• Week 7 Assignments

  • Each week, I will ask you to do four things:
  • 1/  Post an entry in your Learning Journal.  Entries in your Learning Journal (LJ) will most often be focused on Free Writing or Structured Free Writing, which is Free Writing in response to a specific topic, prompt, or question.  I will give you a weekly LJ assignment.  Please post entries in your LJ HERE.  This is a private journal that only you and your instructor can access.
  • 2/ Complete one or more Group Assignments (GA), which will require that you contribute either a BLOG POST and/or to our course Discussion Board.  These posts and discussions will be read by our entire class.
  • 3/ Complete one to two Reading and Writing Assignments (RWA), which, unless otherwise specified, you will submit as a separate entry/entries in your Learning Journal HERE.
  • 4/ Check in at least THREE separate times a week and respond at least ONCE to contributions by other student blog posts on the Home page of our course Web site AND to forums on the course Discussion Board

   

  • WEEK 7 ASSIGNMENTS:  DUE DATE:  Monday, OCTOBER 15  at 5PM.
  •  During our seventh week, we will be finishing up the assignments from Week 6 and doing some peer editing.
  • LEARNING JOURNAL 7* (OPTIONAL/FOR EXTRA CREDIT!)
    
  • Please spend 5 to 7 minutes free writing about your thoughts about reading and writing personal essays.  For those looking for somewhere to start, try this:  Personal essays are…;  My experience writing this personal essay has been…; If I were to write another personal essay, I would…; Now that I think about those personal essays that we read a couple of weeks ago, I…; Some questions that I have about personal essays are: …
  • *This learning journal is not required.  However, because it is Week 7, I wanted to include a LJ7.  Next week, I will assign LJ8, so those of you who decide not to partake in this optional LJ will find that your LJ8 is actually your seventh LJ.

GROUP ASSIGNMENTS

•  Group Assignment 13:   Responding to Suggested Guidelines for Assessment of the Personal Essay
  

Please read over the Suggested Guidelines for Assessment of the Personal Essay posted by Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, and Group 4.  (I will create links to Guidelines for Assessment posted by the various groups as they become available.  Today, Oct. 10, only Group 4 has posted their findings, which is why Group 4 is the only group with an active link).  After reading these, please respond to the group post by explaining what part/parts of their guidelines that you’d like to see integrated into the Overall Assessment Guidelines for the Personal Essay.

• Group Assignment 14:   Peer Editing

First, please read over the guidelines for Peer Editing, which you will find here:  Guidelines for Peer Editing.  It is very important to remember that as a peer editor, you are making suggestions for helping the writer better achieve the overall purpose for his/her essay.  Please avoid comments/suggestions that might seem evaluative or directly critical of the essay.  These tend to be less helpful for the revision process.

Second, please contact one of your group members and arrange to exchange a draft of your essay with him/her.

Third, please write an e-mail to your peer editor, explaining what the purpose of your personal essay is, who the audience is for the essay, and what–if any–of the personal essays that we read as a class you were using as a model for your essay.

Fourth, complete the following Peer Editing Worksheet and return it to the writer along with any additional comments about or suggestions for the essay that you might have.

• READING AND WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
• Reading and Writing Assignment 9: Peer Editing Worksheet
• Please hand in a copy of the Peer Editing Worksheet that you completed in response to one of your classmate’s drafts.

Personal Essay Guidelines
Professor Rodgers
College Writing

Professor Rodgers
College Writing
City Tech
BRAINSTORMING:  10/1
EXPLORATORY DRAFT DUE:  10/1
DRAFT 1 DUE: 10/15
DRAFT 2 DUE: 10/22
FINAL DRAFT DUE: 10/29

The focus of our first essay is yourself, your life, and/or your interests and experiences!  Please choose some specific topic to write about.  This could be anything:  your childhood, your family, your educational experiences, your interest (or non-interest) in reading, your relationship(s) to technology, your love of animals, the place where you live, etc., etc.

The essay, which will be two to three pages in length, will be graded on the effort you have put into thinking about the personal essay as genre, your approach to this particular essay, and your presentation of your material to your audience. The essay should include a title, a thesis statement, well structured paragraphs, and writing that not only clearly describes and explains information, but also engages your reader. For MLA essay formatting guidelines, see http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/  or your English handbook.

Please make sure you write this essay for a specific audience.  This audience can be your instructor, your classmates, the students at City Tech, or the readers of a particular publication.  I ask you to choose and specify an audience so you know who you are writing to and tailor the content and style of your essay to that audience.