Today’s plan:
- Review Timeline and Expectations
- Using Quotations
- Homework
Reviewing Timeline and Expectations
Last class, I got a number of questions regarding the blogging component for the research paper. I’ve asked you to read 75 pages a week. I would like you to write one blog post a week while conducting this research. Since my main objective is to get you reading, thinking, and writing weeks before the final due date, I will be checking the date of these posts. In total, I will ask you to write 5 blog posts over 3 weeks (weeks 12, 13, 14). I have added a grade for these posts to Canvas.
A reminder of dates:
- Thursday, April 14thL MLA / APA Workshop (have a minimum of 5 pages of your paper)
- Tuesday, April 19th: A working draft of the paper (minimum 8 pages, including an introduction and thesis, in MLA or APA format)
- Tuesday, April 26th: A complete draft of the paper (I will comment on these over the weekend; note that if you have this prepared before the 26th, then you are free to send it to me. Given the time investment, I will comment on a complete draft only once, however.).
- Thursday, May 5th: Final due date
Direct Quotation
I’ve got a “go to” workshop to begin a discussion of direct quotation. We will spend some time in class today working on crafting what I call signals. Finally, we will turn to Graff and Birkenstein’s They Say, I Say to talk about how to craft/transition into analysis.
To get us started, I thought we could all read Ben Casselman’s short piece “Shut Up about Harvard” over at fivethirtyeight.com.
I will ask you to use my heuristic for direct quotation above to write a paragraph summarizing and responding to Casselman’s piece. Your response should include one block quotation (a quotation that takes up more than 3 lines in your paper). You should use one of Graff and Birkenstein’s templates either as a topic sentence to the paragraph (and)/or to shift into analysis.
Homework
Continue reading, blogging, and planning your essay. In Tuesday’s class, we will talk about how to outline an essay.
