Insignificant Wranglings

Today’s Plan:

• Syllabus Update
• My Screw Up: Draft One Turn In
• Pressing Questions
• Feedback Exercise (6:25-6:50)
• Discuss Readings on Peer Review (with an eye toward workshopping) (6:50-7:25)
• Time Permitting: My Presentation (kind of a sample paper day paper) (7:25-7:45)
• Break (7:45-8:00)
• Syllabus Review (8:00-9:00)
  • Wednesday, Sept 13
  • Friday, Sept 15
  • Monday, Sept 18
• Readings for next class

My Screw Up

By now you have probably realized that I screwed up when I set up the medium draft turn ins. For the final pieces, it made sense to set the turn-in options to URL only, because we want students to supply us with a link to their medium.com essay. BUT I accidentally set the draft turn-in to URL only too, which has been a gigantic pain in the butt for my class. Let me make sure you know how to adjust this.

Student Concerns

How to report issues with students. Or maybe the UNCO counseling center?

Syllabus Review

We’ve just about hit the time of year when teaching this class gets a lot easier. The proposal is the hardest assignment; the essay drafts are a lot easier for the students to conceptualize, and, if they are reading sufficiently, to draft and revise. Also, our class sessions should fall into a regular rhythm: Monday we lecture, discuss, and do short writing activities in class. Wednesday we work in the computer lab, revising writing or working on focused activities (via Canvas quizzes). Friday we workshop.

Wednesday Sept 13th

Looking at the syllabus, last semester I used Wednesday to answer student questions about the weekly writing reports. WE ARE NOT DOING THOSE! Hallelujah, they are a pain in the ass. But, we are asking students to post on medium.com. I would have them spend time in class on Wednesday transitioning their essay from Word or Google Docs to medium. BUT I WOULDN’T HAVE THEM PUBLISH YET. Give them time to play with the interface:

• Make sure they know how to put in a link
• Look at other medium essays for formatting–the use of images, headings, “pull out quotes” (the + tool)
• Make sure they all know the magic power of “CTRL +Z” (digital natives are unicorns)
• Talk about “tags” and the publish button (when they are ready this weekend. AGAIN STRESS THAT THEY SHOULDN’T PUBLISH UNTIL AFTER THEY REVISE. Some of them will undoubtedly mess this up and publish their articles right there in class as you are warning them not to
• Make sure they know how to find their drafts when they go back to medium

I would venture that this should take the last 20 minutes of class or so. So, how will you spend the first 30 minutes of class? I offer three possibilities.

First, you might do the next lesson, on characters, in the Williams and Bizup book. I hope you have already done the lesson on active verbs that we did last week, if not, get ur done.

Second, you might have a collection of sentences from the draft that are quality targets for class revision. Maybe their are clear passive constructions, a la Williams and Bizup, that could be revised for clarity or impact. Maybe, after the plagiarism presentation, you can pull a few transitions into evidence that need to be bolstered (if you haven’t done my magic sentence thing or my signal thing, this might be a good time). I think Scott’s PowerPoint did a nice job showing them what *not* to do, but I try to spend a lot of class time (as you will see in coming weeks) showing them, again and again and again, what they should do to attribute sources and differentiate their own ideas from those they are reading.

Third, I have a very short activity on Precise Language (below) that I like to show them before the workshop begins on Friday. You could do this on Wednesday, and ask have a few examples from their work ready to go.

Friday Sept 15th

Workshop day. We should talk a bit about workshop strategies tonight, things you have in your bag if the conversation lags. Let’s look at what is in the 594 Workshop space from orientation, and let’s brainstorm other ideas.

I workshopped with my class last Thursday (we only got through one essay), and it went well. Here is the brief preface I offered before that workshop. I think you want to help them provide quality feedback by asking them to look for specific things.

In addition to the major structural issues I outline in that preface, I also put them on the hunt for boring language. I want them to start identifying places where they can use precise words to strengthen, clarify, and energize their writing. I point them towards Roane State’s Writing Center piece. It is really good. Har, har, har. It provides them with one key word to avoid: “good,” and a list of alternatives that help grow more meaning. I try to generate a list of similar words to avoid: bad, things (I’ll see sentences like “this article said three important things”), important (don’t tell me something is important, show me why it is important), very (generally unnecessary), etc.

Finally, I share Diana Urban’s list of 43 words you should cut from your writing, and stress the usefulness of the “find” tool once you figure out which of these are causing you problems.

I can do this pretty quickly, in about 12 minutes or so, leaving me time to workshop all three pieces. Again, if you want to save 15 minutes for each paper, then you can save some of this material for another class.

Monday, Sept 18th

THIS IS MY FAVORITE CLASS. It requires some prep on your part.

Step One: Right after you get the first set of articles, open a new google doc (or whatever). Go through and copy and paste the first sentence of every article into that new document. The set up is complete.

Step two: at the beginning of class, do some of this. Not familiar with Heidegger? Then delete that part. The most important part is the piece by footnoteMaven. Read this with them.

Step three: read the first sentences document you put together. Have them vote (like the title activity last week) on the best. I have them each choose two. Reward those people.

Step four: give them class time to rewrite their first sentences.

Step five: have them read the new version to the class.

Step six: celebrate the fact that, if nothing else, the first sentences to the essays should be a lot more fun next time around.

Thinking ahead to Wednesday the 20th–the syllabus has them revising sentences from the first slew of published essays. That’s fine. I am also going to want us each to dedicate 15 minutes to having them read two essays from other classes. So, we have two things to do next week: 1) put together a master list of who is writing about what (we can do this in the practicum–just make a google doc with links to our medium authors and their first pieces Tuesday night, I’m calling it the medium.com writer’s index) and 2) make sure we are comfortable teaching how to comment in medium. I’m excited for this!

Reading for Next Class

• Murray, “Teach Writing as a Process, Not a Product”
• Olson, “Toward a Post-Process Composition: Abandoning the Rhetoric of Assertion”
• Lynch, “The Cultivation of Naivete”

Today’s plan:

• Attendance
• Writer’s Market Series
• Draft Feedback
• Plagiarism
• Handling Sources, Attributing Ideas
• Workshop Prestyn’s Piece
• Workshop volunteers for Thursday
• Homework for Thursday

Draft Feedback

I’m in the process of providing feedback on your drafts for the first medium essay. Chances are I won’t get to most of your drafts until Thursday. In general, though, I wanted to take a few minutes and explain what my feedback does, and what it doesn’t do. My goal in providing feedback is to address the largest concern I have regarding the draft. I am working from a hierarchy of concerns:

• Has the writer properly attributed ideas from other writers?
• Does the writing have an argument? Is it cohesive beginning to end? Does every paragraph clarify how it relates to or advances that argument?
• Has the writer done enough research? Have they summarized articles with enough detail that I know what I need to (the original author’s purpose, their evidence or method of research, etc)?
• Is the writer missing something big?
• Does the order of paragraphs make sense?
• Do paragraphs end with purpose? Do they begin orienting a reader toward a new idea?
• Has the writer properly coded links? It the article grammatically sound? Are there sentences that are confusing?

I generally spend about 10 minutes with each of your drafts (there’s 20 of you, 10 minutes each means roughly 3 and 1/2 hours a week responding to your writing). I can’t comment on every issue I see with a draft. Rather, I’m checking down the list and trying to supply you with two or three concrete, actionable things you can do to improve a draft. It is your responsibility to read and revise your work carefully–and that ALWAYS MEANS CHANGING MORE THAN I INDICATE.

What is Plagiarism

One of my graduate students put together a PowerPoint. Let’s start there.

How to Avoid Plagiarism?

I want to follow that presentation up by stressing a few ways to avoid plagiarism. I’ve got two general recommendations:

• First, use the sentence I outline below, or something like it, to make it really clear where you found information.
• Second, use author’s names, and make it clear what they are saying. Use “I” to make it very clear when you are extending, responding to, agreeing with, another writer’s ideas

What I hope the walk-away of that presentation is that plagiarism isn’t just a matter of taking someone else’s words without credit, it is also a matter of taking someone else’s thought. And plagiarism isn’t always a matter of giving credit, it is also a matter of acknowledging influence or similarity. That is, ideas are never created out of nothing, as if one writer or thinker owns them in their entirety. However, thinkers have a responsibility to acknowledge what other thinkers and thoughts they have come across while developing and refining their own ideas.

I think this is especially important because of the nature of this class. For the next 8 weeks or so, I won’t expect you to use MLA or APA format to document sources. But I do expect you to make it very clear when you are presenting other people’s ideas (and, as I’ve indicated, I expect about 66%-75% or your writing to be presenting other people’s ideas!). On medium, citation isn’t necessary as strict–but it is no less important. And citation is often driven by two things: attribution (the name of the source, acknowledgement that you have read it) and links (hence why I have put so much emphasis on hyperlinking early in the course). Start paying attention to the articles you read online and you will see these strategies at work. Just because there isn’t a parenthetical doesn’t mean there isn’t ways of acknowledging the material we use.

I want to put particular emphasis on another part of the presentation–the idea of “common knowledge.” This is one of the trickiest parts of acknowledging the influence of ideas. No one needs to cite the fact that the Earth is round. Unless, that is, you are writing a paper on the history of cartography. Then, in fact, it might be necessary to cite a number of sources that helped trace the development of this idea. In his 2004 post “The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus,” David Sterns argues that several different philosophers and scientists discovered the Earth’s roundness at different points in history: the ancient Greeks, then the ancient Romans, and then the council of King Ferdinand’s court who approved Columbus’ journey to the “new world.” As Sterns notes, this council was quite aware of the theories proposed by the Greeks and Romans.

That previous paragraph was meant to show how I expect you to attribute sources this semester. It introduces a source, David Sterns’ post, using what I call the “magic sentence,” so called because it packs a lot of contextual information into very few words.

Avoiding Plagiarism: Providing Contextual Information and Attributing Sources

Essentially, I consider handling sources a 4 part process. There’s the signal, the quote/evidence, the summary, and the analysis. The signal is the part that makes the attribution.

This is essentially the underlying structure for most (academic) argumentative paragraphs: a claim, followed by evidence, and analysis:

• Signal: who, what, where, when. Note that what/where can be a reference to a kind of media [article, book, poem, website, blog post], a genre [sonnet, dialogue, operational manual], or location/event [press conference, reporting from the steps of the White House]. The signal helps create ethos, establishing the credibility of your source, addressing their disposition toward the issue, and positioning them within the context of a particular conversation. 
• Quote/evidence: in-line citations use quotation marks and are generally three lines or less. Block citations do not use quotation marks and are indented from the rest of the text. Generally, quotes present logos of some kind–be it in the form of statistics or argumentation. Of course, quotes can also be used in an attempt to engender pathos, or a strong emotional reaction. 
• Summary: especially for block quotations, you need to reduce a block of text to a single-line. You need to put the quote in your own words. Because language is slippery, and your readers might not read the quote as you do. So, offering a summary after a quote– particularly a long one (which many readers simply do not read)–allows readers an opportunity to see if they are on the same page as you. 
• Analysis: Reaction, counter-argument, point to similar situation, offer further information, use the bridge, “in order to appreciate X’s argument, it helps to know about/explore/etc. This is where the thinking happens. 

Here’s an example; let’s say I was writing a blog on the struggles of newspapers to survive the digital transition, I might want to point to the October 15th, 2009 NYT’s article dealing with the Times Co. decision to hold on to the Boston Globe.

In his recent article, Richard Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has decided to hold onto the Boston Globe, at least for now. Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has been trying to sell the newspaper for the past month, but, since it hasn’t received what it deems a credible offer, it has decided to pull the paper off the market. He writes:

Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University who has closely followed The Globe’s troubles, said it might be better for The Globe to remain with the Times Company than to go to a new owner that might do more cutting or replace top executives. “But the company has its work cut out for it in terms of rebuilding credibility with the employees and the community,” he said.

Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has been involved in bitter labor disputes over the past year, as advertising revenues continue to fall: this move, as Kennedy notes above, could be a solid first move in rebuilding an important relationship with one of America’s oldest, and most significant, newspapers. However, I think we still need to be a bit skeptical here: the fact that no one even proposed a reasonable offer for a newspaper that only 15 years ago commanded 1 billion dollars, the highest price ever for a single newspaper (Perez-Pena), does not bode well for the future of the industry. Like many newspapers, the Globe was slow to adapt to the digitalization of America’s infosphere. Time will tell if recent efforts are too little too late.

If you look above, I first contextualize the quote–not only supplying where/when/who it came from, but also providing some sense of what the whole article discusses. Then I focus attention toward a particular point and supply the quote. After the quote, I first reiterate what the quote said (providing a bit of new information). This is an important step that a lot of writers skip. Always make sure you summarize a quote, so a reader knows precisely what you think it says. Then, in the final part of the paragraph above, I analyze the material. I respond to it. In this particular case, I am somewhat critical of the optimism that underlies Perez-Pena’s piece.

A few other small points:

• Notice the first time I reference an author, I use there first and last name. After that, it is sufficient to only use the last name.
• Notice that I don’t have a citation after the direct quotation: the reason here is that it is obvious where the quote came from thanks to my signal. This is an electronic source, so there is no page number citation, were it a print source I would have to include that. NEVER USE A PAGE NUMBER IN THE SIGNAL TEXT.
• Notice in my analysis that I make a parenthetical to the author–its because I pulled the price of the Globe purchase in 1993 from his article. I don’t directly quote it, so no quotation marks.
• Finally, there’s two kinds of quotations, in-line quotations and block quotations. Each have there own rules for academic papers (the dreaded MLA and APA guidelines). We will deal with those later in the course. In terms of blogging: quotes longer than 4 lines need to be blockquoted. Blogger has a button to help you do this. Blockquotes don’t receive quotation marks.

The First (Best?) Step Toward Avoiding Plagiarism: Crafting Quality Signals

In response to plagiarism, I want to focus a bit on the first part of what I introduce above, crafting a quality signal that introduces a reader to a source (be it a quote or statistical evidence). Here it is:

Shakespeare’s Renaissance tragedy Romeo and Juliet documents the titular characters’ intense love and foolhardy demise. Shakespeare’s play leads us to question both the sincerity of young love. 

I came up with this sentence while prepping high school students to take placement exams, hence the literary material. But the semantics of the sentence make it useful for virtually every kind of writing. I especially want to highlight the importance of the verbs in this sentence, because choosing the proper verb often reveals both our appraisal of the source and our thinking on the questions it raises. 

[Author]’s [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [plot summary]. [Author] [verb] [theme/purpose]. 

Ok, so in reality I have two sentences here. But, when dealing with non-fiction works, they can often be combined into one:

[Author’s] [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [purpose]. 

As I indicated above, it is the verb that is the silent star of the show here. Consider for a minute the following example:

Malcom Gladwell’s 2005 book Blink exposes how subconscious part of our brain think in ways we are not consciously aware. 

Exposes. How does the meaning of the sentence change if I use the verb:

• suggests
• argues
• questions whether
• supposes 
• explicates
• details
• offers a theory of
• explores

Each of these verb choices subtly alters the way I approach the work discussed. Exposes suggests something secret and perhaps mysterious is being uncovered. Suggests suggests that an amount of doubt surrounds the issue. Supposes implies that I am hostile or at least quite skeptical toward the idea. This subtle indicator allows my an opportunity to softly align or distance myself from the source I am using. Good authors do this all the time to subconsciously prepare readers for their arguments. 

Here’s an example from a presentation I am currently working on.

After reviewing the first round of essays, I want to go back and revisit my previous advice for handling a source. As an example, I want to revise a portion of Jess’s essay on gun control. She writes:

“Even gun owners who have never used their guns for self-defense find solace in the fact that the gun is there if needed.” I found this relating to my situation and completely accurate to how I feel about my gun being in my home quoted by Norman Lunger in Big Bang: The Loud Debate over Gun Control.

There are many different scenarios where a child is killed because a gun was left loaded, and not hidden well by an adult and an accident death occurred. But is that really the guns fault for being loaded, is it not the adult’s fault that left it in a non-secure location that was accessible by a child? As mentioned an accident in Big Bang: The Loud Debate Over Gun Control by Norman Lunger “In Florida, two young boys found a shotgun under a bed in their grandparents’ home. A six year old pulled the trigger, and a five year old fell dead.” It seems these things happen too often and how can they be avoided.

Part of what is missing here is that I don’t have an orientation to Lunger–is this a source with which Jess agrees? Or disagrees? Part of my confusion lies from the fact that, while I understand the particular passages, I don’t have any context for them, I don’t understand the purposeful argument of which they form a part.  

Previously, her essay documented her own reasons for wanting a gun: after a terrifying attempted burglary, she wanted a weapon for home protection. She then might use this kind of transition:

Based on my own experiences, I find myself relating to Norman Lunger’s idea that “even gun owners who have never used their guns for self-defense find solace in the fact that the gun is there if needed.” Lunger, in his contemporary [time] examination [genre] Big Bang: The Loud Debate Over Gun Control [verb] [argument/purpose]. 

Without more familiarity with the book, I cannot fill out the rest of the sentence. 

Here’s a second example, from G-Lo’s post on marriage and Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages:

In the book, The 5 Love Languages, by Gary Chapman he makes it clearly evident of common mistakes that men make when trying to show their partner in life how passionately they feel for them. He illustrates our mindset that we think that we, as men, are doing so well in our efforts to please our wives but yet cannot figure out why they aren’t thanking us daily for being so wonderful. That’s because a lot of us have been oh so wrong.

The key to our puzzle is unlocked in this book. “The problem is that we have overlooked one fundamental truth: People speak different love languages,” is a clear statement made by Gary Chapman. What he is saying is that everybody feels love in different ways. This famous and successful marriage counselor describes the five “love languages” as words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.

Here we have a bit more information to work with. What I would like to do here is 1) to make the transition into the quote less wordy and 2) tighten up the summary and response to the quote. So:

Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages makes clear the common mistakes men make when trying to show their love to their partners. […] 

Chapman identifies the key to our puzzle, writing that “the problem is that we [men] have overlooked one fundamental truth: people speak different love languages.” By speaking different languages, Chapman, a famous and successful marriage counselor, means that everybody feels love in different ways. He describes five different ways, or languages, that we must familiarize ourselves with: affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. 

Notice how I am able to describe Chapman in a parenthetical phrase. Notice, too, how detailing the purpose of the work helps us to understand G-Lo’s relation to it. If done properly, I don’t have to use words like “clearly evident” or “clear statement” later. I don’t have to say that I find his writing clear if I show how clear his writing can be. 

An example of a drive by quote:

Most people that smoke know the consequences of smoking and the results of tobacco use. I believe that you should care about this because the mortality rates in Asian countries are increasing and many American tobacco companies are targeting these asian countries instead of promoting decreased use of cigarettes and other tobacco products. “Tobacco use is the most important risk factor for cancer and is responsible for approximately 22% of cancer deaths” “Approximately 70% of deaths from cancer occur in low- and middle-income countries” (world health organization, 2018).

One last example: 

On another note, most universities and businesses try to be as racially fair as possible. If I am going to give credit somewhere, it would be here. America does try to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to hiring or acceptance letters. But their efforts to be unbiased towards race has slowly affected their ability to hire or accept applicants fairly.

For instance, there was a case study done by Duke University involving the application process of certain employers: 

Here there is a transition, but I think we can make that transition stronger:

 A recent case study by John B. McConahay, a social psychologist from Duke University, supports my suspicions toward how “kind racisim” affects hiring and acceptance rates:

Homework

Workshop volunteers x3.

Start revising your medium.com essays, even if I haven’t provided comments yet. Look specifically at how you are handling sources and make sure you are providing enough contextual information in your signal. Also, make sure you are using links that indicate what a source says (i.e., not just linking “Here is an article on Trump’s decision” but “Robert Smith’s article presents reasons why House and Senate Republicans are upset with Trump.” Make your link text meaningful.

Also, as my hierarchy above indicates–look at the first and last sentences of paragraphs. Make sure they open with a claim, and end clarifying how the paragraph supports that claim, and/or how it fits into the ongoing argument.

Today’s Plan:

• Free write and discussion
• Discussing the readings
• Teaching: Williams on Actions
• Syllabus review and maintenance
  • A word about linking up students / classes and medium.com
  • Wed Sept 6th
  • Friday Sept 8th
  • Monday Sept 11th
• Setting Up Teaching Evaluations
• Homework

Continue reading →

Today’s Plan:

• Attendance
• Review Proposals
• Drafting Piece #1
• Volunteers for Workshop on Thursday
• Index Cards
• Homework

Review Proposals

Let’s take a look at those titles:

• Imagine a World about Women
• Feminism: A Modern Definition
• In Community We Trust
• Sex in the Comic Book City
• Sports Community Proposal
• The Petrol Heads: A Look Into The Current Car Community
• She’s a Woman: Proposal Project
• Proposal for Discourse Communities: Feminism
• Education Community Proposal
• Football
• Feminism in Our Everyday Lives
• Entering the community of Feminism
• Comics are weird: a look into the comic book community
• Potential Political Threats on American Education
• Video Games: The Home Video
• Community Conversation Proposal

Thinking about the discussion of periods in the last class:

I began playing soccer at a very young age when I lived in Ghana, West Africa. When I played, many people took this game seriously because in West Africa, soccer is a promoted sport. In America women’s sports isn’t really something that is widely supported unless it’s college level or the olympics, but I refused to make that an excuse for myself. Soccer for both genders is a high interest, unfortunately many people don’t see it in that perspective.

And:

Neymar’s transfer has caused a lot of chaos in the soccer community in the past few weeks. As a member of the soccer community I feel that if I was to be put in the position Neymar was, I would choose the team that is offering me more and is more interested in me and my talent.

A quick hit:

So now the challenge is to give modern feminism a modern definition for a new generation of activist fighting many of the same issues that have plagued our society for generations.

Another quick hit on introductions:

Communities are something we all join and we all have. What community we join dictates what makes us unique and different from each other. There can even be a sense of a community within a community, for example, video games. There are video games that purposely create a place to play with people doing the same mission, quest, or objective.

And

In society everyone has a certain niche or interest in common things like reading or dancing and these interests are called communities. A lot of communities in the world surround big societies like movies,music, sports,politics, comic books and superheroes.A community that I have chosen to be part of is the athletic community.

And

In today’s modern society, there are many groups that focus on activism, and one of the most widespread is feminism. Modern day feminism is very different than what it was in the nineteenth century when Virginia Wolf started the fight. Today feminism is so complex that the definition of modern day feminism is going to mean something different to everyone. Modern day society is much different from our nineteenth century counterpart, our world and our views have evolved with time and societal changes.

And

For my proposal project, I will be justifying the issue of the over sexualizing of female comic book characters, from Wonder Woman’s iron bikini top to Harley Quinn’s skin-tight outfit.

And

Think back to a day when a woman’s main purpose was to stay inside all day, prepare every meal and clean the entire house. As naïve as it sounds, I always thought these days were far behind us.

Let me focus attention on the third part of the proposal project:

The final component of the proposal is your Potential Topics. Here is where you trace out what topics you think your community will be addressing over the next month, so that I get a sense of “proof of concept.” You aren’t in any way wedded to these topics: I have said before, the primary force driving this semester is the idea of community. Communities are always reacting to unpredictable events in real time, and I want your process to be fluid enough that you can switch on the fly. But, at the same time, I want you to do enough research into your community that you have a sense of upcoming events, releases, problems, that your community will likely address.

And here’s how I described this in the email I sent out Thursday:

Third, the final section is where you give me a sense of two articles that you want to write. For some this might be easy–if you are writing about sports, for instance, you can give me a list of 4 recent articles on Colin Kaepernick’s protest, with short descriptions of each, and then some sense of how you plan to respond. If you are writing about politics this might be trickier, since you can’t necessarily plan if something insane will happen that you will want to respond to. But you can still give me an idea like the one above–maybe four articles on Trump’s response to the hurricane, or 4 articles on perceptions of BLM, or four articles on whether Congress will raise the debt ceiling.

Drafting Medium Piece #1

It is time to start writing for medium.com. This week you will draft the first essay, and then revise it next week. The draft is due this Sunday as a word or google doc; you will *not* be posting to medium until next week.

Here’s the description of the assignment from the syllabus:

During weeks 4-13 you will draft, revise, and publish 4 pieces on medium.com. Each piece is expected to be 800 to 1000 words and reference 2-5 (depending on depth) other perspectives on a single issue.

What I really want to stress to them here is that your medium posts are 75% summarizing and comparing what other people have said and 25% arguing for your own position. A stock blueprint:

• First paragraph points the reader to something that just happened or is about to happen
• Second paragraph offers one perspective on it
• Third paragraph compares that perspective to another that basically agrees with it (but maybe points out minor differences)
• Fourth paragraph contrasts those perspectives to a really different perspective
• Fifth paragraph offers and even different perspective, or someone who brings a new question to the issue/event/object/etc
• Sixth paragraph argues which person you think is the most right and why
• Seventh paragraph shows how you would argue against the person you think is the most wrong (might point to another article with some concrete evidence)
• Eighth paragraph concludes without getting all wishy washy and saying “well, that’s my opinion but there’s a lot of opinions, what’s yours?”

I want to take some time and have you nail down what you will write about this week.

Medium Piece Volunteers

Need 2 or 3.

Homework

Read They Say, I Say chapter 3 (42-43). Use one of the templates from pages 46-47 as you draft your first medium piece. You can draft the piece in either Word or Google Docs (preferred, I’ll show you all google docs on Thursday). We will be meeting in the computer lab on Thursday (Ross 1240).

Today’s Plan:

• Open time to discuss the first week (6:00-6:30)
• Discussion of Murray, Fishman et al, Barger, Parrott (6:30-7:15)
• Break (7:15-7:30)
• Plagiarism Workshop [Scott] (7:30-8:00)
• Syllabus review, between now and next week (8:00-9:00)
  • Setting up medium.com accounts
  • Setting up a way for students in other classes to link up (following each other on medium.com)
  • Review rubric for the proposal, peer review
  • Williams and Bizup on active verbs
  • Scheduling peer teaching observations
• Homework

Open Time to Discuss First Week

Successes. Challenges. Needs.

Feedback. (#1 when to italicize, when to quote; #2 Run-on; #3 Beware of “but”; #4 Be fair to opponents; #5 Rock star

Discuss Readings

Forthcoming.

Teaching Presentation: Plagiarism

Scott’s up.

Syllabus Review

Wednesday August 31
Class: In groups of 4, share your summaries of ESSAY. Check in on proposals.
Home: Complete proposal. Bring 2 printed copies of your proposal to class on Friday for workshopping.

So, first thing Wednesday is to have them get into groups of four and share their summaries. Writing summaries is harder than many people think. Because my emphasis for a first year writing class concerns claims and evidence, I use this as a reinforcement opportunity. Here is the prompt I will use for this activity:

• Distribute copies of the summaries.
• Decide which summary you will read first and then read it. Since it is only 4-5 sentences, I will give you two minutes to read it.
• After you have read it, I will give you one minute to plan a comment for the writer. Your comment should be a concise sentence. I want you to tell the author if, after reading the five sentences, you feel you have a clear grasp of the original author’s purpose and the main evidence she provides. If possible,
  provide the author with a concrete idea of what else you would have liked to know.
• I’ll give you four minutes per group to share opinions.

The second part of this class is to check in on proposals. I have no system for this. I just go around the room and ask each student to tell me about their proposal–which of the communities are they interested in, and then follow up with a question that asks about their specific interest in that community and if they have found anything of interest. Alternatively you could dot the activity below.

Possible Computer Lab Activity: Setting up medium.com accounts

As students develop their proposals, we want them to spend some time on medium. Here’s how I plan to do this in the computer lab. This could also be done next week, or transformed into a homework assignment. But, given that some people aren’t comfortable with technology, I prefer to do these kinds of things face-to-face so I can help them through it.

First, I will ask them to go through account creation. I have already advised them to develop a pseudonym and have given them time to do so. I will walk them through account creation step by step, creating a new account on the main screen. While not all of them will follow along, some, especially those less comfortable, will.

Second, I will show them where to set up a profile picture. I will strongly advise against using an actual picture. Most of them know this, not all do.

Third, I will show them how to “clap” an article on medium. Claps are the social currency of medium–its likes or hearts. What is useful for us is that claps show up on someone’s public profile. I will tell my students to “clap” any article that they write about, so I get a sense of what/whether they are reading.

Fourth, I will give them time in the lab to search through medium and follow two writers whose work meets the quality standards outlined below.

Fifth, and perhaps most important, after they have created an account I will ask that they follow me so that I can follow them back. [Let’s check this in class tonight]

The quality of writing on medium varies pretty significantly, so it might be a good idea to present them with a rubric for determining the quality of a source. Let’s look at a few resources:

• Georgetown University Library
• Purdue OWL (look at print vs internet too)
• Keely Wilczek’s Research Strategy Guide for Journalists (scroll to 5 W and 1 H)

My version:

• when was it written
• how fairly does it frame opponents
• how thoroughly does it consider counter arguments
• how well are its links composed
• how credible is the evidence it provides (and what kind of evidence)

Friday September 2

Class: “Workshop Proposals” Class notes.
Home: Revise proposals and submit to Canvas by 10:00am on Monday.

Here’s what I shared with students last year to set up workshopping:

Workshopping

We’ll spend a lot of time in class this semester reading each other’s writing and providing feedback. This kind of workshopping not only provides the author with a sense of how people are receiving her writing, but also helps readers develop a better sense of what does and doesn’t work.

Usually, you will have an opportunity to read the works we are workshopping before class. Today, however, we’ll be reading and commenting in class. Our guide today will be the grading rubric for the first project. Remember that I will be grading on:

• Sufficient Research: [51%] while I can’t put an exact number here, I’ll be looking to see that you have done your homework, so to speak, and that your paper reflects reading and research into the topic by explicating the names, sites, terms, activities, etc central to your topic. This should include numerous citations (both quotations and/or paraphrases).
• Arrangement: [13%] Following below, I’ll be looking to see that your proposal reads like a proposal and follows the genre conventions we identify in class
• Edited Prose: [13%] I expect that you will have carefully edited your prose for correctness and clarity. Also, since we are dealing with digital documents, I will be checking that links are properly hyperlinked.
• MLA or APA format: [13%] I will be checking three things here. First, I will be looking to see that your proposal is formatted according to MLA or APA guidelines. Second, I will be paying attention to how you format subject headings. Third, I will be paying particular attention to how you use direct quotes and/or paraphrases (checking the parenthetical, quotation marks, commas, etc).

But, beyond the grading rubric, I want you to highlight sentences that are clear, informative, or engaging. Let the author know what is working. At the same time, I want you to highlight places where you might be a bit confused, where you need one more sentence to explain something, where you encounter a name that isn’t given an identity, where you encounter a claim that isn’t given evidence, where you encounter a term or acronym that is unfamiliar and left unexplained.

I want to make it clear that peer review is more about revision (developing an idea in a logical, coherent way that makes sense to a reader) than it is about editing (grammatical correctness and style). We must build the table before we polish it.

So, technically, this week isn’t a workshop, since they are bringing copies of their proposal to class for small group peer review. But I still want to develop productive habits of looking at each other’s work.

We haven’t gone over MLA or APA guidelines. My approach here is to test what they already know, to get a sense of how much time I need to dedicate to formatting and citations later in the semester.

For next session, readings on responding to student writing:

• Williams, “Phenomenology of Error”
• Moxley, “Responding to Student Writing”
• Daiker, “Learning to Praise”
• Leahy, “Rubrics Save Time and Make Grading Criteria Better” Bad Ideas

Next teaching presentation sign up: due

Grade proposals and Google Doc feedback contributions.

If you haven’t already, then set up an account on medium.com.

Today’s Plan:

• They Say, I Say review
• Talk about Discourse Communities
• Share Communities List
• Share Proposal Project
• Research and post to Canvas
• Index cards
• Homework

Identifying a Community

As I mentioned in our first class and throughout our discussion of the syllabus, you will spend this semester writing in a particular community. Let me emphasize that I say writing in a particular community and not writing about a particular topic.
A topic is a generic matter. You can write about topics to a generic audience. For instance, you could write your standard argumentative paper about immunizations, the death penalty, abortion, etc. But this kind of writing isn’t really aimed at a particular audience or group. It just sort of exists as something for you to hand to me. This is precisely the kind of writing I don’t want you to do.

Research shows that writers develop best when they are writing to a specific group of people about something they all care about. This means we need to find (a) space(s) in which people write, comment, share, reflect, and most importantly *theorize* your interests. By theorize, I mean that people aren’t just reporting news about your topic/activity/interest, but analyzing, debating, critiquing, exchanging, the best elements of your community, the best ways to appreciate your community. We aren’t looking for flame wars, but we are looking for informed and constructive disagreement (whether that concerns the best way to tank Susano Extreme, the emotional depth of Jar Jar Binks, the likelihood that Trump raises the debt ceiling, the chances Cam Newton becomes a tier one quarterback, or whether Jon Snow will ride a dragon). We will talk about this more as you develop your projects, but at minimum I am not interested in projects that report *what* happened, or perhaps even *why* it happened, but rather measure the significance or what happened, projects what might happen next, and explain how to make that happen.

Your writing this semester should be responsive. That is: some event happens that people in your community care about. They you read 3-4 pieces by people in the community that share different opinions or perspectives. Then you write a piece that compares and contrasts those perspectives, while situating yourself amongst them and, hopefully, offering new insight. So while each individual assignment might be about a topic (a particular event that just occurred or is about to occur), your writing is primarily directed toward a community. The challenge is in making sure you are reading material that will stimulate good writing. That’s a main reason why the proposal project, outlined below, focuses in on finding writers worth following.

But before we get to the details of the proposal, let’s take a look at the communities we have developed.

The Proposal Assignment

Vitals:

• Length 700 to 1000 words
• MLA or APA format with Works Cited / References list and citations where appropriate
  Submitted to canvas
• Due Sunday, Sept 3 at 11:59pm, Proposal Project

Note that it is strongly encouraged that you visit office hours to discuss your project with me before submission. Office Location & Hours: 1180D Wednesday 1:00-2:00. Thursday 1:00-2:00. Also by appointment.

Let’s take a look at the short project description:

In the proposal project you will articulate to me which discourse community you will join. Medium.com facilitates this process during account creation, since it offers you a variety of topics you might be interested in reading about. In addition to these recommendations, my fellow instructors and I have developed reading lists for various topics. You will begin by selecting one of these topics and identifying which authors or outlets you will pay attention to. You will also identify active places on the Internet at which people are writing and commenting and identifying a few of the major personalities that drive this community, beyond those we supply. I am interested in learning what you can add to this community, and how you see yourself fitting in. We will discuss this project more during the first week of class.

The proposal project is meant as an exercise in invention, in generating ideas that you can execute in the coming weeks. Writing on deadline every week can be more difficult than it might seem; this stage of the semester is meant to help you develop a wealth of materials that you can revisit in future weeks.

Grading Rubric:

• Sufficient Research: [51%] while I can’t put an exact number here, I’ll be looking to see that you have done your homework, so to speak, and that your paper reflects reading and research into the topic by explicating the names, sites, terms, activities, etc central to your topic. This should include numerous citations (both quotations and/or paraphrases).
• Arrangement: [13%] Following below, I’ll be looking to see that your proposal reads like a proposal and follows the genre conventions we identify in class
• Edited Prose: [13%] I expect that you will have carefully edited your prose for correctness and clarity. Also, since we are dealing with digital documents, I will be checking that links are properly hyperlinked.
• MLA or APA format: [13%] I will be checking three things here. First, I will be looking to see that your proposal is formatted according to MLA or APA guidelines. Second, I will be paying attention to how you format subject headings. Third, I will be paying particular attention to how you use direct quotes and/or paraphrases (checking the parenthetical, quotation marks, commas, etc).

Genre and/as Proposal

First, let’s talk about the term genre. Then we’ll talk about some of the fundamental parts of any proposal. Finally, I want to flesh out what my specific expectations are for the arrangement of this proposal.

I would like your proposal to have 3 sections:

• Project Description
• Preliminary Research
• Potential Topics for the First Two Weeks

The first section should be a Project Description. In a few paragraphs, this section should give me an idea of what you want to write about this semester: what community will you join? What is your background in the topic: are you a novice just joining the conversation or have you been invested in this for years? Is that investment casual, or is it more rigorous? Why do you think this community is important and worth doing right now?

The second section should be Preliminary Research. This section should give me concrete specifics about the community. Who are the people currently writing about this topic? Who does your community consider experts? Whose writing would you want to emulate (who is really good at this?) Point to a few specific articles from the links we have provided that looked good to you. Point to a few sites that are currently publishing that you might also draw upon. Make it clear what places you will be reading for ideas. I’m not looking for a mere bulleted list here, but rather a section that flushes out some of the key nodes in the discursive community you are engaging.

Given that you will be publishing on medium.com, I will expect your paper to detail a few of the writers there who are doing good work. We’ll talk more about this in future classes as we get to know medium.com.

The final component of the proposal is your Potential Topics. Here is where you trace out what topics you think your community will be addressing over the next month, so that I get a sense of “proof of concept.” You aren’t in any way wedded to these topics: I have said before, the primary force driving this semester is the idea of community. Communities are always reacting to unpredictable events in real time, and I want your process to be fluid enough that you can switch on the fly. But, at the same time, I want you to do enough research into your community that you have a sense of upcoming events, releases, problems, that your community will likely address.

I have developed a proposal template that you can use to begin the project. Note that it is not in MLA or APA format. This is meant as a heuristic, a process for discovering, improving, and organizing an idea.

Again, let me stress that you have freedom to design a project that interests you. My central concerns are that 1) you read things every week and 2) you develop the ability to summarize, synthesize, and react to those readings productively. I know this happens more if you are interested and engaged in what you are writing about. Don’t develop a topic because you think I will like it. Develop a topic because you think you will like it.

Homework

Community research assignment. To get us started on the path to the proposal, the homework asks you to begin thinking about and researching a potential topic. I want you to write a two paragraph (or more) post for Canvas. In the first paragraph, give us some general sense of what community you want to join, your background with the community, your motivations, etc. In the second paragraph, compare two recent articles on a topic the community is currently discussing. They can be in agreement or disagreement. The test here is to measure how well you can summarize an article (or two) and put them in conversation. Can the rest of us, who aren’t in the community, understand the debate?

BE SURE TO EMBED LINKS TO ARTICLES. Get used to writing in a hyper environment. You can find quick instructions for hyperlinking in Canvas here.

Next class in ROSS 1240 computer lab.