Friday! Almost done with paper #2!!!; grading rubric for Monday

We are almost finished with Paper #2: Rhetorical Analysis! I'm looking forward to reading these papers; I anticipate that there will be much improvement since the first paper, and you should be proud of your hard work to improve your writing skills. If you need an extension, remember to request one via email at least 24 hours before the paper is due (Sunday night at 11:59PM in the d2l dropbox). 

Today we edited each other's papers for clarity, applying the rules that each of you studied. We discussed how it went and concluded that it would be better next time to have fewer editing groups and more time with each paper. Duly noted!! :)

For Monday:
Over the weekend, look at the grading rubric for this assignment in Google Docs and suggest improvements. Are there items missing? Could any item be made more clear? What percentage should each section contribute toward the total? We will go over the suggestions as a class Monday and finalize the rubric. 

On Monday, we will also preview the third project: Making a Public Argument. This is going to be fun!!!

Paper of the week: Laura Shoemake

With Laura's permission, I am featuring her draft of paper #2. While any paper can be improved, Laura's paper is a strong example of a rhetorical analysis of HONY. If you follow the link, you can make suggestions, and I have made some notes about things I think this draft does particularly well and some suggestions I made (these were all discussed in conference with Laura).

The draft's strengths: Laura makes insightful points about the text in well-formed, fluid prose.  Pay attention to her fourth paragraph and her use of determiner pronouns ("this, each") and transitional phrases ("furthermore, similarly, in contrast") to connect her thoughts. The points she makes in each paragraph are clearly stated and supported with appropriate examples from the text, although she could perhaps go into more detail at times, and they need citations. The draft could be improved by indicating the audience more specifically, especially in the thesis statement, and by making sure the topic sentences of each paragraph refer to the thesis in some way. In conference we noted that often the explanatory sentences at the end of each paragraph do this, and might make strong topic sentences.

For Friday: Study Rules for Writers section on Clarity

 FOR FRIDAY:

1. Review Rules for Writers section on Clarity (pp. 112-178)
2. ==>Sign up for one topic in the section on Clarity and study it closely. There should be one other classmate who also signed up for the same topic if you want to study together. Make sure you work through the exercises in your section so you learn how to apply the rules to actual writing. Be prepared to act as an editing expert for that section on Friday. 
3. Bring Rules for Writers to class. 
4. Bring a printed copy of your latest draft to class. 

Blog Post 28: Seek feedback about your paper

Blog Post 28 - (By Friday) - 

1. Post a link to the Google Document that contains your paper. Make sure to set the permission so that others at the UA with the link can comment.  
2. Give helpful criticism on two classmates' Google documents (NOT classmates in your editing/feedback group). Post a link to those papers. 
3. Seek feedback from some outside source you have not yet consulted: a roommate, a friend, a parent, or go to a walk-in session at Think Tank.
4. Write about who you consulted, what feedback you got, and how you intend to implement the feedback in your paper. 
5. Consider focusing the feedback you get by asking one of these questions: 

• What's the one most important thing I could do to improve this paper?
• How can I structure my argument more effectively?
• Can you think of any points I'm missing in my argument?
• Which paragraph needs the most work, and how can I improve it? 
• What is one thing I could do to improve my prose? (clarity, conciseness, grammar)