a few more pages to read well. The whole process should take about 2 hours. Manage your time; don’t spend much more than 2 hours.

  2. Watch the 1962 CBS special, “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gaBczHKtWo

  3. Meet at the Byrd-Morris room, located on the 3rd floor of the Harrison-Small Building! (Building is next to Alderman library.)
    - Bring loose paper and pencils ONLY for note-taking.
    - No food, drink, or gum allowed.
    - You may bring a camera (including the one on your phone) to capture images of today’s documents.

  4. Collect a water sample. (Samples are due in class on 1/29. I’m handing vials out early to allow time for collection.)

  • In the vial provided, take a sample from any water source other than the UVA Grounds faucets. For example, if you are traveling out of town (to visit friends/family, etc.), you could get water from another city’s system, or from a well water system. You can also get a sample from any fresh water source (a river, stream, lake, etc.), reservoir, or even a puddle somewhere. Fill the full vial and tighten the cap. Make note of:

-location (latitude/longitude per Google Maps)
-water source type (lake, stream, home/city system, home/well system, etc.), and
-date of sample

For Friday, Jan. 24:

  1. Complete 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?

  2. Mini-essay due (1 hard copy to turn in at the beginning of class):

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

    *Note that 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:

  • Write about 1–3 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, based on what you have read/watched so far. (Don’t look things up outside the material you’ve been provided through this class.) Start by looking at the kinds of material Carson is referencing (as seen in the coursepack samples): correspondence, bibliographies, plus some of her source and her notes on those sources, and of course, her own original notes. (Here again is the PDF of archival material; the published version of Silent Spring, Chapter 3, appears at the end of the file, beginning on p. 203 of this PDF.)

  • Of these, choose one set of material to focus on (so, read all the letters carefully, OR really try to make sense of her original notes, etc.), and then read those in connection with the published version of Silent Spring, Chapter 3. How do you see the archival material connecting to the published material?

    • 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 

For Monday, 1/27: CLASS CANCELED

As announced via Collab and email, class for today is canceled. I hope you enjoy having an extra day to work on readings and your notebook entry. If you’re able to attend the Writing Center’s workshop today at 1 p.m. for extra credit (in Clemons 204—Clemons is right behind the special collections building, near Alderman), please do so.

There’s no additional work needed; we’ll just pick up Wednesday with what we were going to do today (see below). I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts on Sacks and Einstein on Wednesday, and if you’re watching the course calendar, know that your outlines will now be due in class on Friday (and your first drafts on Monday). I’ll give you an updated course calendar later this week.

For Wednesday, 1/29:

  • Read “The Desolate Year” (Monsanto, 1962) and “The Right and Wrong of Rachel Carson” (2018 review of Silent Spring by Charles C. Mann, published in the Wall Street Journal).

    *Spend about 20-30 minutes.

  • Read through coursepack material pp. 237-276 (Einstein’s work) AND 277-318 (Sacks’ work)—attached here as PDFs. Spend about 30-45 hour per author; 1-1.5 hours total.
    *For the Einstein material, it might help to watch this video explaining relativity before you read his work:     https://youtu.be/umLcFAI5SZg
    *For Sacks, this is the trailer for the     Awakenings film (shown in Friday’s class): https://youtu.be/-gnXnskAni0

  • For Notebook Prompt #6, just make rough notes in your notebooks about the following:

    • Having now read through 3 sets of published works (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 that went into making these works—what similarities and differences do you see in the way these authors are approaching their writing processes? (For examples, you might consider: What kinds of research are they doing? Who are they talking to? What kinds of notes are they keeping? How are they getting their ideas out in writing? How are they revising?)

For Friday, 1/31:

  • Draft an outline of your Essay #1

  • Bring your water sample to class (labeled with location (latitude/longitude per Google Maps), water source type (lake, stream, home/city system, home/well system, etc.), and date of sample.

    • If you’re struggling with how to label, I’ll bring index cards and masking tape to class on Friday, so you can write the data down and tape your sample to the card.

For Monday, 2/3:

  • Bring 1 hard copy of your complete first draft to class, to exchange with peers.

    • Format your paper according to MLA guidelines (include a heading and header; 1” margins; double-spaced; 12 pt font; Times New Roman; with a Works Cited page). Here’s a template for the page layout; here are Works Cited entries for you to use. (If you can’t open these Word docs natively, you can open them in Google Docs online. Send word if you have trouble with the files.)
      *We’ll cover MLA more in Unit 2; I just want you to start on the basics for now. If you want to see a sample paper in MLA, you can look at this one.

    • Review the essay guidelines here. (And the grading rubric here.)
      *Note that Major Assignments and Rubrics are always posted under the appropriate Unit page. I’m re-posting them here for quick reference.

    • *It’s perfectly okay if these drafts ARE drafty! “Complete” means not just a few paragraphs, but a full draft. You should have enough written that an outside reader will understand what you’re trying to say without talking to you directly. Feel free to add notes and questions to the reader.

  • Additional thesis examples:

    1. The notes of [Author] demonstrate a mind in the midst of messy work; the published draft of X shows a text attentive to both form and audience. Together, these materials speak to the organization, distillation, and positioning that go into rendering ideas during the writing process.*This one would work with any of the authors; their work all has interesting examples of the items addressed here, but whoever I wrote about would obviously have done different work, so my final conclusion would be quite different for each author. I could also compare/contrast authors easily with this thesis model.

    2. Carson’s published draft of Silent Spring, Chapter 3, pairs a damning mound of empirical evidences with compelling human content in the form of narratives to build the case against unregulated pesticides. Yet her handwritten notes add another dimension to the story, showing a methodical and meticulous biologist at work and at life, setting rigorous draft work alongside shopping lists and, at least in case, intensely personal reflections on her own body and spirit. 

    3. Carson’s bibliographies, even the limited collection we see in our coursepack, showcase the range of work Carson was synthesizing in Silent Spring. The sets of bibliographies provided by the U.S. Public Health Service’s Toxicology Program (Coursepack 40-50) and the World Health Organization (Coursepack 51-57; 60), along with Caron’s own continued bibliographic notes (Coursepack 58-59), showcase works published between 1949-1958. These works range from research articles and conference proceedings to inter-governmental reports and even a U.S. Congressional investigation committee report. The topics include considerations of locations experiencing effects of synthetic chemicals (in the selected bibliographies, we can see reports from across India, as well as the U.S. and Japan), as well as types of concerns, with materials covering farming, horticulture,  mosquito control, chemistry, medical considerations, sanitation, mosquito control, issues in ophthalmology, and broad items in public health. Witnessing, through these bibliographies, the ongoing research into and conversation about synthetic chemicals, provides vital energy and heft in reading Carson’s published work—rather than seeming to be an isolated voice crying out against a tidal wave of opposition, her voice becomes a megaphone for herself and countless others already aware of the issues involved.

For Wednesday, 2/5:

  • Final drafts due!

    • Please place 1 final hard copy into a folder (manila or 2-pocket, whatever’s easiest/cheapest).

      *If you need to see the MLA template and Works Cited entries again, here they are for quick reference.

    • Also include:

      • Cover memo (see original assignment guidelines)

      • “Graded” mini-paper

      • Marked-up copies of your source material

      • Outlines (preferably marked up from class review)

      • Marked-up drafts from class review

For Wednesday (stuff you’ll need in class):

  • Use the testing guide (along with your water sample, test strip, pipette, and a timer) to determine your results. You can wait for the 2 paper versions to circulate or use this image (don’t adjust color or lighting!).

  • Enter your data into this spreadsheet. (Leave all other data alone.)

  • If you’re interested, check out this map of our collected samples.

  • Consider: What do we know now that we didn’t know before? What could we do to refine or dig into this data? What does this exercise help you see or imagine about collecting and “writing up” data?

For Friday, 2/7:

  • Read through Irvin’s “What is Academic Writing?” and the 2 articles on the Flint water crisis (coursepack pp. 315– 351)

  • Read “Born to Run” excerpt (coursepack 365–371).

  • Bring coursepack (print or digital) to class

  • Complete Notebook Prompt #7:

    • Consider this note from our Course Site’s “Ideas” page:

      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: 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? Feel free to connect your thoughts to ideas you came across during Wednesday’s water testing/writing activity, as well.

For Monday, February 10:

  • Review Major Assignment #2 to get a sense of what you’ll be doing in this unit.

  • This is a time to have fun thinking of possibilities! Complete this “Wood Between the Worlds” exercise; your notes for this exercise constitute Notebook Prompt #8. The whole thing should take you anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how into it you get. :-D (The maps on the 2nd and 3rd pages also appear in your coursepack on pages 363-4; they’re some starter ideas for places you might go, especially if you haven’t spent time at them already. There are certainly other good options, too, but these can get you started.)

  • Bring your coursepack again on Monday (or at least pages 372-380)—we’ll have our guest speaker and then some time for working on designing your own empirical experiments, and those pages will be important references for you.

    *If you have any interest in playing with existing data sets, you can of course play with our water samples data from Wednesday, but you can get bigger sets (and see how people are playing with them) here: https://www.makeovermonday.co.uk/data/.

    **Just a reminder that your research topics really can be anything. Science topics are awesome, but if you’re just not into science, feel free to explore things that interest you.

For Wednesday, Feb. 12:

  • Sketch out your general research questions/topic—vague is fine at this point! You’re working toward a formal topic proposal (due next week—here’s the template, if it helps to see already; I’m not expecting you to have this completed yet) and giving yourself some context for the empirical study you’re developing.

  • Get as far as you can on your Empirical Design worksheet.

  • We’ll continue to work on these two documents in class on Wednesday (and you’ll have library training on Friday), so make generative notes and hold things loosely, knowing that research is a work-in-progress. You might make notes in your field journals about how the process is going—what you find exciting, what you find obnoxious or frustrating, etc. (for use in your research narrative essays).

  • For your reference, here are examples of my completed topic proposal and research design worksheet from last semester. (These are NOT necessarily fabulous examples, but at least they give you something to push against. We can discuss in class on Wednesday.)

Friday, Feb. 14:

  • We’ll meet in Clemmons Library classroom #407! Don’t come to our Bryan classroom; go to Clemmons!

  • Bring your laptops or devices (to access the databases).

  • You don’t have anything else “due” on Friday; just keep thinking about your projects. We’ll start with another brainstorming exercise that will help you refine your topics and identify key terms you can use to search for published sources--we’ll be going into the “stacks” (the physical bookshelves) and the databases both. Ideally, you’ll leave with a couple of books and/or articles already in-hand.

For Monday, Feb. 17:

  • Bring your laptops/devices, so we can set up surveys together.

  • You don’t have anything else “due” today, but you probably want to be working through your library research—try to find at least 2 peer-reviewed articles and 2 books you could use in your project.
    *If you’re having trouble finding appropriate sources, DO take advantage of the “Ask a Librarian” chat on the library home page (https://www.library.virginia.edu/); you can explain your project and ask for help finding things. If you’re still hitting walls after connecting to the librarians, let me know, and I can help you.

For Wednesday, Feb. 19:

  • Read Coursepack 384-391 (“Before You Record an Interview, is it Legal?”); be prepared to discuss boundaries and strategies for interviews.

  • Write in response to Notebook Prompt #9:

    • You’re a little over a week into your research process for whatever it is you’re investigating. Where did you start, where are you now, and where do you think you’ll go next? What’s been going well, and what’s gone “wrong”? Or just not gone at all much yet? Feel free to write out in sentences or just sketch out a comic-style storyboard or a flowchart—whatever works for you. You’re trying to document your process along the way, so you have content to draw on when you write your research narrative essay in a couple of weeks.

  • Work on setting up your surveys.

    • Use Qualtrics (for moderately sensitive data).

    • Include a notification statement as your first “question”; force a single response of “I agree” in order to proceed. (You can refer to the UVA IRB “Study Information Sheet” template for language to include.)

    • Include at least 5 people in your survey sample.

      • For the purposes of our class, you are allowed use a skewed sample (i.e., just send to your friends, etc.), so long as you acknowledge limitations in documenting and interpreting your data. Obviously, collecting broader and more statistically reliable data will give you better content to write about in Unit 3, so make informed choices about your approaches.

    • Don’t “force responses” for sensitive questions; always give responders a way to skip questions.

    • For sensitive questions, always include an “Other” option and “Add Note” to allow for write-in clarifications.

    • Generally:

      • Keep your surveys between 5-10 questions.

      • Prioritize easy-answer questions (multiple choice and sliders are nice options).

      • Include 2-3 short answer questions at the end, to collect quotes for your essays.

    • IF you want to distribute surveys to OUR class, send me a link no later than Sunday, 2/23, by 5 pm; I’ll post these for a “Survey-Palooza” session during class on Monday, 2/24. This will be the only opportunity to use our class as your survey pool, so if you don’t send in, you’ll need to distribute your survey on your own.

    • You may send links for your opinion surveys and/or for surveys you’ll use for your empirical studies. Be sure to anonymize all data (under “Settings”).

For Friday, 2/21:

  • Read the MLA Handbook excerpts in your Coursepack (pp. 352-354); on Friday, I’ll be talking through the MLA slides that are on pp. 355-361. Get a sense of what MLA actually is, whether you’ve sort of used it before or not at all. I strongly advise against using EasyBib and other online builders; you’ll do better if you actually understand what your sources are and cite them yourselves.

  • Bring some of your sources to class, along with your laptops/devices. That way, you can start to build the citations for your sources during class, while putting together the shell of your presentation slides.

For Monday, 2/24:

  • If you’re going to use our class as a survey pool, remember to send me an active link to your survey no later than Sunday, 2/23, by 5 pm. I’ve already received several, and I look forward to seeing more!

    • If you’re having trouble sharing the link, open your survey in Qualtrics, then:

      • First, remember to go to “Survey Options” and check the box next to “Anonymize Response”!

      • Next, go to the “Distributions” tab at the top of the page.

      • Select “Anonymous Link.”

      • Copy/paste that URL into an email and send it my way (hn3dg@virginia.edu).

  • Continue working on your research, in preparation for your 1-on-1 meeting with me next week.

  • Sign up for that 1-on-1 meeting. Link is live HERE.

In-Class Monday, 2/24:

It’s Survey-palooza day. :) Please take ALL of the following surveys to advance the research of your peers. If any of the content makes you uncomfortable, you are allowed to opt out of continuing any given survey. If you don’t finish all surveys during class, PLEASE continue taking them after class, to provide your peers with adequate data in their projects.

*If YOU submitted 1 or 2 surveys, please check the links below prior to taking the surveys, to confirm that yours is present.

  1. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bpSZRLCCOyLnJ2Z

  2. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1QRudDTjllXYwPr

  3. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0O3W7CLKXq47aWF

  4. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8vHOItkhYQY0SON

  5. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_80lWmokHtWLB8mF

  6. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a3RcurFAv0y3sjj

  7. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eOGdYUa1vtvy9lH

  8. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9GGhLENjR3S8Nnf

  9. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8eQEl7DyqOdQSaN

  10. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ehUtluH2ObihCn3

  11. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0v6bTr5H5b2je7j

  12. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0880TNj6sRHw57f

  13. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3qR446bvoSGmGeF

  14. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3EitjVSqw2I8j9H

  15. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6R93pOzueBYjWcd

  16. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6gPEJzaUG3oxWCN

  17. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_enXyfzuFwvkdZD7

  18. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cZkM3r6sge3ecvP

  19. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bI7SIa1TTCFtkmp

  20. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_09rOErYbyUpvxUV

  21. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3wQWpWp5sxwferX  

  22. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eOI42DZ4fFStjqR

  23. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dbqi4F5wKguVCfj

  24. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3pUGWlVm537qNrn

  25. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6ujO7FNvAwQeb9X

  26. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8J5LQvxSREa6trT

  27. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4IM17nphukLMg2V

  28. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_08ommple78mC7k1

  29. https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0fvLqkzBJsQ0nxb

For the rest of this week (2/25-2/28):

  • Complete any surveys you didn’t have time to complete during class time (ASAP, to help your peers; URLs are on the “Past Daily Assignments” page linked below).

  • Notebook Prompt #10: Reflect on your survey (whether conducted in-class or independently). Looking over the data you’ve gathered, what are your initial thoughts?

  • Come to your 1-on-1 conference. Here’s the schedule, for your quick reference.

For Monday, 3/2:

  • Continue working on your research and your Discovery presentations. You will have about 10 minutes to present, and I *will* cut you off at the 10-minute mark for time’s sake, so really think about the highlights of your research that you want to share. 10 minutes isn’t very long—if you’re reading a script, 10 minutes is about 4-5 pages of text, typed and double-spaced.

  • Sign up for a Discovery presentation time here.

  • In class on Monday, I’ll talk more about the Discovery presentation and essay; I’ll “give” my presentation from last semester, so you have a model.
    *I’m posting my original Discovery essay here, because I think it will help you to see it sooner than later as you plan your own essays/presentations. My presentation is mostly reading this essay, so you may feel some redundancy on Monday. For what’s it worth, I originally gave myself a B- (83ish) on this presentation/paper, because I didn’t have my interview in yet when I gave this.

  • If you’re in the noon section, an outside researcher is coming in to give you one more brief survey—this one is an IRB-supervised survey as part of the researcher’s master’s thesis. It will take about 10 minutes, in Qualtrics.

For the rest of this week (3/3-3/6)

  1. Finish your slides and come to your scheduled presentation.
    *For students presenting on Friday, please upload your slides prior to your presentation times—look for the folder with your name on it here.

  2. Submit your completed research narrative essay by midnight on Friday, 3/6, via email.

    • Here’s my (corrected!) Discovery Essay for a reference point.

    • Here are 2 student examples from last semester. One of the students requested to remain anonymous, so I have redacted that individual’s name from their paper.


      *For those of you who use Google docs instead of Word, please do know that you can open Docs, select “File”—>”Open” and then upload any .doc or .docx file. Google will convert for you. You can read Word files without owning Microsoft Word.

For Friday, March 20:

  • Ah, welcome “back,” everyone. One piece of good news for us is that my upcoming conference was canceled, which means we get those 2 days of class back, to make up for the 2 we’re missing this coming week with the big transition. No need to try to figure that math out if it’s not immediately obvious, but you can now see the updated Course Calendar, linked here and under “Course Calendar” on our website’s front page.

  • Read “Yes, Even Professors Can Write Stylishly” (coursepack pp. 416–417); read through Chapters 1 and 2 from Stylish Academic Writing (coursepack pp. 418–428); read through “New Climate Control Units for More Energy-Efficient Electric Vehicles” (coursepack pp. 435–439) and “Their Body Is Different, Our Body Is Different” (coursepack pp. 440–453). Be prepared to discuss in class on Friday—heads up: we’re mostly looking at HOW people write academic prose, so we’re not really parsing what they said so much as looking at options for YOU to consider as you start on your own final papers.

  • We’ll meet at our usual time, on Zoom. I’ll post a link to the “meeting room” prior to class; I will take attendance. We’ll discuss the readings, as well as just take some time to get used to the new normal, and preview the last major paper.
    *If you (or I) have connection issues, don’t panic. First line of defense, from my own higher-ups: “Priority phone support will be given via 924-HELP for faculty and students who are in an online class or attempting to connect to one that is starting soon. If you are in an online class or trying to join one, please use 434-924-HELP.”

    **Worst-case scenario, I’ll end up recording a video for you and posting to a private-to-us YouTube channel and we can discuss in the comment section. We’re taking technology one day at a time while we figure out what’s going to work in the current world. Don’t stress about “getting things right,” whatever that means; just stay as curious and motivated as you can.

  • *I’ll also hold extra office hours in the Zoom meeting room on Thursday, 3/19, so you can practice logging in if you want to. I’ll be online from 11:30-1 EST.

  • As always, please feel free to text if you have questions/concerns. I know things are probably a little surreal right now. I am sincerely sorry to be missing our time together in person, and I am also very grateful for good technology that’s going to allow us to have a productive (if creative) rest of the term.

For Monday, March 23:

  • Read over Major Assignment #3 and come to class ready to take an online quiz (open note, everyone who takes it gets an A), just to make sure we all know what we’re doing. Bring questions if you’re unclear about something or want to try something unusual with your paper.

  • Complete Notebook Prompt #11:

    • I (your professor) am taking the liberty of defining academic writing based on 3 characteristics:

      • Academic writing takes place in a larger academic conversation. (You’re writing with sources and for others; think back to the idea of the Parlor from Week 1 of this class.)

      • Therefore, academic writing is disciplinary—and you the author need to take into account the conventions of your discipline when you’re writing to an audience. (That disciplinarity DOESN’T mean you just have to “fall in line,” especially with bad habits—ahem, passive voice in the sciences, ahem—but that you have to know what people are expecting and deal with those expectations somehow to communicate your ideas.)

      • Academic writing contributes new knowledge in some form—might be truly unprecedented (like Einstein’s work in relatively) or might be bringing together sources that weren’t together before to reveal something (like Carson’s work in Silent Spring).

      With these three points in mind, along with what we discussed in Friday’s class (looking at the rhetoric triangle—p. 392 of your Coursepack; discussing the Helen Sword essays and example articles from the coursepack as assigned)—what do you want to accomplish as an academic writer? Do you have any sense of the voice you want to achieve? Do you want to practice formality, or take a more conversational approach to your style? Why? What trade-offs do you anticipate with these choices in writing your upcoming research papers?

  • Sign up for a workshop date. Here are the schedules:

  • Optional: Attempt to create your first post on our new course blog. Write in a familiar format (like Google Docs) and then try to post the text later, so you don’t lose what you wrote.
    (I have emailed each of you an invitation to contribute to that blog, so you should be able to post easily. IF you find you can’t actually post the text for technical reasons—like WordPress is confusing, etc.—please let me know, and we’ll find a simple solution.)

Links for Class Time on Monday, 3/23:

For Wednesday, 3/25:

  • Draft a working outline of your essay—try to be detailed enough that if classmates had to read it without your being around, they’d understand what you’re planning to do.

  • If you had missing items in your Discovery Essay, go get those and update your slides to send me. (I’ll be grading your essays this week!)

  • Come to class ready to workshop outlines and think toward some early drafting on the essays themselves.

Links for Class on Wednesday, 3/25:

  • Examples for Refining the “Level” of Your Paper—All of these are on the same topic, with different “levels of abstraction” (i.e., accessibility/approachability balanced with granular accuracy/precision):

    • REALLY ACCESSIBLE (limited ability to present detail/sourcing)<—You won’t be writing at this level, but it’s helpful to consider a wide range, so:

    • Accessible (so more public-friendly), but more detailed and including sources:

    • Specialized (so difficult for many in the general public to read, but important for specialists to accomplish precise work)<—These articles involve enough technical detail that most of you won’t have enough content to truly achieve this “level”—NOT because you’re not capable of writing at this level, but because each paragraph in these is dense with data, and you haven’t had enough time to produce similar volumes of content. (Even with how quickly these researchers had to work, they had teams of expert authors with long backgrounds in related work they can draw upon.) This note is not to discourage you from taking on this style—I look forward to working with many of you on formal, professional papers! But as you start writing, just give yourself some understanding and context, and make notes of issues you’re having in the draft, so we can discuss those items during workshop.

For Friday, 3/27:

  • First, draft at least two VERY DIFFERENT introductions to your paper. Try not to fake this—you’re trying to give yourself different directions and options; if you do this exercise well, you may end up using both directions in some form in your final paper. As usual, super drafty is fine.

  • NEXT, write at least two pages of your paper. We’ll work together more on these during class time, but writing a couple of pages will help you get some momentum, identify what challenges you’re having, etc., so you can use the collaborative time well. I’m attaching here:

For Monday, 3/30:

  • It’s our day to practice Whole Class Workshop. So here’s how workshops run:

    • You read the assigned papers for the day. Normally, you’ll have 2 papers/class, but the first week, you may only have 1/class. For Monday, you’re just reading my draft from last semester. Do keep in mind that we’re trying to make all these papers better, so providing specific recommendations is good and appreciated! Be kind in the way you phrase things, but don’t hold back in giving constructive feedback!

    • Part I—Make at least THREE specific comments in the Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12nad_QWeF2jFQDweU5EdLGJkUJz3SxyxBamodT17Yaw/edit?usp=sharing

      *I uploaded from a Word document, so we’ll see how the formatting holds up!

      • If someone else has already commented on a section that you want to respond to, please respond to THEIR comment—agree, disagree, add detail, add alternative suggestions, whatever.

      • (The # of comments is an experiment for this round; last semester, everyone marked up individual hard copies. I’ll see if we need to require additional comments, etc., based on this practice round.)

    • Part II—Fill out this Google Form: https://forms.gle/6UbRTPCY3H4UCE3v9

    • Part III—Come to class ready to discuss, all together.

  • Charan—I’ll watch for your draft sometime before class on Monday, via email. :)

  • Julia, Jared, and Emery—Don’t forget that your drafts will be due next Wednesday, 4/1; you can email them to me any time before class on that day.

For Wednesday, 4/1:

  • Sign up for your Writing Center session!

    • I highly recommend signing up for a session within 1-7 days of your workshop date—synchronous if you need to talk through the feedback with someone live; asynchronous if you’ve revised the draft and want another read-through from an objective person.

    • You create an account and sign up here: https://virginia.mywconline.com/index.php
      *There’s a dropdown menu for the type of tutoring session. “Online Tutoring” means a live/synchronous session; “E-Tutoring” means an asychronous session, where you’ll write exchange drafts but not have to be online at the same time.

  • Consider this Isaacson excerpt and his occasional use of “I.” How does his approach work for you in negotiating voice/authority in his writing?

  • If you’re in the 11:00 EST section, read Charan’s paper. Before Wednesday’s class:

  • If you’re in the noon EST section, just show up with your drafts-in-progress. We’ll likely have some mini-lessons on writing issues and then we’ll have some open working time together.

  • Julia, Jared, and Emery—I’ll watch for your drafts via email before Wednesday’s class.

  • Ginger, Yuhao, Stephen, and Tanner—Don’t forget that your drafts will be due on Friday, via email before class time.

For Friday, 4/3:

For Monday, 4/6:

For Wednesday, 4/8:

For Friday, 4/10:

For Monday, 4/13:

Slides and notes on abstracts:

  • Slides1 (Thanks, Charan!)

  • Slides2 (Thanks, Zhiwen!)

    • +Notes from Zhiwen:

      • Abstracts should include the following elements: 

        o Introductory sentence(s)
        o Statement of hypothesis, thesis, purpose, or question of the study
        o General methods, procedures, sources, or media used
        o Primary results, findings, or arguments For USOAR students, it is appropriate to make a statement about your predicted results or outcomes if you do not have primary results or findings at the time of abstract submission. 
        o Primary conclusion/implication of the work
        o General statement of the significance of the research or creative work

        • An abstract should be accessible to people who are not experts in the field. That is, it should use accessible language and avoid jargon.

For Wednesday, 4/15:

For Friday, 4/17:

For Monday, 4/20:

For Wednesday, 4/22:

Forms questions, in case you were locked out of forms before—
you can email me your responses, and I’ll make sure they get to the authors:

Please respond to the questions below with as much detail as would be helpful to the author in revising their essay. All responses will be sent to the author as typed, so aim to be both clear, specific, and constructive (which is not the same as exclusively positive!).

  1. Upon learning the paper topic and reading the title/thesis, what were you HOPING to get out of this paper?

  2. In response to that initial hope, in what ways were you satisfied by the essay, and where were you left hanging/wanting more or different information?

  3. If you know the author reasonably well, try to take that knowledge out of the picture. Reading the paper with no other context, what is your impression of the author's voice? Examples include but are not limited to: level of formality/conversationality; authoritative (knowledgeable and confident--for better or for worse :) ) v. lacking credibility or coming across as timid); colorful and energetic v. bland and difficult to engage; cool and/or objective v. warm and personally tied to the content/audience. Etc.

  4. What is your FAVORITE thing about this essay? (You might talk about big things, like the author's writing style and voice, or specific things, like a certain paragraph you really loved or an idea that made you keep thinking after you finished reading.)

  5. If the author had to change ONE thing about this paper before submitting the final draft, what should that one thing be? (In general, focus on big things--a claim that isn't proven; an idea that's just not interesting; a place that has potential to be interesting but doesn't "go anywhere" in this draft; etc. Do not nit-pick about grammar! If recurring style issues are distracting, you may note specific patterns.) *

Ah—for the next few weeks, I’ll leave the Workshop schedules here for your quick reference:

For Friday, 4/24:

  • Bring your near-final draft to class in a format you can work on—I’ll go over style items that I’ve found to be most value-added, in the sense that making these relatively simple changes (I’ll present them in order of “urgency”) seem to most improve the quality of the finished draft.

  • Bring any questions you have about final assignments, etc.

  • See you then!

Style Triage slides

ENWR-Appropriate Example Abstract

Abstract again, showing layout in an essay file.

For Monday, 4/27:

  • Come to class. :)

  • Think about what you want to say in your course evaluations (there are two—one for the university that’s a lot about the semester transition, and one for me that’s more class-specific).

  • Bring your essays and any last-minute items you need to clean up before final submission by midnight.

  • Bring any last-day-of-class questions.

  • Feel free to bring food and drink and make an event of things!

Forms to Complete:

  1. “Departmental” Evaluation: https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_39upNBrkOarvUoZ

  2. University Evaluation link: https://virginia.bluera.com/virginia/
    *Or, navigate to your Home site in UVACollab and click on Course Evaluations in the tool menu.

  3. Work Release for Research/Teaching: https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aVnuBZnA9hqsWS9 <—repaired form

  4. Identifying Writing-Intensive Classes: https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_22X6gdf2Ol8IlHD