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

Our class tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 18, will be meeting at the library, which is in the Atrium on the 4th floor.  We will meet just outside the library doors and the librarian will then take us into the library and start our session.

Regarding RWA10 and locating 3-5 reliable sources, if you are having any questions, please feel free to post them in reply to this post.  Also, if you’ve already completed the assignment–as I’m sure you all have–if you have the time to reply to this post by listing 1/ your draft research questions and 2/ the 3-5 reliable sources you located, I have no doubt that your classmates will be most appreciative.

Please post your GA assignment as a reply to the Week 10 Assignments post.  You can access that here:

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/whatiswritingfall2014/assignmentsclass-schedule/week-10-assignments-hybrid-fall-2014/

Dear Students,

Our library session that was scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, 11/11 at 11:30 am, has been rescheduled for the following Tuesday, 11/18.  As a result, we will not be meeting in the library tomorrow, but rather in the classroom on the 10th floor where we normally meet.

All best,

Prof. Rodgers

For any of you looking to read more about commas–and I suspect this may be ALL of you–I hope you will check out Professor Charles Darling’s incredibly useful and interactive website on comma usage.  I think it is a terrific resource:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm#2

I hope you will let me know if you agree with my assessment.

All best,

Prof. Rodgers

Please post the list of the writing issues you plan to work on for the rest of the semester in response to this post, making sure to include at least one, and no more than four issues in each of the following categories:  Argument/Structure/Clarity.

Here is a sample writing inventory:

Argument
Title

Structure
Topic Sentences

Sentence Clarity
Comma Splices
Faulty Parallelism
Commas
Attending to connections between sentences

Here is a complete list of possible writing issues that could be included in your writing inventory:

Argument
Title
Thesis Statement
Argument is well represented and reader is able to easily follow points being made
Argument is logical
Generalities avoided

Structure
Topic Sentences
Body Paragraph Focus
Body Paragraph Development
Body Paragraph Order
Introduction
Conclusion

Sentence Clarity and Sentence Transitions/Relations
SWE Sentence Integrity
Fragments
Run-Ons
Comma Splices
Fused Sentences
Shifts in point of view or tense
Modifier/Clause issues
Faulty syntax

SWE Diction
Verb issues
Dropped endings
Faulty Parallelism
Pronoun issues
Word Choice: Ambiguous or incorrect
Articles
MLA Guidelines for author names and/or titles

Punctuation
Periods
Commas
Apostrophes
Semicolons
Colons
Quotation Marks

Sentence Transitions/Relations
Using transition words
Attending to connections between sentences

This Group Assignment is in two parts:

Part I: What specific questions do you have about sentences in Standard Written English (SWE) that you would like to have answered?  Please post three questions about some specific aspect of the SWE sentence.  For instance, “what is a run-on?”  “What is the difference between a period and a comma?”  “What is wrong with this sentence:  ‘The is dog cat eating the.'” “If it is possible to start a SWE sentence with the word ‘Because,’ why did my high school English teacher tell me NEVER to do that?”  “What is a sentence fragment, and how can I revise these in my writing?”  Be creative!  Ask anything and everything you’ve ever wanted to know about SWE sentences, and their functions/malfunctions.

Part II:  Please read through all of your own and your classmates’ questions posted to GA8.  Locate the answer to ONE of your own questions and TWO of your classmates’ questions by looking up the answer to these questions on the Purdue OWL or in your English handbook.  Post a brief synopsis of the “answer,” along with a link to the Purdue OWL site or a reference to the page number of your handbook where you located this information.

Dear Students,

I’ve been really impressed with the posts and comments that have been made on our course site to date.  However, I am writing now to ask that you add one more requirement.  If someone posts a comment/reply to your post/comment that includes a question, YOU MUST REPLY TO THAT PERSON’S COMMENT AND POST AT LEAST A BRIEF REPLY TO HIS/HER QUESTION/S.

Thanks.

Prof. Rodgers

Please read about commas and periods in your English Handbook.  Please also review the guidelines for  Writing About Texts that you read about in Week 5.  Afterwards, please post and reply to two questions about each issue in reply to this post.    You can include all six questions in one reply.  However, please try to respond to questions posed by two OR MORE of your classmates.

Here are a few resources taken from my website, www.digitalcomposition.org, that you may want to take a look at.  PLEASE NOTE: These are SUPPLEMENTS to, not REPLACEMENTS for, the information contained in your English Handbook :

About Punctuation and Its History:
https://rws511.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/68788896/lupton_miller_periodstyles.pdf

http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/reese/Fall2010/3-type-essays.pdf

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/works/stein.pdf

Understanding Sentences
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/

http://www.sargent.nelson.com/bones.html

http://www.sargent.nelson.com/glossary.html

http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/

ESOL Resources
http://college.cengage.com/english/raimes/keys_writers/3e/instructors/esl/tips.html

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/exercisecentral/QuizHome.aspx?CourseID=29

Dear Students,

I’ve just finished reviewing your wonderful paragraphs about how to write thesis statements.  They were all incredibly informative and useful.  I hope everyone will take a look at them.  I’ve made some comments on some sentence-level issues in each, and you can access those here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17p3RvaH-rRNwXPmOCL8TSIaU41k_1dLluIXFJBrERKw/edit?usp=sharing

Either this week or next week, I’d like each of you to choose one sentence from your paragraph and re-write it.  Please post the original sentence, your revision, and a brief explanation of what changed in the sentence when you re-wrote it and why that change was necessary.

I have posted one example in the comments section to help you get started with this exercise.