What Is Writing? An Introduction to College Writing in the 21st Century FALL 2014

http://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/how-do-we-go-%E2%80%9C-anti-education-era%E2%80%9D-meaningful-learning-all

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-paul-gee/anti-education-era/

http://books.google.com/books?id=NjhMK7ifCpcC&pg=PT6&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://txedrev.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Gee_Learning-Systems-Not-Games_TxEdRev.pdf

To prepare for the final exam, which is next Tuesday, please review your notes from today’s class, this blog post on complete sentences, and the following handouts:

Introduction to Summary Writing

What Is a Thesis Statement?

Some Thesis Statement Tips

What Is a Paragraph?

What Is a Topic Sentence?

Structural Overview of an Essay

For those interested in taking a SAMPLE FINAL EXAM, here is one:  Sample City Tech ENG1101 Final Exam

For those interested in getting some feedback on the sample final exam, please bring a copy of your completed sample exam and come talk to me.  I will be in my office, Namm 503 both Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.  It is always best to e-mail me to make an appointment, but you can also feel free to just stop by.  Wednesday, Dec. 10 at 3pm, I will be talking about complete sentences with some students.

I will be e-mailing the ACTUAL FINAL EXAM READING to your City Tech e-mail account on Thursday. If you do not receive this e-mail, or if you do not have access to your City Tech e-mail account, please e-mail me and REQUEST that I send the reading to your personal e-mail account.

http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~djleu/Handbook.html

http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/journal_details/index.xml?journalid=78

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/is-technology-producing-a-decline-79127

Thank you, Eddie, for these great sources!  We will all look forward to seeing your Annotated Bibliography listing and explaining them.

Dear Students,

Please feel free to set up a time to meet with me to discuss your draft Overview of Sources Essay and/or your Course Portfolio.  I will be in my office at the following times this week:

Wednesday 12/2: 12pm – 4pm

Thursday 12/3: 12pm – 1pm; 3pm – 5pm

Feel free to stop by anytime.  I’m in N503.

Dear Students,

I recently found out about a newly released netbook computer from HP that is currently priced at $199 and I thought you might be interested in this, particularly since it is integrated with Office 365, which, as far as I know, is now free for ALL CUNY students.  I’m not sure if Office 365 is yet live for City Tech students and faculty (it is at every other CUNY campus), but once it is, this netbook may be an interesting alternative to waiting in line to use computers at the college in the computer lab.  I am in no way endorsing this product, and I do not own one of these yet.  However, it is my understanding that you can do a fair bit of offline work on them (Office 365 comes installed on the machine), which may make them all that much more useful to you.

Here’s a link to some more information about the HP Stream:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834259990&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-All+Laptops+%2f+Notebooks-_-N82E16834259990&gclid=CjwKEAiA1-CjBRDOhIr_-vPDvQYSJAB48SmEtu7Y5SjMnNGvw0GmJKGTs3rfF496GmctAdiTC-qYDhoCcDnw_wcB

Dear Students,

For anyone interested in doing a bit of extra credit or in learning more about a fairly famous webcomic, please click the following link:

https://sites.google.com/site/citytechcollegewriting/simple-answers-readingwriting-questions

If you are interested in completing the EXTRA CREDIT WJ assignment, please choose one of the following EXPLORE questions and respond to it.

Explore

1.     Explain how Munroe employs word choice and parallelism as rhetorical strategies in this webcomic.

2.     In one paragraph to two paragraphs reflect on why the webcomic as a genre is well suited to a discussion of the issues Munroe is raising.

3.     Would you answer each of the questions Munroe asks in the same way as he does?  In a brief essay, please explain why or why not you agree or disagree with each of his “Simple Answers,” making sure to include your rationale for your response to each.

4.     Using Munroe’s webcomic as a model, create your own list of “Simple Answers to the Questions That Get Asked of Every New Technology.”

You can list this WJ as WJEC: “Simple Answers” and hand it in at the end of the semester with the rest of your writing journals.

The purpose of this  is two-fold:  First, you will introduce your sources to your audience (title, author, source).  Second, you will compare and contrast the purpose, tone and style of the three sources.

Here is one sample from Nicole Waite, who was a student in my ENG1101 course in the Spring, 2014 semester.  Nicole made the decision to list her sources first and then discuss and refer to them.  If she had had time to write a second draft of this discussion of her sources, I suspect she may have been able to introduce the sources AS she was discussing them.  I HAVE MADE A FEW COMMENTS IN ALL CAPS WHERE SHE COULD HAVE DONE THIS:

GA11: Nicole Waite:
MY SOURCES:
(1) Denhart, Chris. “How the $1.2 Trillion College Debt is Crippling Students, Parents and the Economy.” Forbes 7 Aug. 2013. Forbes, Inc. Web. http://www.forbes/sites/specialfeatures/2013/08/07/how-the-college-debt-is-crippling- students-parents-and-the-economy
(2) Hiltonsmith, Robert, and Tamara Draut. “The Great Cost Shift Continues: State Higher Education Funding After the Recession.” Demos 6 March 2014.
http://www.demos.org//publication/great-cost-shift-continues-state-higher-education- funding-after-recession
(3) Bidwell, Allie. “The Rise in Tuition is Slowing, But College Still Costs More.” U.S. World & News Report 24 October 2013. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/24/the- rise-in-tuition-is-slowing-but-college-still-costs-more

Each of my sources addresses the rising cost of tuition and fees that have occurred on a national level, as the result of budgetary cuts to education. Each also speaks to the fact that students are graduating with enormous debt because of loans that they take in order to pay for school. The tone of each of the pieces seems to be educational in that they are informing the reader about the crisis and why it exists. I feel that the audience for each of the articles are students/parents and anyone that is affected by the economy; the latter because student debt has a direct effect on financial matters such as state budgeting, national interest rates, and tax burdens on the community.

The article written by Hiltonsmith and Draut ENTITLED “The Great Cost Shift Continues: State Higher Education Funding After the Recession” (DEMOS2014) is longer and more formal than the other two pieces; it includes both statistics and charts. Bidwell’s article, “The Rise in Tuition is Slowing, But College Still Costs More.” (U.S. World & News Report 2013) explains how and why the tuition rate has been increasing even though tuition rates have slackened, while Denhart’s article “How the $1.2 Trillion College Debt is Crippling Students, Parents and the Economy” (FORBES 2013) focuses more on paying for college and the consequences of taking out loans. But each of the writings have similar summations – the rising cost of attending a public college, or private institution for that matter, has become so unaffordable that students are amassing huge [loan] debt in order to pay for their higher education.

Ursula C. Schwerin Library – New York City College of Technology

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