Example Data Sheets

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wtFqAdeVDpFB6-Un6a3uZA6yGEOmhqPnOLuLf0RUnZw/edit?hl=en_US

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LhEdfvSMNl76jckOUPyheqcLnjF1sfSzI29MyRA0AgU/edit?hl=en_US

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z2i3A0CRM_6t74NvN9xX8PiR4150BArsjJFpl6BwfSo/edit?hl=en_US

Pre-Writing Assignment for Unit 2

Hopefully all of you have had time to think about what behavior you will modify for your Unit 2 Project. Begin by sharing your behavior with your group members; let them know why you're choosing to change this behavior and why you think it will be appropriate for the assignment. (Note: you may want to look over the Unit 2 assignment sequence to make sure you've chosen a behavior that will work for this study.) Once everyone has talked about his or her behavior, create chart in a new Google Doc titled "[your name]'s Unit 2 Pre-Writing." After you create the Google Doc, click on "Table" and then "Create Table" and make a table containing 3 columns and 1 row.

In column 1, spend at least two minutes listing everything you think you know about your behavior. These things don't have to be verifiable scientific fact; for instance, if you're trying to drink more water, you might write down that being properly hydrated gives you more energy, even though you'd probably want to do research to verify this fact. In listing everything you know about your behavior, you want to consider what kinds of things trigger your behavior, what happens after you do your behavior, how it makes the people around you feel, etc. There are no boundaries here… just get as much down on the page as you can.

In column 2, spend at least five minutes listing everything you are wondering about your behavior. This is the place for unanswered questions: you might question some of the things you assumed in the first column, you might wonder about previous research into your behavior, you might think about the consequences of changing your behavior… you chose to modify this particular behavior for a reason, so hopefully you are curious about many different aspects of it.

In column 3, spend at lest five minutes write down (as specifically as possible) how you will find out the answers to the questions you are curious about in column 2. Do you expect that some of your questions will be answered in previous research? How will you find this research (i.e. in popular sources, scholarly sources, etc.)? Will you be able to answer some of the questions with your own study? If so, how will you design your experiment so that it gives you a definitive answer to your question?

If you finish before the end of class you can begin research for your Feeder 2.1 assignment. If any new items for your 3 columns occur to you during your research, please return to this assignment.

Unit 1 Self-Assessment

Take a moment to look back at the earliest drafts of your Feeder 1.1 and 1.2 assignments. Think about how you have grown as a writer over the past 8 weeks. Next, answer each of the following questions with a short paragraph of 3-4 sentences.

1. Which class lessons have had the most impact on your writing? Which ones have had the least? Why?

2. Have you found the draft workshops helpful? Why or why not? Do you have any suggestions about how the peer review process can be more efficient or productive?

3. Do you feel like the in-class assignments and draft workshops helped to move your writing through the conceptual, organizational, and surface-level stages? Did you get stuck at any one of these stages during any of the assignments? If so, explain why.

4. Do you think any of the concepts or lessons covered in the course so far need additional clarification? How will this clarification help?

When you're done please email your responses to me. Please place your responses in the body of the message rather than as an attachment.

Editing: The Paramedic Method

1. Circle the prepositions (of, in, about, for, onto, into)

2. Draw a box around the "is" verb forms

3. Ask, "Where's the action?"

4. Change the "action" into a simple verb

5. Move the doer into the subject (Who's kicking whom?)

6. Eliminate any unnecessary slow wind-ups

7. Eliminate any redundancies.

Sample draft: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Suz0bWWwnJyP5MSnHc0QJVQxf2EzeTyOMzBsH26aN10/edit

Unit 1 Project Workshop: Style

Name:
2/23/12

1. All of your drafts are probably aiming for a middle style. Go through your partner's draft and highlight any words, sentences, or passages in which you think the essay deviates from a middle style (either by being too formal or too informal). If you have time, suggest ways in which the author might revise these sections in order to achieve a more appropriate tone for the assignment.

2. Since writing in the middle style is targeted at a fairly wide audience, unfamiliar terms and concepts need to be defined. Examine the essay and point out any terms that aren't defined that probably should be. For the terms that are defined, are these definitions clear and concise? Does the reader understand everything s/he needs to in order to understand the author's point?

3. Another aspect of the middle style is that it employs concrete nouns (rather than abstract nouns) and action verbs (rather than "to be" verbs). In general, does this essay feel concrete (that is, grounded in things you can see and touch) or abstract (that is, in the world of ideas) to you? Do you think the essay's level of abstraction is appropriate given the audience and the topic? Point out any specific passages in which you think the paper gets too abstract. If you have trouble locating these passages, try searching for "to be" verbs; they often cluster around these types of passages.

4. Did you notice any examples of contentious terms or insensitive language in the draft? If so, point them out and suggest how the writer might replace this with more sensitive language.

Draft Workshop: Unit 1 Project

Begin by trading drafts with someone who did NOT read your draft last period. For your partner’s draft, write at least one substantial paragraph explaining whether you think the author’s priority, at this point in the composition process, should be conceptual concerns, organizational concerns, or surface-level concerns. Support your claim with evidence from the author’s draft, and point toward specific revisions that the author needs to make before moving on to the next level of concerns.

If you identified significant conceptual concerns with the draft, work together with the author to revise his or her thesis statement to begin moving toward a stronger conceptual foundation. You may want to call me over for help with these revisions.

If you did not identify significant conceptual concerns, complete the following organizational assessment:

Name:
2/21/12

1. In what order does the author present his or her supporting evidence (e.g. chronological, process order, cause-and-effect, etc.)? Is this the most appropriate order given the audience's level of understanding? Suggest at least one alternative way in which the essay might be organized.

2. Is there a sense of balance to my essay? Do I spend too long on any single point, or do I seem to rush through important parts? Does any section feel either redundant or underdeveloped?

3. Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence? Does each topic sentence relate clearly back to the thesis? Does each paragraph deal with one idea and one idea only? Point out any points in the essay at which the paragraphing seems weak or confusing.

4. Does the essay have transitions that move the reader clearly from idea to the next? Does the writer make the relationship between the ideas clear with words that emphasize the essay's organization scheme (e.g. time-related words of the essay is organized chronologically, etc.)?

5. Does each paragraph fully explain its main idea? Do any paragraphs feel thin or under-developed? Point them out.

Draft Workshop: Unit 1 Project

1. Does the thesis statement accomplish all three things that, according to our lessons, a thesis statement should accomplish? Briefly summarize how the thesis statement makes a substantial claim about the essay's topic, lays out a roadmap for the rest of the essay and explains why the audience should care about the topic.

2. What kinds of evidence does the author cite in support of his or her claim? Is this evidence compelling? Is it enough to make you believe the claim put forth in the thesis statement? Why or why not?

3. What kinds of appeals does the author make to his or her audience (e.g. logical, emotional, ethical)? Are these appeals appropriate or convincing for the blog / essay's audience? Why or why not? Could the author effectively employ any other types of appeals?

4. Briefly describe the general tone of the essay. Does the author's tone come off as credible given the topic and the paper's audience? Has the author established a solid, reliable persona? Explain your answer.

Activity: Paragraphing

Read the following model Unit 1 Project draft:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18VsBIVHV_kcllVGg6w-unfA8QBVfciHL08tcZ4UYWrg/edit

Along with your group, begin by determining the essay’s thesis statement.

Next, we will examine individual paragraphs. Focus your attention as follows:

Group 1: Paragraphs 2-4 (beginning “before we can ask” and ending “change in carbon emissions”)

Group 2: Paragraphs 4-6 (beginning “Unfortunately, national and international policies” and ending “to cut down on their carbon emissions”)

Group 3: Paragraphs 7-9 (beginning “While Patenaude offers” and ending “attempts to reduce carbon emissions”)

Group 4: Paragraphs 10-12 (beginning “the truth is that while a business…” and ending “that would make cutting emissions more affordable”

Create a new Google Doc and name it “Paragraphing Activity.” Each group should have 1 Google Doc. For each of your assigned paragraphs, assess its:

• relationship to the thesis 
• unity 
• coherence 
• adequate development of the paragraph’s main idea 

In addition to assessing these individually, explain briefly how each paragraph might be improved. You can be as brief as possible, but more complex problems might require a bit more explanation.

Research for Unit 1 Project

Within your groups, form yourselves into smaller groups of two or three. Begin by summarizing for your group members what you did in the class's previous activity. Try to be brief (1 or 2 minutes at most), but do your best to get across the gist of the author's argument, the main evidence s/he relies on, and where you think your research might take you from here. Let each person explain his or her work before you move on to the next step.

1. Based on your reading so far, come up with a list of three key words or concepts that are central to your project. Write these three words in the middle of a sheet of paper and circle each one.

2. Working with your partner, for each term create a web around it by identifying as many related topics, concerns, or ideas as you can. Try to do this quickly and constantly… your pen should always be moving.

3. Once you have completed the initial brainstorming session for each member of your group, work on "deepening" your web by performing some preliminary research on the ideas that you brainstormed. For instance, if you are researching how the proposed highway through the Serengeti desert will affect the wildebeest, you might read more about wildebeests and their habitat or you might look for information about existing desert highways and their environmental impacts. As you skim these sources add new terms and concepts to your web to make it comprehensive. If you find a source that it might be helpful to return to later, be sure to bookmark it or make a note of how to find it again.

4. Hopefully by now you have an extremely messy sheet of paper in front of you. Working with your partner(s), compose a list of topics or ideas from your web that you want to research further. Order this list by priority, beginning with the ideas you think are most promising. At this point feel free to discard ideas that you're relatively sure are dead ends.

Begin by composing a retrospective outline of your article from Nature. Follow the procedures we talked about in class last week, beginning by identifying the author's thesis statement or central claim and identifying the central claim or idea in each paragraph. Put your reverse outline on Google Docs, share it with me and your group members, and in the same document complete the following tasks:

1. Describe, in a few words, the article's organizational scheme. Is there an order or a logic to the way the article unfolds? Why do you think the author chose to present the information in the order s/he did?

2. Identify at least three or four SPECIFIC places in which the author makes an appeal to his or her audience. For each appeal, note whether the author relies on ethos, pathos, or logos, and briefly explain why this appeal would be convincing for Nature's audience.

3. Note any places in which the author addresses a counter-argument to his or her thesis. Summarize both the counter-argument and how your author responds to it. Does this counter-argument prompt your author to limit his or her claim in any way? If so, how?

4. In order to write authoritatively about the subject you have chosen you will probably have to do more research on the topic. Jot down some notes about where you think this research might take you. Are there any specific references in the article that you should track down? Will you be looking for scholarly sources or popular ones? What kinds of search terms might you use? How will the research you find help to shape your argument and make it convincing?

5. Finally (and this is a tough one!) ask yourself, "what is missing from the article?" Are their any ideas, opinions, arguments, or references that seem to be missing, left out, avoided, or not addressed? Is there any aspect of the topic that the author just doesn't want to deal with, at least not in depth? Speculate as to why the author made these omissions, and how exploring these areas might be useful to you as you develop your own counter-arguments.

Activity on Appeals

Read the following article from slate.com:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/09/the_privilege_of_prejudice.html

This article contains appeals of all three types: ethos, pathos, and logos. Work in your groups to identity at least one of each type of appeal in the article. Which of these appeals is most persuasive to you? Why do you think that is the case? In which order does the author present these appeals? Why do you think he chose that order?

Answer these questions in a new Google Doc titled "Appeals Activity." Each group should create only one document.

Draft Workshop: Feeder 1.2

Begin by composing a retrospective outline of your partner's paper, using the outline we composed of the Huckleberry Finn paper as a model. Once you have completed the outline, examine it for coherence, repetition, orderly logic and transitions, and whether it fulfills the demands of the prompt. Suggest any changes that you believe would improve the paper's sense of organization.

After you're finished, answer the following questions at the bottom of the draft:

Name:

1. Briefly describe the current draft's organizing principle. Could the information be organized in another way? Suggest a different organizing principle that would change the draft radically while still making sense, and revise the thesis statement to reflect this new organizing principle.

2. The prompt asks you to make the argument that the information summarized is relevant or interesting to your blog's audience. How does the author do this? Is the strategy effective? Suggest another way in which the author might have related the information summarized to his or her audience.

3. Describe the draft's introduction, concentrating on the first sentence. How does the author attempt to "hook" the reader? Does s/he begin by telling the reader something she doesn't know? If not, scan the body of the draft and/or the original article for an interesting fact that the author could place at the beginning of the essay.

Draft Workshop Feeder 1.2

Name:

1. We just finished talking about several different types of effective and ineffective introductions. What type of introduction does the current draft have? Is it one of the effective or ineffective introductions? Explain how you determined which category the introduction fits into.

2. How does the author answer the "so what?" question? In other words, why does the author's argument matter to his or her readers? At what point in the draft does the author establish this answer to the "so what?" question? Could it come earlier? Explain your answer.

Posting Feeder 1.1

Work together in your groups to post your Feeder 1.1 assignments to your blog. At this point your group may need to finalize some aesthetic choices such as font size and style, how you will include images and other multimedia content in your posts, etc. If you run into technical problems, work within your groups to resolve the issue.

After everyone has posted their assignment, partner with another person in your group and proofread one another’s posts. Check both for formatting errors and for errors in spelling, grammar, etc.

Thesis Statement Workshop: Feeder 1.1

Name: 

Identify your partner's thesis statement. Copy and paste it into the bottom of the Google Doc and then answer the following questions about the thesis statement. Please be as clear and as detailed as possible:

• Does the thesis statement answer the question posed by the assignment? 
• Has the author taken a position others might challenge or oppose? 
• Is the statement specific enough? 
• Does the statement pass the “so what?” test? Are you telling your audience something they don’t already know? 
• Does the thesis pass the “how and why” test? 

Once your partner finishes reviewing your thesis statement, work together to revise both of your thesis statements. Once you have finished revising both of your thesis statements, answer the following question about your own draft. Type your answer at the bottom of the document.

We have noted several times that the thesis statement provides a roadmap for the rest of your essay. Thus, revising your thesis statement often entails revising the rest of your essay as well. Think about the model Feeder 1.1 essay we looked at; how would the body of that author's essay change in light of the revisions we made to his thesis statement? As you revised your own thesis statement, did your roadmap change? If so, explain in 3 or 4 sentences how you will need to revise your essay in order to make it consistent with your new thesis statement.

Practice: Finding a Source for Feeder 1.2

Read the Feeder 1.2 assignment. Go to the library’s web site and try to find an article you might want to write your Feeder 1.2 assignment about. Once everyone in your group has found an article, exchange with one another. Determine whether your groupmate's article is a scholarly, professional, or popular source. Discuss your answer with the person who found the article.