Download the assignment sheet and schedule from here: ellis-jason-eng1101-project1-2015-fall.

Or, read the assignment sheet online below.

Project 1: Writing the Brain

Dr. Jason W. Ellis, New York City College of Technology, CUNY

 

Introduction

Choose a topic that you think about often and that you feel says a lot about you as a person, and write a personal essay of at least 1,250 words exploring how and why that topic tells your audience something about who you are. This essay should emphasize your experiences, thinking, and reflection. You will have an opportunity to improve your work through the writing process before submitting it on our OpenLab site. You can strengthen your essay’s impact by manipulating the conventions of online publishing for your purposes and incorporating photos or videos of your own.

 

Unity of Thought

Whatever topic you decide to write about, you should pick a single, unifying topic, and it should be something that you know a lot about without needing to do any additional research. All topics are open for to write about as long as it gives your audience a strong impression of you through your discussion of the topic. This means that everything that you write this topic in your essay must connect back to you and show (instead of telling) how it is a part of who you are as a person. Choosing this one topic to unite all of the separate paragraphs of your essay is called a unity of thought.

 

Developing Your Essay

We will break the project down into a series of components that build up to your completed essay. We will begin with brainstorming and planning. This involves picking your topic and generating a roadmap or outline for your essay. Next, we will begin drafting your essay. Over the course of a few weeks, you will write part of your essay and bring copies of this writing to class for peer review and peer feedback. Then, you bring in a final draft for one final round of peer review and feedback. To conclude the project, you will create a blog post on our OpenLab site that includes your essay with any final revisions and photos that you create to support the things that you write about in your essay.

 

 

 

Progress and Process

If you follow along with the writing process and participate in the peer review sessions, you will likely do very well on project and you will learn a lot about giving and receiving feedback, which helps others and improves your own writing style. If you do not follow the schedule or participate in the peer review sessions, you will likely do poorly on the project and you will not improve your writing and feedback skills.

 

Submitting Your Work

To submit your project for grading, you will create a blog post on our OpenLab website following these guidelines:

1. Login to OpenLab and navigate to our class’ site.
2. Mouse over the + sign on our site’s gray menu bar at the top and click on “Post.”
3. You will now be on the Add New Post page.
4. Where it says, “Enter title here,” click and type in a meaningful title for your post followed by: “by your first and last name.”
5. In the large white composition box beneath the title, you can type or copy-and-paste the writing that you have done elsewhere. This is where you will write your Project 1 blog post.
6. Click Add Media if you want to upload images. If you want to include video, copy-and-paste the link from YouTube directly into the composition box (this is the best place to post your video/audio for using with WordPress/OpenLab).
7. Click Save Draft if you need to save your work and finish it later.
8. Click Publish when you are ready to submit your work.
9. If you need to edit your writing after publishing, mouse over the course title in the menu bar > click Dashboard > click Posts > find yours, mouse over, and click Edit > make your edits > click Update.

 

Schedule

Week	Day	Date	Announcements	Reading	Due
2	M	9/7	No Class.
	W	9/9	Introduce Project One.		Beginning of class writing: summary of reading.
	Th	10/10	Follow a Monday schedule.  Student-led introduction to the reading.   Lab time: Begin writing Project One essay: brainstorming, planning, and drafting.	Seven, “12 Rules to Boost Your Brainpower,” http://goo.gl/ZjfGyu  Medina, “About the Author,” http://www.johnmedina.com/index.php?q=bio	Beginning of class writing: summary of reading.
3	M	9/14	No Class.
	W	9/16	Student-led introduction to the reading.  Class: Peer review session on at least first page of essay.	Medina, Brain Rules, Introduction.	Beginning of class writing: summary of reading.  Bring three copies of your Project One draft typed and double-spaced.   OpenLab: Type and post your reading summaries from previous week as comments to the appropriate blog posts on our OpenLab before arriving to class today.
4	M	9/21	Student-led introduction to the reading.  Class: Peer review session on at least two pages of writing.   Writing Lab: Continue writing on Project One.	Medina, Brain Rules, Exercise.	Beginning of class writing: summary of reading.  Bring three copies of your Project One draft typed and double-spaced.   OpenLab: Type and post your reading summaries from previous week as comments to the appropriate blog posts on our OpenLab before arriving to class today.
	W	9/23	No class.
5	M	9/28	Student-led introduction to the reading.  Class: Demo how to post your Project One essay as an OpenLab blog post.   Class and Writing Lab: Peer review session on at least four pages of writing.   Writing Lab: Continue writing Project One essay.	Medina, Brain Rules, Sleep.	Beginning of class writing: summary of reading.Bring three copies of your Project One draft typed and double-spaced.   Bring three copies of your Project One draft typed and double-spaced.   OpenLab: Type and post your reading summaries from previous week as comments to the appropriate blog posts on our OpenLab before arriving to class today.
	W	9/30	Student-led introduction to the reading.  Peer review Project One essay final draft. This should be at least 1,250 words (approximately 5 pages, double-spaced).	Medina, Brain Rules, Stress.	Beginning of class writing: summary of reading.  Bring three copies of your Project One draft typed and double-spaced.
6	M	10/5	Student-led introduction to the reading.  Introduce Project Two.   Lab time: Begin writing Project Two essay: brainstorming, planning, and drafting.	Medina, Brain Rules, Wiring.	Beginning of class writing: summary of reading.  OpenLab: Type and post your reading summaries from previous week as comments to the appropriate blog posts on our OpenLab before arriving to class today.   Project One blog post due on our OpenLab site.