We're Halfway There!

Class,

A few things.

Stage IV

First of all, several of you have been asking questions about Stage IV, how to pull it together, how to format it, etc. Stage IV is an essay about your research -- what are you investigating? why is it important? how are you investigating it? what did you learn from your research? It's all about explaining what conclusion you've come to based on your investigation.

Any of the articles we've read this semester are doing something similar to what you need to do in Stage IV. For example, Flower's research question was likely -- how do experienced and inexperienced readers differ when they interpret a text. She explained how what she was studying connected to other ideas, explained why it was important, and then proceed to describe her research, and finally, her conclusion -- that it all comes down to rhetorical strategies. So using the articles we've read this semester as models is a good approach, though of course, your audience and purpose are unique.

 Here is another example from a former student. This particular example was draft 2 for this student, and she still continued to make revisions afterwards based on my feedback (which you can see!).

 Any other questions or concerns? Feel free to post below.

For Monday

On Monday, we're going to be completing an in-class reflective assignment, almost like a mini-portfolio. In order to do this, you'll need your graded copies of stages 1-3.

	Grade Received	Instructor Comments or Suggestions	Revisions Made/Plan to make	What you learned from this assignment
S1
S2
S3

Mid-term Reflective Writing Assignment

Think about the below questions and use them to prepare a response reflecting on the progress you’ve made so far this semester. Please prepare your response on a separate sheet of paper. It should be at least one handwritten page.

●     What do you know about yourself as a writer now that you didn’t know before? What strategies have you learned to use to make your writing more effective?

●     What were the important questions for you?

●     Where do you see glimmers of understanding? What do you still need to work out in your mind? Where do you see yourself not being able to say/do what you wanted to?

●     What have you learned about composing, about rhetoric, about revision, about yourself?

●     What were the things that helped you learn?

●     What were the challenges you faced so far this semester? How did you deal with those challenges?

●     What do you still want to know more about?

If you know you're going to be out on Monday, please complete the assignment and return to me during your appointment (which you'll have to email me for after your scheduled class meeting on).

Which brings me to my final topic!

Conferencing Appointments

Weeks 9 and 10 will be dedicated to one-to-one conferencing, which will take place in my office during our regularly scheduled class time. We will be discussing your Stage IV drafts. We will not be having class for these days. Use this time to work on your Stage IV revisions. You will be signing up for your appointment in class on Monday (so again! better be in class).