Week 5:

• Dates: Monday, 9/30 and Wednesday, 10/2 Monday, 10/7
• Meeting Info: Each week, I will post an agenda that will outline the week’s work. It will include instructions for you and links to readings, discussion questions, and other work.  We will work on developing community both in our classroom and in our online written community.  

Objectives

• To submit Project 1: Education Narrative
• To reflect on the writing process for Project 1 in a cover letter written to Prof. Rosen
• To begin our next project, we will consider how to use research and writing to explore what matters to us in our future professional fields.

To Do Before Week 5

Just in case you haven’t already, please:

• Catch up on any readings or discussions you’ve missed–you can review the Weekly Class Agendas to see what we covered. This includes the Introductions discussion, and other discussions that built toward Project 1.

To-Do This Week

Monday, 9/30: Writing about what matters

Texts:

• Reading/Writing Resource Essay: “Student Writing Must Be Graded By The Teacher” by Christopher R. Friend, pages 273- 277 in Bad Ideas About Writing
• Your finished version of Project 1

Writing:

• Project 1 (Education Narrative) Due–follow these instructions for posting your project
• Reflective letter on Project 1 writing process in class

In Class:

• Re-read your Project 1 education narrative. Make any changes you want to make, or make notes for yourself so you can make changes when you are at a computer.
• Peer review: we’re not trying to fix or edit our partner’s draft–instead, we’re offering them our perspective as a reader.
  • Read your partner’s draft without commenting. Then re-read the draft to do the following:
  • Note a part or two that stand out to you. What do you understand from those sentences? Let your classmate know what’s working with a sentence like “When you said… this really caught my attention because …” or “Your piece got me thinking about…”
  • What do you need to understand better? Let your classmate know what you needed clarification about with a sentence like “I got confused here when you said… because…”
  • What do you want to know more about? This might mean asking them to expand what they have, or to include dialogue, details, description, or something else. Let your classmate know with a sentence like “I wanted to know more about…..because…”
  • Suggest a possible title for your partner’s project
  • If they don’t have one already, suggest a passage or two from our course texts that might work well in their education narrative
• Q&A, how-tos, and anything else that can help you succeed with Project 1
• Write the reflective letter about your Project 1
  • Remember, if you haven’t finished Project 1, you will write about what you have written, what you have left to do, and what help you need.

Monday, 10/7: Getting started with research

Texts:

• Reading/Writing Resource Essay: “Research Starts With a Thesis Statement” by Emily Wierszewski, pages 231- 235 in Bad Ideas About Writing (note that the title of the book, Bad Ideas About Writing tells us that each chapter title is a bad idea–so thinking that research starts with a thesis statement is a bad idea)
• Historical Document/Protest Literature: Declaration of Independence; audio of Declaration of Independence
• Poem: “38” by Layli Long Soldier

Writing:

• Contribute to the discussion about what matters to these authors in this week’s texts, and what matters to us.

In Class:

• Listen to the Declaration of Independence and follow along with the written text of the Declaration of Independence (handout)
• As you listen and read, mark up your text as you consider what you understand and what you have questions about.
• Understanding the Declaration of Independence (handout, to be collected)
  • Write a list or a paragraph: What stands out to you? What questions do you have? What do you understand?
  • What is the purpose of this text?
  • who is the speaker?
  • who is the audience?
  • what is the tone of the text?
  • what genre is the text?
  • how do we know these answers?
  • How does this text match or not match what you think of when you think about research?
  • What research does this text inspire you to want to do (not necessarily about it specifically)?
• What stood out about reading (and listening to) the Declaration of Independence? Was this your first time reading it? How did it match your conception of it as a foundational document in this country’s history? Choose one moment that you felt was particularly compelling within the argument, and write what you understand about it (double-entry journal)
• Read and listen to “38” by Layli Long Soldier
• Understanding Layli Long Soldier’s “38” (handout, to be collected)
  • Write a list or a paragraph: What stands out to you? What questions do you have? What do you understand?
  • What is the purpose of this text?
  • who is the speaker?
  • who is the audience?
  • what is the tone of the text?
  • what genre is the text?
  • how do we know these answers?
  • How does this text match or not match what you think of when you think about research?
  • What research does this text inspire you to want to do (not necessarily about it specifically)?
  • why did Abraham Lincoln decide to execute the 38 Dakota people? what was the public response to it? why is this left out of the movie “Lincoln”? why don’t we learn about this in school. what else are we not learning about?
• Contribute to our discussion about what matters to these authors in this week’s texts, and what matters to us
• What matters to us as a group that we would want to research? What aspects would we want to focus on?
• Read and annotate Emily Wierszewski’s “Research Starts With a Thesis Statement”–which is a chapter from Bad Ideas About Writing.

Photo credit: “Star Streak 6” by Mr. dale via Flickr under the license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.