Homework, Tuesday 11/18

1. I'd like you to get started drafting your proposal on how the teaching of writing at your old high school could be improved. Keep in mind that your task here is two-fold:

a. Make an argument for what needs to be done/changed/added.
b. Support your argument with reasons and evidence drawn from sources (again, you can use any of the articles we have read in class and/or your data on your own composing process from Writing Project #2.

For Tuesday, plan to bring in 1-2 pages of writing in which you begin to lay out your project. This could be a draft of the first 1-2 pages of your paper. Or, this could be extensive notes/plans on what you'd like to argue and how you will work to support this argument. Plan to have an actual draft of your paper due the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (not graded, just a draft). I will ask you to share this work with your peers. Please post this writing as Blog #15 and also bring a hard copy to class!

2. Please read (3) students blog entries from this past week. Look at what your classmates wrote for Blog #14 (about the Sommers/Saltz article). Write blog #16, in which you comment on what you learned from these other student's blog entries. What did you find interesting about what your peers wrote? What surprised you? What did they say that you hadn't thought of? What did they say that you gave you a new way to think about the article and/or Sommers/Saltz's work? Be sure to quote from your classmates blogs (and include their names, of course) as you write your blog entry.

3. Please read, in Axelrod and Cooper's _Concise Guide To Writing_ pgs. 238 (from "Analyzing and Defining the Problem") through 249. Just read these pages, don't do any of the activities (like on p. 242 where it says "Researching Alternate Solutions: an online Activity"). In reading these pages, you're just trying to get a general overview of what the genre of the proposal entails.