Announcements and Homework for 9/23

Announcements:

1. Today in class we had our first quiz. In the coming weeks, there will be more quizzes and, ultimately, quizzes make up 20% of your final course grade (see syllabus). Most of the quizzes will be like the one we had today. However, there will be another kind of quiz. Today in class we talked about annotating your text as you read. Annotating is the process of marking up something you read, as you read it, so as to better understand it and more easily access certain parts when you need to later. It is a critical skill for succeeding in college.

Occasionally, rather than handing out a multiple-choice quiz of the kind I handed out today, I will ask to collect the reading of the day (be sure to print out a hard copy of all readings and bring these hard copies to every class). Your quiz grade will be determined by how well you have annotated your copy of the article. So, I'll be looking to see what you are underlining or highlighting, how you make comments in the margins, etc. I will grade both on the basis of quantity of annotations and quality. If you don't have your reading that day, you will receive an automatic "F." If your text is not annotated, you will receive an automatic "F."

2. Big picture: next week I will introduce our first paper and we'll get started on it. In it, I will ask you to think about your composing process. Just a heads up that a draft of this essay will likely be due the week of 10/29. More to come on Tuesday.

3. For the next two weeks, we will continue to look at academic articles that explore the processes writers use to compose. Beginning in October, we will shift gears and move in a different direction. Plan to get a syllabus with details on the readings for the month of October during the last week of September.

4. On Tuesday, I will spend some time in class talking about the blogs and what my expectations are of them. I will put some of your blogs up on the screen and we will look at them so you can get a sense of what will constitute a good grade on the blog assignment (20% of your final grade).

Homework for Tuesday 9/23:

1. Read the rest of Jack Selzer's article "The Composing Process of an Engineer" (I asked you to read the first two pages for this past Thursday's class).

2. The reading on the syllabus for Tuesday 9/23 was

“The Construction of Purpose in Reading and Writing” (Flower)

I have changed it to:

“Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” (Sommers)

Please go the google groups course page and download a copy of this article. Please read it for Tuesday's class.

3. Blog Entry #4: Berkenkotter's study focused on Donald Murray, a professional journalist and English professor. Selzer's article focuses on Kenneth E. Nelson, a professional engineer. Write a short essay in which you discuss the differences between these two men's composing processes. This is an exercise in comparing and contrasting. You should first briefly summarize these men's processes and then discuss the ways in which they are similar or different. Also, describe the terms that Berkenkotter and Selzer use to characterize their subjects' composing processes and how these key terms are different. Please do quote from the articles themselves as you formulate your response. 300-500 words.

Good luck. And have a nice weekend.