- Week 2 Assignments
- GA and LJ DUE by 10 am, Tuesday, Feb. 10
- RWA DUE by BEFORE OUR CLASS SESSION MEETS on Thursday, Feb. 12
- LEARNING JOURNAL 2
- First, please read spend 5 to 7 minutes free writing about how you learned to read and whether technology has and/or has not altered how you read and/or why you read. Please try to include one to two specific examples in your discussion of this topic.
GROUP ASSIGNMENTS
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GA2.1: Please read through the introductions that your classmates have posted on our course website and make sure that you are acquainted with everyone enrolled in the course. Please also read through Professor Rodgers’ “Some Answers to Questions About Our Syllabus” blog post. If you find that your questions have still not been answered, please post your question(s) to the Open Lab.
GA2.2: Please read about some guidelines for writing and sending college e-mails, which you will find here.
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GA2.3: Read about PARAGRAPHS in your English Handbook. You may also want to take a look at this presentation about PARAGRAPHS. 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 questions that you still have about paragraphs.
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READING AND WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
- Reading and Writing Assignment 2: Responding to Readings
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Professor Rodgers
City Tech
ENG 1101: College Writing - In his book about college writing, Charles Bazerman writes:
“When you react to your reading, you start to make a link between the ideas suggested by the page and what happens in your mind—your responses. This link is essential for any kind of intellectual work. Because your reactions pass so quickly, turning your responses into words will help you hold on to them. Both writing notes in the margins of your books and keeping a reading journal will help you remember and develop your thoughts about reading.” (Chapter 2, The Informed Writer)
Last week, we read a bit about Active Reading. This week, we are going to do some active reading as we begin to practice what is called “Reading Rhetorically.” Before you begin this assignment, please read Professor Malea Powell’s description of “Reading Rhetorically” and “How Do I Write About Texts” in Professor Rodgers’ “What Is Writing?” Afterward, please PRINT OUT and actively read the four texts included in the Literacies Narrative Reading Packet. Afterwards, please re-read all four texts included in the reading packet rhetorically. Once you have read all four texts at least twice, please choose one that you particularly like and write a brief response to it using the following template as a guide. The template is based on Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me,” so if you choose to write about a different essay, you will (obviously) have to make a few changes to the template. Here is the template to follow for this assignment:
Begin with a paragraph introducing the text you are writing about. Inform your reader of who the text is by, what the title of the text is, and what the text is about. You can use the following template if you would like: In his essay “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie writes about __________________________.
Your second paragraph will consist of a description of Alexie’s text (please note that according to MLA author referencing guidelines, the second time a writer is mentioned in an assignment or essay, we refer to his/her last name ONLY): “Superman and Me,” which is an essay written in the _____ person, is ______________________. The language in this text is __________________. The sentences are ______________________. The paragraphs are _______________. The tone is ________________.
In your third paragraph, explain your personal response to the text and what you noticed about it. Begin the paragraph by writing: I think this essay is ___________ or This essay made me want to __________ or Choose your own beginning________. Then, discuss what you noticed about the essay from a literal, structural, stylistic, and/or rhetorical perspective.
In your fourth paragraph, please think about some issue or problem that a reader may encounter in the text. For instance, In his final paragraph, Alexie shifts from a first person perspective to a third person perspective. In your opinion, what are some possible reasons that might explain this switch/shift? What effects does this switch/shift have on the reader? If you are writing about Greg Zimmerman’s text “How I Learned to Read,” you may want to consider whether this text should or should not be read as an essay. What benefits might there be to categorizing this text as part of the essay genre, as opposed to categorizing it only as a poem? What drawbacks?
Once you have written four paragraphs, please read over what you have written. Do you have any interest or need to write a fifth paragraph? If so, please do. Finally, before you hand in this assignment, please VERY BRIEFLY explain in the margin of your assignment why you did or did not decide to write a fifth paragraph and, if so, what the purpose of that paragraph was, or, if not, why you decided it was unnecessary to write one.
