Class Announcements English 0301 .....................

My apologies for not having the assignment set up for turning in your final draft of Essay #4. It is ready for your masterpieces now! The place to turn in this week's (WK4) freewriting journals is also set up now.

Congratulations on completing our last essay!!!

(Note: I will still accept these essays and not count them late if they are turned in tomorrow 10/14. It will squinch your portfolio preparation time, but that is ok with me if you so choose.)

Now it is on to the Final Portfolio and the Final Exam.

Please view the updated instructions for the Final Portfolio. I only just updated these, so if you have accessed it already, please go off these instructions and not the previous version (for instance, we will revise only one essay, not two essays, for the portfolio.

What do you need to do to get ready for the Final Exam?

1. Pick ONE of the first three essays we have written to revise for the Portfolio. You choose. Then REVISE it.
   --to revise this essay, you will need to go back to the Essay Cycle Assignment Sheet and review that particular essay's topic/task and learning goals. Then, I want you to really revise the essay considering issues of content, organization, and development before you edit your paper for grammatical issues.
   
   You should arrive at the final exam with this revised essay completed (and bring a copy of the previously graded final draft)
   
   
2. Review what we have been learning about Essay writing by looking at this Model Essay that demonstrates all the features of Essay Form, Organization, Development, and Coherence we have been learning. Review guides for all of these essay features. This review should prepare you to write the in-class essay and self-evaluation.

Please make plans to attend one of these exam dates and times:

Final Exam, English 0301
--Wed. Oct. 16 1-3:30 PM (meet at my office, GH 223-D)
--Thurs. Oct. 17 6-8:30 PM (meet at my office, GH 223-D)

I realize that this may inconvenience some of you, but it was one of the bargains with this class. If you have an irreconcilable conflict with these times, you need to contact me as soon as possible to arrange an alternative testing time on-campus for either that Wednesday or Thursday.

Outlines are a bear, and perhaps you struggled with you E4 Outline. In some ways, they are the opposite of Elbow's "cooking" approach to the writing process. Rather than figuring things out as you write, and outline has you figure things out and then write. I hope you are not getting whiplash by doing these different strategies.

E4, however, has a fairly prescribed structure for each paragraph (see page 2 in the EC#4 Assignment Sheet):

--transition
--two quotes from McClintock to define the propaganda technique
--two or three parts of the ad that show the ad fits the definition of that propaganda technique

In cases where the structure of the writing is fairly well established, you can write by "building" your essay piece by piece. Find the right parts and fit them together. Outlines can help us do that.

Draft E4-1 (first draft for essay #4) is due tomorrow 10/11. We will also do peer response on it.
***************************************
NOTE on WK7 GRE
--With EC#4, I made an adjustment from the originally planned GRE for WK7 and 8. Some of you have asked where the forum is for turning in GRE7 work, but with the revised GRE7 all the work is done in Exercise Central.
See page 6 of EC#4 Assignment Sheet.

If by chance you did the previous WK7 GRE and not the revised one, please email me your exercises either through Canvas or through the ACES email, and I will give you credit. Sorry for the confusion.

P.S. I am slowly grading your Essay #3s, and I hope to finish by Friday. My apologies for being slow, but I lost a day with an unexpected hospital visit by my mother. She is fine, but it took me away from grading.

I hope that you are getting a good start on the paper. As I have mentioned in the last class announcement, your writing in this essay will depend upon your reading. That means your reading of the McClintock essay and how well you understand the propaganda techniques will make a BIG difference for this essay.

One good thing about all these techniques is that we are so familiar with all these propaganda techniques--we get hit with them every day. What is challenging in this essay is learning the names of these techniques and what defines them--and then identifying them in your chosen ad. All this takes some study of the McClintock essay (and perhaps other websites about these propaganda techniques).

What are we up to right now? (in this class)...

Hopefully, you have found a good print ad from a magazine to work with.
You should also have done some initial analysis of this ad (done in your E4 Invention)

Today we have a first freewriting draft on E4. For this draft, I think it is ok to look at your ad as your write, but put all your other notes aside. This draft is like a "quick draft" as we did for Essay #3.

On Wednesday, we have an outline of our essay due. This outline will likely take more thought and work.
This EC#4 assignment sheet had one example outline, but here is another example outline. I hope these help and show you what you are after with your own outline.
************************************************

I am starting to grade your Essay #3s. I hope to have them done by Wednesay (or Thursday).

You are warriors working hard to get your work in. I salute you. Good work for getting your Essay #3 completed.

As soon as you can, take a look through our entire Essay Cycle #4 Assignment sheet. You'll find lots of examples of this kind of essay, so hopefully pick up quickly what we will be writing. I recommend that you print this assignment sheet and place it in your notebook. You will need to access the electronic version to do much of the work because it has important links to learning resources. My apologies for getting this out to you late.

The essay really begins by reading and learning about Propaganda Techniques from the McClintock essay, so I urge you to read that essay very soon.

************************
Believe it or not, we are getting near the end of our time together, so I want to remind you that our class has a face-to-face final exam. That means you will need to come into SAC for the exam.

Please make plans to attend one of these exam dates and times:

Final Exam, English 0301
--Wed. Oct. 16 1-3:30 PM (meet at my office, GH 223-D)
--Thurs. Oct. 17 6-8:30 PM (meet at my office, GH 223-D)

I realize that this may inconvenience some of you, but it was one of the bargains with this class. If you have an irreconcilable conflict with these times, you need to contact me as soon as possible to arrange an alternative testing time on-campus for either that Wednesday or Thursday.

Good morning!

Today we have our GRE WK6 due on pronoun reference and agreement.

Then tomorrow our final draft of Essay #3 is due.

As you work on your final draft, I hope that the two example Essay #3s help you some. Neither is perfect, but one is definitely better than the other.

E3 example #1 (both from the EC#3 Assignment sheet)
E3 example #2

Organization is a big part of this essay, so here is a proposed outline for your paper (with each number representing a paragraph):

1. Introduction
2. What Beck or Staples says viewpoint #1
3. What Beck or Staples says viewpoint #2 --------------------be sure you are using quotes from the essay to represent their views
4. What I say from my experience viewpoint #1
5. What I say from my experience viewpoint #2 ----------------viewpoints from your experience are grounded in a specific experience; tell an illustrative story
6. Conclusion--and "what this means"

Review the Evaluation Sheet for Essay #3 to see the criteria upon which your writing will be reviewed.

*********************************
All Essay #2s are evaluated and returned to you. Let me know if you have any trouble getting the full feedback on your essay.
I eventually stopped using Canvas for inserting comments on your text and just used MSWord. That made is simpler to put the annotations, rubric, and comments all on one document. I will be doing this approach for evaluation in the future. I apologize if Canvas has made it hard to get your feedback. Please please let me know if you have not been able to get full feedback.

I hope that you are progressing well with Essay #3. I know that doing this quick write method is strange.

The idea behind it is two-fold:
1--we come up with insights and ideas AS we write
2--any draft we write is not something carved in stone. By casting away drafts (or thinking of a draft as something that is not permanent) we are not locking ourselves into a draft that may not be very good too early

I confess that I find Elbow's method difficult, but I know some people who find this method very useful. Our goal here was for you to try it to see if it was useful for you. If it is not, then now you know.

So where are we now on working on Essay #3

First you should do your Peer Response on E3-2 drafts. We will do three peer responses and a fourth for extra-credit, like we have done before. This peer response may be a bit difficult because the draft is a freewriting draft and probably messy. Do the best you can to help your fellow writers find their focus and find what is working so far in their drafts.

Second, you should do your Writing Review for E3-2. Ideally, it would be good to complete this assignment today (after you complete peer response), but I will accept it tomorrow and not count it late. You want to have some response to think about as you do your Writing Review, but if you have not received much peer response when you are ready to do your Writing Review, don't wait to do it.

Then you are on to work on the Final Draft (due on Thurs.)

Guidance for working on the final draft is on page 7-8 of the assignment sheet.

Suggestion:
MAKE AN OUTLINE!
--as you create your outline, copy and paste (or record) material from your drafts that you think might work and fit in different parts of your essay. You may need to rework the material as you compose your actual draft. You might try the outline as a table like the one below. Each row would represent a paragraph.

I've also seen successful essays cram all of their summary of Beck or Staple's perspective on the subject into one paragraph. Then they have three paragraphs from their experience. Also, I've seen some people go back and forth with paragraphs. Becks's perspective, then my experience. Beck's perspective, then my experience.

However, you decide to develop the piece you want to have a clear organizational structure that keeps the two sides of "they say" and "my experience" in a clear dynamic relationship.

Note on Essay #2s: I am finally beginning to evaluate these. I had two sets of my Engl 1301 essays to evaluate that took longer than I thought, but I am beginning to grade your essays and hope to complete them by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Enjoy the rain!!!

Today your first "quick write" draft of Essay #3 is due.

I describe a fairly elaborate procedure for doing the quick write on page 5. When you get this draft done, please post it into the Essay #3-draft 1 (E3-1) forum in Canvas. We are not doing peer response on this draft, so all you need to do is post it.

Hint for this essay:
I think you will find it makes a huge difference to outline the essay that you choose to write about. You can do an outline a lot of ways, but I suggest that you try going paragraph by paragraph outlining what the paragraph says and does. Here is an example of how you might do it:

By doing this outline, you will have a much better understanding of what either Beck or Staples is saying about the topic of their essay.

You might also consider making some brainstorming lists related to specific examples from your experience that SHOW define how you see this topic from your experience.

Actually, one way to look at this essay is as a DEFINITION essay

Good luck doing this freewriting quick draft. Let it fly and have courage and faith that it will get you somewhere. Let your thinking grow as you write--or should I say "cook."

Good work everyone getting your Essay #2s turned in. And I mean everyone!

All of you got your essay turned in on time!That is great!

Hopefully, you are getting a start on Essay #3 and looking over the new Essay Cycle Assignment sheet (otherwise known as the monster).

I think right now you should be working on understanding the assignment and reading the two essays (by Beck and Staples) to see which one you want to write about.

The next GRE on Subject-Verb agreement is due tomorrow. We work the exercises from the SFH , type our responses, and turn them in to Canvas (not in the Exercise Central site).

Contact me if you have questions as we begin this next essay. Keep up the good work.

LI

Our Essay #2s are due by the end of today!

The assignment is now up and ready for you to post your final drafts.

I am working on the Assignment Cycle Sheet for Essay #3, and I am hopeful it will be up later today.

Please follow the instructions carefully for completing and turning in your essay. These instructions are found within the EC#2 Assignment Sheet.

Bonus Resource:
Use the Standard Editing Marks as you edit your own paper. I think you will find these marks very helpful in editing your own writing. These marks are tools that help you edit better, so I encourage you to use them whenever you edit.

*******************************
Here is the new assignment sheet:
Essay Cycle #3 Assignment Sheet

*********************
CHECK your answers to WK4 GREon sentence fragments and run-ons
Our chief editing/grammar goal for this essay will be to avoid sentence fragments and run-ons, so review these answers and edit your final draft carefully to catch any of these errors. Our secondary goal is punctuation and to avoid comma errors (particularly missing commas after introductory elements).

--hopefully, you see how crucial it is to be able to recognize independent clauses in your sentences. If you are still struggling, go back to some of our WK1 GRE materials.
*********************

Good morning!

I hope that everyone has a good start on their Essay #2. I am nearly done with evaluating the Essay #1s. I want to recopy my description of how to get your full feedback. Canvas is kind of clunky with this feedback. When I write a comment on your paper, I am looking at both your paper and the comment. BUT Canvas sends you just the comment which you receive in your inbox. It is important that you go back to the assignment where you turned in your paper too so that you can see the full feedback.

Where are we in working on Essay #2???

Our focus now is on peer response. I have not separated us into groups for this essay, so respond to who you like. Look for people who have not received at least two peer responses. Share the wealth. Also, you don't have to wait until you have received peer response to do your Writing Review, but it is better if you can wait. Both the Peer Response questions and the Writing Review questions are pasted into the discusson forum for the drafts in Canvas to make it easy for you to copy and paste these questions into your replies to guide you.

We also have our first three Freewriting journals due on Saturday.

Once I Was; Now I Am Essay Hint:
Think of this essay descriptively, that is in terms of what we already have done in the Cuentos Essay with the techniques of description. Remember our concept of trying to "show and not tell" with our descriptions? One way to think of this essay is that you are SHOWING. You are going to "show" how you once were and "show" how you are now.

The best way to show is through short examples of specific events or incidents that reveal and describe. I sometimes call these "example-stories." So if my kernel sentence was, "Once I was a student; now I am a teacher" I might SHOW that I was a student by telling the story of writing a long end of semester paper for my graduate class in Rhetorical Analysis. Then on the once side I might tell the story of grading end of semester research papers in my Freshman Composition II class.

The MORE SPECIFIC (specific place, time, event) the better. You may be talking about a GENERAL truth that covers an extended time and set of events (for instance, I was a student for a long time as I have been a teacher a long time), but when I attempt to SHOW I will seek to use specific instances to represent this general truth.

As you do peer response, see if you can in particular help your peers find specific examples/incidents to demonstrate and show and describe in their paper.

I hope you have gotten a good start to Essay #2 the Once I Was; Now I Am Essay

The E2 Assignment Sheet should guide you well. One thing I will say is that you have to plan out when you will accomplish the reading and the start of the Freewriting Journal on your own this week. I would definitely get to the reading as soon as you can, and at least begin the Freewriting Journal by Thursday (so you can do one journal per day to turn in three by Saturday)

Today we have the invention exercises for Essay #2 due.
After you post your invention exercise, I urge you to read the posts of your peers to see how others are approaching the assignment. It is still early, so you can change your topic if you don't like what you have so far. Please let me know because if you do change your topic I would want you to resubmit an E2 Invent by Wed. No responses needed on these invention exercises. Just read.

Note on Feedback on Essay #1
I am beginning to evaluate your Essay #1s. It may take me until Saturday, so be patient if you have not heard from me until then. I have a couple notes on reviewing this feedback once you get it:

To view your feedback fully
--Go back to your Essay #1 Final draft posted in Canvas
--From there, you can see and hear multiple types of comments
>viewing comments made inside your text by clicking the preview icon
>viewing the evaluation rubric attached to my message to you
>listening to audio commentary through a link in the message to you

I have both a text guide and video guide for viewing feedback on your essays inside Canvas. The one difference I have made to these instructions is I have attached the rubric to my message to you.

Today our Essay #2s are due!!!!

Please post them in the Essay #1 Final Draft assignment.

Below is the Essay Cycle #2 Assignment Sheet for those who want to get a jump on the next essay.

I recommend that you read through the entire assignment sheet to see what we will be doing. Then begin working on it.

Congratulations on finishing your first essay!

TGIF

I hope everyone is doing well with their Cuento and got some good feedback on their story. Now we are on to polishing this story off and turning it in.

Please follow the sequence of activities spelled out in the Essay Cycle #1 Assignment sheet for Tasks 10-12. The essay is "technically" due tomorrow, and I recommend that you get it finished and turned in tomorrow. But if you need more wiggle room on the due date, I will accept it Sunday. The assignment will say due 9/14, but if you get it in 9/15 I won't count it late. (It may put you behind starting Essay #2 a bit though.)

Good luck finishing your Cuento Essays. I look forward to reading them.

*******************
Notes:
1) My apologies for the incorrect instructions for the Writing Review on the Family Story. When I shifted us over to respond in groups, I did not correct these instructions. Please post your Writing Review as a reply to your own essay within the Essay 1-draft 1 forum for your group (like is shows in the video guide for peer response). If you did not post your Writing Review because of confusion, I will still accept it through today.

2) Beware "whale" stories. What I mean by that, is please don't turn in a story that is very very long. Please keep your story to no longer than 3-4 pages (or 750-1000 words). If yours is really long, work on trimming it down within this page limit before you turn it in.

I hope everyone is settling in to this course and beginning to get into a rhythm of work that is do-able for you. If you are struggling, PLEASE contact me. I won't know you are experiencing difficulties unless you tell me.

What you should be up to right now?

GRE WK3 is due today. I will accept it even if it is completed tomorrow. Make sure you do the reading/reviewing/studying component that goes with each week's grammar review. Also, a number of you are jumping ahead and doing exercises for future weeks. I strongly suggest that you not do that.

Peer Response --due by the end of the day Thursday
Follow the guidance found in the EC#1 Assignment Sheet where you will find the peer response questions. Please copy and paste these questions into each response to help guide your responses. I am asking you to do three peer responses and you can do a fourth for extra-credit. You are responding within your team's discussion forum for Essay #1-draft 1 (E1-1). Please look for people who don't have two peer responses yet to do your response. Spread the wealth so one person doesn't end up with five peer responses and another person only has one.

Please view this VIDEO GUIDE for doing peer response. It is made for my English 1301 class and for a previous online learning environment I used, but the principles and approach for doing peer response and writing reviews is the same.

The Writing Review for draft E1-1 is also due Thursday. Make sure you complete peer response before you do your writing review.

The final draft of Essay #1 will be due 9/14--Saturday!

Enjoy doing peer response. You will learn a lot from seeing the draft stories of your peers.

I see many of you got a good start on your Cuento. Fantastic!

We have a draft of the story due today. Remember, it is just a draft. If you recall from my Writing Process powerpoint, writers don't have it all figured out before they sit down and write. They figure it out as they go along. Also, writing in the early stages of an essay, it helps not to be concerned with "correctness" or being perfect. It is a draft and will have gaps and problems in it. But it is important to start and get a version going. So somehow someway get your draft in.

CHANGE NOTICE
I am really enjoying reading your Book Projects, and I hope to finish evaluating them today. What I am seeing is that you all bonded pretty well with your group. So I have opted to keep the groups for peer response in Essay #1-draft 1. Originally, I had opted to let Canvas automatically distribute essays to you randomly (which it can do), but that would have broken up the groups.

Instead, please post your Essay 1-draft 1 into your team's forum inside the DISCUSSIONS part of Canvas.

To post your draft you click the tiny "reply" icon beneath the top message. Then copy and paste in your draft. (It may mess up formatting, and that is ok.)

To do your peer response, you click the tiny "reply icon beneath the text of your peer's essay.

Good luck with your Cuentos. And remember, it is just a draft so just write and tell the story as best you can.

Helpful Hints:
1--Use the techniques of description to your advantage.
2--Use dialogue. See page 3 of the EC#1 Assignment sheet with quick guidance for punctuating dialogue.

I am very much enjoying reading your Books. It is taking me a while, but you should be getting feedback from me on your book soon if you haven't already.

I hope that you have gotten a start on the Cuentos Family Story essay, and I haven't heard problems with getting set up on Exercise Central for the Grammar Review Exercises. I apologize for working off of three different assignment sheets, but I have linked them all here together for your convenience.

We move pretty FAST in this class, so I hope that you have already started on the various assignments that are due this weekend.
Part of what I have assigned you is some pretty heavy reading in our handbook. Handbooks are not the most entertaining texts, and you may not be used to reading this much in a short time. I encourage you to page through a chapter quickly before you read it to get the gist of what it is about. You should be able to skim over some parts.

Time:
The GRE assignment each weak involves some reading and review and then doing an exercise. I set it up so that you would have about an hour of reading/reviewing and then an hour to do the exercises. So take an hour max on chapter 16.

The reading in the handbook and then my Writing Process powerpoint could take you longer, but I would like you to limit the time you spend to 1 1/2 hours. An hour for the handbook and 30 minutes for my materials.

Of course you could take longer, but we have a lot of other things, and I don't want you to get bogged down. OK?

************************************************************
Cuentos Guidance
It will be really important that you get your interview by tomorrow at the latest. I have a lot of guidance in the Cuento Family Story topic sheet on the interview. You need to get that story (cuento) so that you can turn in the brainstorming stuff for Sunday.

I hope that you are having fun with the Cuentos Project. It can be an opportunity to have a special exchange with someone important in your life.
Reminder: Watch out for telling the story of his or her life. You aren't writing a biography. Be sure that you zero in on one event or episode in his or her life.

Today your Book Projects are due!!!

Some of you have already gotten your books turned in. Great! For the rest of you, please turn these in to the Book Project assignment inside Canvas by the end of today. You will upload your book as a file (like you did for the diagnostic essay). See our Course Video on turning in first assignments if you need a reminder on how to turn it in.
***Note: If you have MS Works (not Word), please convert your book to a MS Word file first and upload the .doc version. Alternatively, you could save the book as an .rtf file format. Neither Canvas or I can open a MS Works file.***

Congratulations on crossing this first hurdle in our class. I will look forward to reading these books.
********************************************************

On to Essay Cycle #1!!!

Please open and read the Essay Cycle #1 Assignment Sheet.
--it has everything about all the assignments for the next ten days.

Count on being a bit overwhelmed by the entire assignment sheet, but consider that it has all our work for the next ten days. The key is to get an overview of what we will be doing, and then begin working on the assignment tasks right away. Due dates for ALL work are clearly marked in the EC#1 Assignment Sheet.

**************************
Update on the Grammar Review Exercises (GREs)

I have placed the entire course GREs into a single file: Grammar Review Exercises Fall 2013 . Before I shared information only on Week 2.

For now, if you are confused about accessing the Exercise Central 3.0 site to do the exercises, start with the reading review and I should have a video guide for getting into this program soon.

I am squeezing us a bit starting out with the WK 2 GRE due this Saturday and the WK3 GRE due next Wed. 9/11. From then on, the GREs will be due each Wed. So you will have a bit heavy grammar review this next week than we will going forward. Once again, don't put this work off and plan when you will work on it.

Count on each week's GREs to take two hours to do. This work counts as our "lab hour" component and requirement for the class.

Welcome to English 0301 via the Internet. You probably have a lot of questions about starting the class, so below are ALL the things you need to get started with the class:

Please visit our Checklist for Getting Started with English 0301. It will guide you through getting launched with the class.

Count on taking between 1-3 hours to get oriented to the class. I have included orientation materials for you to go through--be sure you go through it all.

The following are the textbooks you need for this class. Please get them right away (if you haven't already):

Ruszkowitz. The Scott, Foresman Handbook, 9th ed.
Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers.

I look forward to this semester's class, and to working with all of you. Contact me in the meantime if you have any questions--llirvin AT alamo.edu or 486-0672 (email is the preferred way for questions).

***********************************************
Information About the First Assignments
AFTER you complete your course orientation, you can begin working on our first assignments.

We will start working on what I call the Book Project.
--See the Book Project Assignment Sheet, which provides an overview
--Then view the Assignment Sheet for Part A of the Book Project

I have divided the class into groups for this project. Please post your writing pieces for the Book Project in your team's discussion forums:

Book Project Team Members