Class Agenda 4.18

1. Reading Quiz

2. Announcements
Peer Review next Thursday. Blog due Monday night?
Please take more time to review the blog.

3. Essay One Returned: letter of response.

When you receive your essay, keep the comments and grade to yourself. The classroom is an inappropriate space to share grades.

Please read all the comments within the essay and grading grid.

Take out a piece of paper and spend some time writing a reply to your essay. The letter must answer the following questions:

a) Do you understand my comments? What comments do you not understand?

b) Reflect on your writing process: how many drafts did you complete of this essay? How closely did this essay resemble the essay you turned in for Peer Review? What was helpful about the Peer Review? What could have been more helpful? What notes did you work from the most? How frequently did you utilize the class blog? Did you look at the grading grid before turn in the essay? Did you re-read the assignment goal before turning in the essay? How long did you spend looking over the templates linked from the blog to They Say I Say?

c) Did you go to the Writing Center? Why or why not? If you went, what was your experience and how did it shape your essay?

d) Some of you must revise while others of you may want to revise. If you must revise, you must explain your plan for revision here. Confirm when you will attend the Writing Center, which must occur in the next week (you may want to bring a clean copy of the draft, as well as my grading grid). If you must revise, reflect on your process for this essay. What made the draft difficult? Did you complete the reading? If you completed the reading, how steps did you take to incorporate the book into your draft? If you didn't complete the reading, why not? Did you believe the essay could still be successful?

e) If you are choosing to revise, what is your revision plan?

f) If you have not turned in the essay, what is your plan? Are you aware you cannot pass the class without this essay? What steps are you currently taking to complete the essay? How often have you visited the Writing Center? What kinds of choices do you think have affected your inability to complete the essay?

g) What is your plan going forward for the rest of the semester to ensure success? What are you actually going to do in the next six weeks?

4) Essay One Returned: What's going to change

Things that will be different in class:

a. Students accessing course materials from their phone will lose participation points.
b. We will spend more time on They Say I Say templates.
c. We will have student conferences sometime in the next two weeks.
d. Students that don't turn in Essay One by Monday will receive a formal letter notifying them of their danger of failing.
e. There will be a "Super-Quiz" on Monday about quotation sandwiches, making claims, direct quotation, and citation. The quiz will be worth 40 points, and will be given at the beginning of class. Students will have 20 minutes for the quiz.
f. We will spend more time writing sentences that distinguish paraphrases of reading from your claims about the reading.
g. Anything else?

Things some students must do differently to succeed:
a. Create more time to study. Find a place that you can concentrate. Continue to "become" a public student.
b. Any student that failed Essay One must go to the Writing Center for both Essay One revision and Essay Two, before it's due.
c. Students that don't complete the reading must find ways to do so. The balance struck so far for about 1/3 of the class is ineffective and will challenge students from completing their goals.
d. Anything else?

5) Untouchable

Turning discussions of passages into paragraphs. Converting notes to sentences.