Category: Exams

Final Exam Article and Essay Prompt (read everything carefully)

Final Portfolio / Google Drive Folder CHECKLIST
Due: Tue 8/18, 7p

-> share the whole folder as a link in this survey

1. Five (5) article summaries (guidelines in course syllabus)
2. Two Revised OpenLab responses (not your Essays 1 and 2; these are your shorter responses to assignments #1-5 on OL; revise using feedback I gave you on OL)
   –Make a separate Google Doc for each revised response; save it in your Google Portfolio Folder
   –Include your original response, your revised response, and a brief note explaining what you revised.
   —One (1) of these revised OL responses can be your Midterm (see #4 below)

3. Essay 1 and Essay 2 (2 drafts each; 4 documents total)
   –please share as separate documents in your Google Portfolio Folder.
   –Include 2 drafts of each Essay assignment: your first draft and your revised, final draft
   –Include a note at the top of each Final essay that explains what you revised

4. Your revised “Midterm/Checkpoint” article summary (assignment #3 on OpenLab) and a note explaining what you revised.
5. Your Final Exam essay, to be completed in no more than 90 minutes between now and Tuesday evening. NOTE: This will involve reading a short, new article and writing a persuasive essay with your own thesis that responds to the topic of the article.

Final Exam Article and Essay Prompt

Due Wed 8/10, 7p

For Wednesday, I want you to do two things: (A) take the midterm and (B) read and write feedback on 3 classmates’ Essay 1s.

NOTE: Last week, we worked on noticing the THESIS of Kaba’s and Meares’ texts.  Remember: a thesis is a debate-able statement (often a writer’s “opinion”) about a topic.  A THESIS is not the same as a TOPIC.  A topic is simply the main idea or content of a text; a thesis is the writer’s opinion or point of view ABOUT the topic.  For instance, in both Kaba’s and Meares’ texts that we read last week, the topic is police brutality and racism.  Kaba’s thesis is her opinion about this topic: what she thinks should be done about racist police brutality (she thinks that we should defund and get rid of police departments).  Make sense?  OK, now you’re ready for the midterm (below).

A) Midterm Exam. This is a test devised and required by the Summer Program. As such, it is slightly different than the assignments I’ve given so far (which will nevertheless have prepared you well for it. The instructions are simple: read an article and identify the author, title, topic, thesis, and the reasons/details supporting the thesis.  Then write a short summary of the article, including therein your response to the article (whether you agree or disagree with it and why).

15% of final grade

The article I want you to read and do your exam on is:

Larry Elder, “Where’s Black Lives Matter When You Need Them?”

As always, write your work in a Google Doc and save to your Google Drive folder for the course, then paste your work as a comment below, responding to this post.  Format your exam as follows:

Name (Yours)

Author:

Title:

Topic:

Thesis:

Reasons/Details Supporting Thesis:

Summary (1 paragraph, including all of the above as well as your response to the article—whether you disagree/agree with it and why)

1. B) Go to Essay 1 Feedback and read 3 classmates’ essays. Respond to each writer’s post with a comment containing feedback (I repeat: do NOT respond to this post with your feedback—respond to each writer’s post individually; see below for requirements). Please choose classmates who have few-to-no comments from other classmates.  Please reply to your classmate’s post with a comment containing…
   For each response you give, please provide the following 3 things (I repeat: each of your 5 responses should contain these 3 things):

A–What you think the writer’s thesis is (in your own words).  If you can’t identify the thesis, ask the writer to make their thesis clearer.

B–One supporting reason or story the writer gives for believing their thesis to be right.  Again, use your own words to describe this.  If you can’t identify a supporting reason or story, tell the writer to make this part of their essay clearer.

C—A counter-argument that the writer introduces and then argues AGAINST.  Again, describe the counter-argument in your own words.  Does the counter-argument go AGAINST the writer’s thesis?  If it doesn’t, let the writer know that they should come up with a counter-argument that goes AGAINST their thesis (and then they need to find a way of refuting the counter-argument).

10% of final grade (Essay Feedback)