Final Grades, Work at the Writing Center, and off to the boundless sea

Final Grades

I will begin grading your portfolios beginning at the end of class today (Thursday, December 16 at 12:15 pm).

Although I do not grade the work for the College Composition portfolio, you receive 25 points for creating a complete portfolio - so be sure to post your work.

I hope to read all of your work by Saturday night - at which time I will send you an email with a grade sheet very similar to the grade sheets you received for your "grade so far" in October, and then again in November. Read through your grade sheet to make sure you agree with the numbers. If you find errors or feel your grade does not accurately reflect your work for the course - contact me before Tuesday, December 21. If I do not hear from you before 6:00 pm Tudesday, I will assume that you feel the grade accurately reflects work for the course, and I will post that grade to Keanwise on December 23.

Work at the Writing Center

For those of you who indicated you were interested in working in the writing center as writing coaches - I will be in touch. I know for a fact I will be able to make only a very few hires for Spring, 2011. The University is hiring very few new student workers, and the use of the writing center in Spring is generally less than it is in fall, so I may not be able to justify additional workers. If I do not ask you to apply - it does not mean I judged you as not capable of working as a writing coach at our Writing Center. For the record, I would feel confident hiring every single student who put his/her name on that list.

If a job doesn't work out for Spring, I will forward your names, and you may be contacted for work in Fall, 2011.

YOU ARE A GREAT CLASS!

As you well know this was the first time Honors College Composition has been taught as a course to train writing center tutors, and I appreciated your comments and observations on what worked and what didn't. I was impressed with your good work and your persistance as we took on new ideas about writing - and about working with writers. It is not easy to change old habits for reading and writing - especially when they seemed to work - but each and every one of you stepped up to this challenge in one way or another. AWESOME. Your time here at Kean is an opportunity to do exactly that => to explore and discover not just new "information" - but new strategies for thinking and writing about that information. You made a good start on that exploring and discovery - and it was my pleasure to watch you do it.

Thanks for your good work - and good luck in your studies at Kean!

Creating Final Portfolios for College Composition

In class today you created your final portfolio for the college composition program, and started work on the Final Reflection on your work for this course.

The Composition Portfolio is created with a structure similar to the portfolio you created for ENG 1620 at google.sites. The structure is as follows.

Title of site: email loginportfolio (all one word)

General instructions:

• post un-marked copies of work
• invite ENG1620honorsenglish@gmail.com and collcomp@kean.edu to view your site

Structure:

Home page title: Reflective Introduction ENG 1620 Section 1

Sub-page titles:

1. Analytic Planning

2. Analytic Draft

3. Analytic Final Essay

4. Persuasive Planning

5. Persuasive Draft

6. Persuasive Final Essay

7. Final Summary Response Essay

8. End Point Exam

The prompt for the reflective essay is posted to the right.

Final essay = in-class Decmeber 9

Thursday will be the last day I accept observation sheets from the Writing Center.

Project 2: I returned comments for the revised drafts for Project 2. If you would like additional feedback, please schedule a conference and I can meet with you in my office = CAS 324.

Final Exam: We spent today's class talking through strategies for writing your in-class essays - with a particular focus on how to write your final exam. I emphasized that planning is essential - both before an during the exam. Anticipate the questions you will be asked and do some writing so that you have the language you will need already in your head. Think about the form you will need to use, and review your notes so that you have a recall (as opposed to recognition) mastery of the materials you need to discuss.

The final essay for this course will be a persuasive essay - and it will be graded on the criteria for persuasive writing.

• a clearly stated, compelling focus (the point you will argue) that replies to the prompt and is set up in the introduction
  
  
• awareness of the audience (show that you understand how to connect to + build on the assumptions and values your readers bring to the essay)
  
  
• organization
  - a sequence paragraphs with each paragraph presenting a point related to the focus that builds on earlier points in a logical way (present background information BEFORE referring to it);
  - paragraphs that introduce their point, develop that point with detailed examples/support, and then interpret/discuss the point with respect to the overall focus of the essay
  
  
• development that includes detailed, authoritative support
  
  
• style appropriate to the audience and purpose for the essay - your essay is an academic essay so the style should be clear and relatively formal (but DO NOT use words you would not normally use - this leads to stilted writing that can be hard to understand)
  
  
• sentences free enough from errors so as not to interrupt the flow and content of the essay

See you in class Thursday and good luck on your final essays.

Post Revised Project 2 + Revision Plan

In class today you worked with a partner or in small groups to plan final work for Project 2. You posted the revised draft for Project 2 + your plan for making final revisions on your Portfolio.

Over the weekend I will read your drafts + your plans for revising and give you feedback.

In class Tuesday I will give some general feedback on what you need to work on to finish Project 2, and we will spend the rest of class on a workshop for writing in-class essay exams. HTWA Chapter 9 offers a general plan. We will go through these general recommendations with your endpoint essay in mind.

Read: HTWA, Chapter 9 (254-259).

Have a good weekend!

Workshop your drafts

Today in class we looked through the calendar to review what we will be doing for the rest of the term. The schedule is as follows.

Dec 2: workshop Project 2 => revised draft Project 2 due at the end of class

Dec 7: Revised Project 2 returned, in-class workshop on writing essay exams

Dec 9: in-class final exam (like the baseline)

Dec 14: Due at beginning of class- Final draft Project 2; final exams returned, in-class workshop on portfolio

Dec 16: Final portfolio + reflective writing due at the end of class

Procedure for final grades:

I will send you a grade sheet (like the portfolio check grade sheets) on or before midnight, December 20. At that point you will have two days to get back to me to with any corrections, comments, or grade appeals. If I do not hear from you by Dec 22, I will assume that you are in agreement with the evaluation of your work for the course, and I will post your grade to Keanwise. I expect to post all grades before 6 pm Dec. 23.

Appointments for conferences:

Kyle: 3:40 Tuesday

Alexandria: 3:30 Wednesday

Dina: 3:50 Wednesday

Kyenna: 4:10

For Thursday:

Today will be another workshop for Project 2. Your complete essay will be due at the end of class.

Before turning in your essay - you will work in groups on your essays. After discussing your essay, you will write a brief description of what you need to work on for your final revision and post it to your portfolio.

During the last 15 minutes of class, you will complete the SIR II course evaluations.

Making a plan for the Analytic Essay

In class today you looked through the comments on the practice analytic essay, and made a plan to move forward on Project 2.

In the discussion of the Practice analysis essays, I pointed out that the common difficulties were:

1) developing sufficiently detailed discussion of the cause effect relationships in the video - and

2) connecting an interpretation of what the cause effect relationship in the video show to the overall focus of the essay.

Making a plan for your essay.

1. Brainstorm a focus (check the assignment sheet to make sure you have a focus that satisfies the requirements)

2. Watch the video with your focus in mind, and make note of the particular cause effect relationships you want to use to support that focus.

3. Make a list of the cause effect relationships from 2, where you note the cause, the effect, and what the relationship between the cause & effect show with respect to your focus.

At this point you should check the assignment sheet one more time to make sure you have a strong focus. Then check through the notes from the video to confirm that you will have enough material to develop that focus. If you do => you have a PLAN!

You spent the rest of class watching the video + planning your essays.

Homework for Tuesday:

1. Post the plan you developed in class to your portfolio.

2. Write a draft for Project 2.

In class on Tuesday you will workshop+ revise your essays.

Happy Thanksgiving and see you next week.

List of ideas for a focus for Project 2 video

1. how to clarify focus

2. evaluating the resources that the writer has- experience, unerstanding of area, writer vocab.

3. use of questions between writer and tutor

4. responding to writers attitudes- defensive, confidence, confusion, unconnfidence

5. coaches changing "stance"- beginning, middle, end-coaches response towards writers;' attitude

6. coaches stragey for revisions and brainstorming.

7. how talking led to claryfing the focus