Blog Posts, Homework, and Reading Assignments

On your blogs, I would like you to work on narrowing down one of your broad topics into a tentative thesis statement. Based on the example I provided in class, I want you to ask several questions regarding your topic, posting the answers in a blog post. Some examples include:

• Who's involved with my topic?
• What's involved with my topic?
• What do I already know about my topic?
• What do I want to know about my topic? (may require exploratory research)
• Are there any other broad topics linked to mine?

Once you've narrowed your topic into a tentative thesis statement, email what you have come up with in preparation for our Thesis Statement Workshop next Thursday.  Remember to reference the Thesis Statement PowerPoint, posted  to D2L for guidelines.

In addition to emailing me your tentative thesis statement, you will need to read the essay, "Offensive Play," by Malcolm Gladwell (posted on D2L) and be prepared to discuss it in class next week.  I have also posted to D2L an essay titled, "Writing an Academic Argument."  Please read this piece as well.  If you have any questions about this essay and the assignment in general, feel free to ask them in class so that everyone can benefit from the answer.

Homework for March 29th

I have not received all of the dropbox submissions for the Personal Narrative Final drafts.  If you have yet to turn in your final draft or submit a copy to the dropbox, please do so as soon as possible to ensure you don't lose additional points.  Also, make sure to post a reflection (What grade do you feel you deserve on this paper, and why?) to your blog, if you have not done so already.

Your homework for next week (due Thursday, March 29th) is to write a response to the Good Thunder Reading we attended.  There's is an assignment sheet posted to the Content section of D2L; please reference it for specific response questions.  If you were unable to attend, please email me and I will send you links to the writers' works.  You will need to respond to the same questions on the assignment sheet, focusing on at least one poem found at the links provided.

Also, please read pages 84-95 in your Rules for Writers handbook.  You will need to generate a list of possible research topics on your blogs for next week.  We'll be working on ways to narrow down those topics into focused theses for your final paper.  If you have any questions regarding these assignments, please feel free to email me.

Homework for March 22nd

The final draft of your Personal Narrative is due at the beginning of class on Thursday, March 22nd--a printed copy and a dropbox copy.  The assignment sheet, with the guidelines and a grading rubric, is available under the Content section of D2L.

I will be providing you all with audio feedback for the rough drafts you submitted for class on the 15th.  If you have any questions about my suggestions, or if the audio link does not work, please email me as soon as possible.

There is no other assignment due on the 22nd.  We will be meeting in AH 331 and beginning our research/argumentation unit; then, we will attend the Good Thunder Reading.

In-class Writing and Personal Narrative Drafts

The prompt for Thursday's class (3/1/2012) pertained to the reading assignments: write about a situation that you lived through in school.  You can choose to focus on people (teachers, classmates, bullies, school administrators, etc.) as David Sedaris did in his essay, or you can write about an event (graduation, prom, a sporting event, a play, etc.) or series of events as Maya Angelou did in her essay.  Make sure to write about something that contains conflict and that changed you in a way that causes you to reflect on the time.

In class, we briefly looked over an article about metaphor, and I said that I'd post the link here in case any of you would like to reference it.  Here's the link. 

The homework for March 15th (our next class meeting) is to turn in a completed draft of your personal narrative.  This means that your essay needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end for your to get credit for it.  I have uploaded to D2L an assignment sheet for the personal narrative essay that details guidelines, due dates, and a rubric.  Please reference it prior to emailing me questions.

While the completed draft of your personal narrative is due on March 15th, you can submit it early in order to receive my feedback more quickly.  In lieu of one-on-one conferences, I will be emailing you voice recorded feedback, so that you can listen to it and consider it at your convenience.  I'm shooting for a forty-eight hour timetable for getting my feedback to you; so the sooner you submit your essay, the more time you'll have to take it into consideration.  Rough drafts are to be turned in to the discussion board (Personal Narrative Drafts). 

There's also a short reading assignment due on March 15th.  Please read "Black Hair" by Gary Soto and be prepared to discuss it in class.  Feel free to email me questions, and have a fun and safe Spring Break!