Please read over Professor Rodgers’ Handouts related to writing THESIS statements and her structural overview of a thesis-driven essay in your What Is Writing? A Brief Introduction to Writing As an Act of Communication reading packet. After reading these, please do the following: In response to Professor Rodgers’ GA6 Post, 1/ post three questions that you have about thesis statements, 2/ write one paragraph for your classmates explaining how to write a thesis statement and/or the elements of a good thesis statement.
1/ In one to three sentences, describe your understanding of the term grammar and the basis for that definition, e.g., I’ve been told that I have bad grammar by teachers because I cannot spell well, etc.
2/ Look up the definition of grammar in a dictionary. Write down the definition. Please also include the title of the dictionary from which you took the definition and the page number on which the definition was found. For example: Definition of the term grammar. The Oxford American College Dictionary (2002), p. 707.
3/ Your response to Question 1 is your own connotative definition of grammar. Your response to Question 2 is a denotative definition of grammar. In three to five sentences, please compare and contrast these, explaining what is similar and what is different about them in relation to each other.
2. keeps your essay organized; every paragraph relates to the thesis statement (Matthew)
3. is helpful to the reader in allowing him/her to understand what the writer is writing about (Daytona)
4. acts as a guide to the essay/article (Barry)
5. is concise and gets to the point (Douglas?/Eddie?/Someone else?)
Negatives: A thesis statement…
1. ruins the suspense of reading an essay by telling the reader what the essay is about at the beginning (Melanie)
2. can be repetitive or redundant because it restates the contents of the paper (Melanie)
3. is a pain to write because it requires a writer to compact everything the essay is about into one or two sentences (Cordelia)
4. is artificial because it ruins the fluidity of the essay and makes it less human, at least in part because it can disrupt the communicative connection established between a writer and his/her audience (Douglas)
EXTRA: Some excellent guidance for reading Carr’s essay from Epiphany:
Read the essay 1x quickly, then one time slowly as you take notes. Take a break. Read the essay slowly a third time.
In reading through your generally excellent RWA2 responses to Sherman Alexie’s essay, I noticed that many of the most interesting paragraphs contained in the assignment read like draft paragraphs. As a result, for this group assignment, I’d like you to choose one paragraph from your RWA2: Responding to Reading assignment and answer the following questions: What is this paragraph about? What is the purpose of this paragraph? As written, how well does this paragraph fulfill its purpose? What questions might a reader have about this paragraph as it is currently written? After answering these questions, please re-write your paragraph FROM SCRATCH. Then, post 1/ the original paragraph, 2/ your answers to these questions and 3/ the re-written paragraph as a comment to this post.
For anyone interested in doing an extra credit assignment, here is one!
First, please watch the 12-13 minute video on the following website: http://thewritingcode.com/ and WHILE YOU ARE WATCHING it please take notes in order to respond to the following questions:
1. What is the structure of this video? How many sections are there? Is there a title for each section? Is so, what is it? If not, what might it be? (make a numbered list of the sections with section titles included)
2. What did you learn? (make a list)
3. Given the subject matter of the video, what words or images did you see/hear that were expected? (make a list)
4. Given the subject matter of the video, what words or images did you see/hear that were UNexpected? (make a list)
5. What did you think of the video generally? (Was it Entertaining/interesting/intriguing/boring? Please write one paragraph explaining what you thought of it and why.)
6. What did you think of the video as an introduction to writing? (Please write one paragraph explaining why it was or why not a good introduction to writing.)
7. If you were to remake this video, what would be your approach? How would you structure it? What types of content would you include? (write one paragraph describing your approach/video) Would you keep any parts of this video? If no, why not? If yes, which sections would you include? Why? (write one paragraph comparing and contrasting your video to the existing video)
8. Compare the video you watched above to the following official PBS trailer for the same series and assess how well or how poorly it functions as a trailer first, in general, and then, specifically, in relation to the content you viewed in the earlier video (three paragraphs: 1/ describe the content of this trailer; 2/ assess it as a successful/unsuccessful trailer in terms of the rhetorical purpose of trailers in general, i.e., to make people want to watch something; 3/ assess it as a successful/unsuccessful trailer in relation to the film it is meant to be enticing viewers to watch. Does it accurately represent the content of that film? Why or why not? :
Please feel free to post any and all questions that you have about the Week 3 Assignments as a comment to this blog post.
Since we did not have any time to discuss the Week 3 Assignments in class AND since we will not be meeting in person as a class next week, I want to encourage ALL of you to, in addition to posting your questions here, either set up an appointment to meet with me during my office hours and/or send me an e-mail with any questions that you have about the Week 3 assignments and our course.
Here are a few things to keep in mind as your work on RWA3:
This is a FIRST DRAFT! You will be revising what you have written in this draft the following week.
While we have talked a bit about strategies and guidelines for writing Introductions and Body Paragraphs, we have not talked at all about writing Conclusions. Therefore, I leave it up to you as to whether you wish to include a concluding paragraph in this draft. I would recommend leaving it out for now. However, I leave that choice up to you.
Please leave a comment to this post in which you write one paragraph describing HOW you brainstormed for the Personal “Literacies” Narrative Essay and a second paragraph describing YOUR SPECIFIC APPROACH/FOCUS for this essay.
Regarding HOW you brainstorm: Did you write a letter? Do some reading and free writing? Draw a concept map? Record yourself talking? Take a walk? Some combination of all of the above? There are many different ways of brainstorming, and I and your classmates are interested in knowing what your process consists of.
Your second paragraph will describe the RESULTS of your brainstorming. Do you now have a sense of what will be the FOCUS of your personal narrative essay? If so, please write a paragraph describing what you plan to write about. If not, that is also fine. Just describe the outstanding questions that you have as a result of the brainstorming process. You may be a writer who needs to start writing a draft before you know what the focus of your essay will be. In that case, drafting is part of your brainstorming process, so please make a note of this in one of your paragraphs about brainstorming!
Each week, I will ask one of you to post your notes from our Tuesday class session, and to make a list of ten to fifteen keywords discussed. Since I did not ask any of you to post your notes from this week’s class meeting, I am making the post. Unfortunately, I was not taking notes, so I cannot post those. However, I can post my list of keywords. If anyone would like to post some notes, please feel free to do so by replying to this post. Also, please let me know if you feel any of the keywords listed should be removed or others added.
All best,
Prof. Rodgers
Keywords from Week 2 (which is actually the third week of the semester, but which we are calling Week 2 because RWA2 was due on Tuesday). Please make sure that you have a working definition of each of these terms. If not, please make sure to make a note of what questions you have about these terms so we can talk about your questions on the Open Lab.
Rhetoric
Rhetorical context
Audience
Purpose
Writer’s point of view (first person; second person; third person)
Genre
Essay
Paragraph
Narrative
Brainstorming
Drafting
Writing as a process
Writing as a textual object
Writing as rhetorical action
Parts of Speech (Van C. Papa: verb, adjective, noun, conjunction, preposition, adverb, pronoun, articles)
GA2.1: Please read through Professor Rodgers’ responses to student questions in the GA1.2 blog post. If you find that your questions have still not been answered, please post your question(s) there.
GA2.2: Please read through the introductions that your classmates have posted on GA1.1 and make sure that you are acquainted with everyone enrolled in the course.
GA2.3: Read about PARAGRAPHS in your English Handbook. Then, post a reply to the WEEK 2 ASSIGNMENTS POST that includes: 1/ One paragraph about what you have learned about paragraphs. 2/ Two to three outstanding questions about paragraphs.
EXTRA CREDIT: Reply to my Week 1: Keywords Blog Post by contributing your own definitions of one or more words on the list! While you can cite part of a dictionary definition in your definition, please make sure the definition you post is mostly your own and based on your understanding of the term.
There are three types of weekly assignments for this course: the Learning Journal (LJ), the Reading and Writing Assignment (RWA), and the Group Assignments (GA). Most of you have already completed the GAs for this week ;) by replying to the GA posts on the Open Lab. If you have not yet done that, please do. Please complete the LJ in a notebook–either physical or electronic. You will submit all of your LJ assignments mid-term and, again, as part of the final portfolio. You are the audience for these assignments. They are required, and by completing each one you will receive full credit for the weekly LJ. The RWA is your weekly formal assignment. Some weeks, you will be required to submit the RWA in printed form according to MLA Formatting Guidelines. Other weeks, you have a choice: You can submit the assignment EITHER via Bb (click this link) or in printed form. Whether you submit the assignment electronically or in print, it will need to adhere to MLA Formatting Guidelines, which are listed on the syllabus and explained in detail in a handout entitled “What Is the MLA?” You will find that handout in the Course Handouts section of our OpenLab website.
IMPORTANT UPDATE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4: I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT THERE IS CURRENTLY A PROBLEM WITH THE BB SYSTEM AND THAT IT IS NOT ALLOWING STUDENTS TO ATTACH DOCUMENTS WHEN SUBMITTING ASSIGNMENTS. YOU CAN EITHER CUT AND PASTE YOUR RWA1 INTO BB OR BRING A PRINTED COPY OF THE ASSIGNMENT TO CLASS ON TUESDAY.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at jrodgers@citytech.cuny.edu (to learn more about the conventions of college e-mail, please read this document)
