Hello, students.
I’m sending this as a reminder about our schedule next week,
the workshop peer review process, and what I expect for your first essay.
-Your complete rough draft is due by noon Monday, 1/30. You
need to then post your draft on your blog and email copies of it as an
attachment to everybody in your review group. Group members, email addresses,
and workshop meeting times are posted on Blackboard in the “Peer Review
Workshop Schedule” file under “Syllabus, Sched, Prompts.”
-You then need to read the drafts of your workshop group
members. Download the “Peer Review Prompt” file in “Syllabus, Sched, Prompts”
from Blackboard. Complete the review prompt for each group member’s draft.
Print out at least two copies of each review you have written and bring those
to our group workshop meeting. You will give one copy to the author of the
essay you reviewed and one copy to me. I will look at your drafts on your
blogs, but you will be relying upon one another as reviewers for the bulk of
your feedback. You are best to focus in your review on possibilities in one
another’s essays and on larger concerns rather than small details.
-Meet at the scheduled time with your workshop members and
me in my office, 736A Aspen Hall South. My office is on the third floor of the
former Aspen Apartments just east of the Hilltop Apartments. Be sure to use the
southern entrance, as there is no passage between the northern and southern
ends of the building.
-Then, continue working on revising your essay for the
following week. Your revised draft is due by midnight Monday, 2/6, posted on
your blog and emailed to me as an attachment. The most successful essays
generally will synthesize sources (put sources in connection with more than one
per paragraph) and be tailored to a specific audience. You may incorporate
personal experiences and anecdotes, use in-class and outside sources, and, if
in doubt, somewhat model your essay on those we read in class.
-Remember, we are not meeting for our regular class hours
next week. We will meet again as a class 2/6. Next week I will also be posting
to Blackboard the schedule and blog prompts for the next unit.
As a final note, I have posted in the “Readings” on
Blackboard a short Andrea Lunsford opinion piece that could be helpful for
those of you wishing to do more from Thompson’s angle. That op-ed and
additional information about the Stanford study are also available at http://ssw.stanford.edu.
Let me know if you have any questions. See you in workshop
next week, and have a good weekend.
Best,
Eric
