For Friday (No Class)

Hello all,

Today, we jumped out of a plane, and we worked to figure out if we were pessimistic or optimistic.

Speaking of pessimism and optimism, we then moved to discussing the issues raised in the take20 video. We round-tabled shared for a bit, and we made observations about the notion of feedback and professors.

We then did some small group workshopping. We focused on thinking about the connections between responding to writing as an professor and responding to writing as a student. We presented our ideas from the groups to everyone. We then discussed some criteria for responding to drafts. We compiled our list, which we will use to craft one to two paragraph responses to ourselves and to our blind peer drafts for Tuesday.

Here is the list:

A strong paper will have:
-Point is proven well
-Good Use of Diction
-Good analysis
-Consistent topic and main idea
-A clear, defined emphasis on the main idea of the paper
-A logical and "flowing" progression of ideas, along with explanation of the subtopics as the paper gets more in depth.
-Ideas placed in an orderly fashion to establish paper structure.
-Focus on the writing process
-Make a point and support it
-Describe writing process in an organized way
-Stays to one idea/topic
-Gives details/specific/ proof of main topic
-Easy to comprehend/flows/each paragraph is connected
-A clear topic
-A clear development
-Explore all perspectives

A weak paper will:
-Be vague
-Lack organization
-Explores only personal opinions
-Have no focus
-Have incomplete ideas
-Have poor analysis
-Poor/inappropriate diction
-Mention ideas that are irrelevant to the main topic of the paper
-Has thoughts scattered throughout and doesn't flow within the paper
-Has ideas placed randomly within the paper, with not structure of ideas
-Wanders or goes on tangents
-Doesn't make a point nor give any support
-Is unstructured and chaotic
-Has information that doesn't apply to the topic/scattered
-Doesn't support thesis or give details on the topic
-Hard to follow ideas/scattered/doesn't follow order of thesis or how it is introduced in the introduction

We then distributed the blind peer reviews drafts. (For Allison, Baalika, and Clare I will need you to contact me to get your copies). We also turned in a copy to me.

For Friday:
We don't have traditional class, so work on your peer and self reviews.
Remember, read your paper and your peer's paper a few times (you may want to record it), before you make comments.
Using the above list of strengths and weaknesses, craft a one to two paragraph overview of your peer's and your own texts.
Post your self evaluation on your blog. Bring your peer evaluation to class on Tuesday.
I will give you your texts with my comments on Tuesday.

Take care, and thanks,

Kat