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Welcome to English |
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Dave Eggers photo courtesy: The Play Voice Catfish and Mandala photo courtesy: |
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Links to final presentations not posted in portfolio or on blogs.
The Writing Proficiency Requirement
5/11 A final set of fantastic presentations! Thank you all for the outstanding work you've done this semester, the contributions you've made to our classroom community, the respect you've shown each other, your willingness to take risks in sharing your work, and, overall, for being such a wonderful class. Please keep in touch with me and with each other. A few notes on final requirements and other information:
5/9 Thanks to all of today's presenters for another great set of presentations. And Bravo to Matt, for daring to perform for the first time since 8th grade. 5/4 Thanks to today's presenters for very effective and engaging presentations, and for going first. 5/4, 5/9, 5/11 Presentations with adaptation of work to new medium, discussion/reflection on changes.
5/2 Meet in the White Lab, Healey 3 09A (to left of desk) to work on final presentations.
4/27 Meet in classroom. You'll write briefly about your plan for a final project plan and we'll invite class members to show interesting blogs you've found and linked to and listen to one or two radio episodes you've found interesting. 4/25 Meet in W-6-47.
4/18
4/13 Meeting in Gold Lab, Healey UL, on Tuesday, April 18.
4/11 Some of you plan to use a paper from this course to submit for a writing proficiciency requirement portfolio.
4/10 Meet in Gold Lab, Healey UL on Tuesday. We'll focuson finding and evaluating websites.
4/6 I've now posted one of my own attempts at a 5 page researched creative essay as #15 in my personal profile. 4/6 Unit 2 grades. Your grade for the unit 2 creative essay assumes that you will make the changes that Joanna and I have suggested (if we emailed specific suggestions to you) and then repost. You must do so to receive the full grade.
If you missed class you need to know:
4/4 Thanks for helpful comments today on each others' research projects. The full schedule for that project is now posted on our assignments page, with a few more details and a couple of corrections.
3/28 A nice wrap up discussion on Catfish today. Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful comments about particular chapters over our last few classes! Remember that we'll meet in the Center for Library Instruction, 4th floor, Healey, on Thursday. We'll work with a couple of databases and you'll begin to find articles on the topic you're researching--background to go with something you want to explore from a personal stance (perhaps to integrate into an essay you've already been working on). Before our meeting, please post your own project idea (#12)--we're skipping 11--and respond to the postings of a couple of classmates. Here's what we didn't get to talk about today: Some examples of how research has been integrated into our readings:
Andrew Pham, in Chapter 29, pages 228-29, works background information about Ho Chi Minh (the leader of the North Vietnamese who led the struggle against the French colonial occupation and then against the American and South Vietnamese forces) into his visit to view “Uncle Ho’s” preserved body. He had to find out this information, which he wouldn’t have known in such detail, and he could have included it in a number of places, but he places it against his own reaction at this memorial site. He doesn’t name his sources.
Floyd Skoot, in “Gray Area,” draws on the work of a number of researchers into the mind and brain, using their scientific language and descriptions to explore his own everyday experience and vice versa. He names his sources as he cites them.
John Edgar Wideman, in “Looking at Emmett Till,” recalls his own memories as a young black boy of reading about Emmett Till’s murder. Along the way he includes historical background about the slave trade, the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision against school desegregation, and specific information from the testimony of Emmett Till’s cousin and of others who were witnesses or participants. On p. 41 he cleverly works in a list of his sources, discussing a conversation he had with a girlfriend who “wants to know where I heard the cousin’s version.”
Ruthann Robson, in “Notes from a Difficult Case,” about trying to decide whether to sue for malpractice because of the inappropriate treatment she received for cancer, draws on medical sources, such as oncology textbooks and her own medical records, as well various studies about medical malpractice law and what makes people decide to sue, interweaving all of this with her own thinking and decision-making. She doesn’t name her sources but refers repeatedly to “a study,” “some studies” (which I actually found annoying).
Terry Tempest Williams, in “Prayer Dogs,” interweaves information about the prairie dog population, historical encounters, and a particular episode of prairie dog slaughter with an account of her own encounters with prairie dogs. She names some of her sources (such as Lewis and Clark in 1804), but doesn’t in other places (“a study”).
Like these writers, you’ll work information that you gather from various sources into your own creative essay on something that you want to pursue in a personal way. Unlike some of them, you’ll name your sources and give page references where you include specific information from them. A schedule for the work associated with this paper will be posted on the assignments page. 3/27 I'm back from my conference. I'm sorry I had to miss last Thursday's class. Thank you to Joanna for filling in. I understand that we should plan to finish our discussion of Catfish tomorrow before we move on. I still hope to be able to take a quick look at the readings listed for tomorrow on the Week 9 assignment sheet. On Thursday, 3/29,we'll be meeting in the Center for Library Instruction, 4th floor, Healey Library. 3/9 Have a great Spring Break! If you're going somewhere, take Catfish along. The assignment sheet through 3/23 is posted. 3/8 Thanks to Zu and to Matt, Katie P, and Kushelia for letting us discuss their drafts in class. I've emailed a few comments on last Thursday's drafts to members of the other groups. Revisions are due tomorrow. The grading rubric is posted on the assignments page. We'll return to our discussion of the first part of Catfish and Mandala. 2/28 The assignment sheet for this week and the groups and assignment for Thursday's class in the Purple Computer Lab, Healey UL, are now posted on the assignments page. If you did not have a chance to check in with your group at the end of class to decide on one of our readings to write about together, please email the other members of your group. 2/24 The assignment for Tuesday is to read one of the additional pieces of nonfiction from the list posted for next week on the assignments page (or anything else you've come across and liked) and to write a 1 page vignette about observing something in your present experience of the world, with an added comment about how any of your reading for this unit is influencing the choices you are making as you begin to create your a piece of nonfiction about the world around you. Post as #7 and bring a print copy to read to the class.
2/21 Good discussion today. Thanks! I wanted to point out that there is background information about most of our authors on the resource page. Sometimes that biographical information can contribute to your understanding of the themes the writer is focusing on.
2/16 Some reminders:
2/14 Happy Valentine's Day!
2/9 Here are the examples of different approaches to technique and meaning that I found in your vignettes, the ones we didn't get to in class. The yellow chart of elements is posted on the assignments page. (Examples from vignettes.) Monday 2/6 The link to Karen's memoir and Chapter 3 of Exploring Literacy can be found on the Resources page of this website. . I apologize to those who had trouble finding it. I thought I had posted it earlier. From Thursday's discussion, here are a few points that we might want to add to our chart of elements of memoirs n thinking about
Thursday 2/2 After today's too brief but lively discussion, I decided we needed to have a discussion space on this website where we can continue the discussions we begin in class or contribute observations on other lifewriting related topics that we're thinking about. You can use the link below class portfolio to enter the discussion board and post a topic or respond to one that has been posted. Today's discussion was a good one for identifying many more points we should discuss under the "other" category for the next assignment. I'll try to post a summary in this space by sometime tomorrow.
Tuesday 1/31 Thank you all for an constructive session in the computer lab. If you didn't have a chance to comment on the writing of at least 3 other students, you may do so from home. Please choose first any students who don't have a comment posted on their vignettes. Email me if you have any problems. The memoirs the class selected to discuss on Thursday are Avicolli,"He Defines You Still: Memoirs of a Sissy" Rose, "I Just Wanna Be Average" The assignment for Thursday is posted on the assignments page under Week 2. You should read both memoirs but choose one to respond to, following the suggestions on that page. Our work in the Computer Lab for 1/31
Go to the writing room icon. Enter the writing room using the first part of your email address (before the @) as your username and the last 4 digits of your student ID as your password. 1. Post your vignette as Assignment 1, and give your vignette a title. 2. With a partner, go to the student profiles link on the home page and read others’ vignettes (3-5), beginning with the one posted below the name of the member of your team whose name comes first in the alphabet, and post a comment of about a paragraph. You might include comments on: What you found interesting, involving as a reader What you’d like to know more about What themes are implicit here that might be developed further. 3. Read the comments that others have made about your vignette. Post, as a comment on your vignette, the reflections you wrote, along with any new thoughts that you have after reading others’ writing. (You may finish this outside of class if you run out of time.) The help icon offers more information about posting work in the writing room.
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