According, to the Fry graph I have a writing level of 6-7. Sometimes I could see that the Fry graph could be wrong and write. I say this because it doesn't see how you are writing or the content in the writing itself. All that it does count how many syllables and how many lines that you have. Therefore, it is correct from that part of the writing but from the other part it doesn't. The readability could be used for many things, newspapers for one, write their news at a level 8 that away everyone can be able to read the newspaper and understand it. I believe that as I get older, that my readability level will go up because I will go through more training on how to write correct and how to have correct grammar. When blogging I try to write at the same level that I do whenever I am writing a research paper or any kind of paper. Sometimes I think I do and other times I don't because it doesn't seem to be as formal as the other writings that I have done.
IQ question: Who can guess at what readability level newspapers in the U.S. are written???
Today, we are going to assess our READABILITY, which means the personal grade level we are writing at. We are going to do this by means of a formula developed by Edward Fry: the so-called "Fry graph."
What we need:
Three 100-word samples.
Take three different blog entries you have made for this class on our class blog. Copy them into a blank Word document. They can be from the beginning of the semester or the end; it does not matter.
TASK 1:
Now, cut down each of these three 100-words samples down to EXACTLY 100 words. You can use the word count of Microsoft Word by pasting your blog comment into a Word document, or you can copy and paste it into the word count tool. Simply delete all the words over 100, even if you have to stop in the middle of a sentence.
TASK 2:
1) Count the number of sentences in your 100 words sample. (If you had less than 100 words, add more. If you had more, just stop after having counted up to 100, and delete the rest.) Estimate the length of your last sentence, even if incomplete, to the nearest 1/10.
2) Count the number of syllables in your 100 words sample.
3) Make a table as seen in these INSTRUCTIONS. Draw this table on the handout I give you, because you will receive points for it, and I will collect it at the end of today's lesson!
4) Do the same for your second and third 100-words sample.
5) Total your numbers, and average them. (A little bit of math ;-)). You can use the Microsoft calculator ;-)
7) Make a dot on the FRY GRAPH I distributed in class where your personal readability lies. Write your name on the handout with your graph and your table, and submit it to your teacher for grading (I'm not grading the height of your readability, only the fact that you participated and understood the procedure!) There are no make-ups for this assignment.
HOMEWORK for Wednesday:
Post a comment to this blog (100-250 words) about what you think about your personal readability level. Do you believe the Fry graph correctly displays the grade level you're writing at? Why, or why not? What could be missing? What could the readability level be used for? Will knowing your personal readability level change anything about your future writing? Do you think you have a different readability level when you blog than when you write a research article like you did for this class?
1. Steadily the actress walked across the tight rope. 2. Unprepared and tired, the student did his best to make it through the presentation. 3. A generally unappreciated class, English can successfully prepare you for the future. 4. Outside of the elevator waited the girl. 5. I witnessed the girl, so dedicated to finishing her work, lose everything she had. 6. My first office job (more like a small town high school) had many clicks.
1) Word order isn’t all that important. With importance being getting the point across, even if it leaves dangling modifiers, some things will just be understood. Things like how squirrels don’t go to English class, as such people will read the sentence correctly regardless of its inherent meaning. 2) Of course! Style helps a person write their own way, making what they write a little more unique to them in a field of people who are writing and have to personify a voice on their papers. 3) Yes, think we that be’s it more problems than it past before has been. Texting part of the problem is this, probably. 4) Not too much, it seems that those who know the language so well (usually native speakers) seem to lose interest in the rules for word order while ESL populations are so conscious about the word order that as long as they know the rules they attempt to follow it as close as possible. 5) Poets. 6) Poetry. 7) Slightly.
All throughout my school years grammar has always been my worst subject. I have never thought of myself as a good writer and have been told on many different occasions that I do not sound professional at all when I write. Word order is not something that any of my teachers have stressed to me and to be completely honest it is not something I generally ever think about when I am writing. I am sure that the word order I choose in my papers is not good at all but I do not really understand how to make it better. I believe there are some people out there who are talented writers and it is probably very easy for them to write in a very clear, powerful way. But, for me this just isn't the case.
this article was talking about how to write a sentence that doesn't sound bad. Also how to put a correct sentence together even if it sounds good to the ear. the first page was on where you are suppose to put the "me" or "you" when you are talking about another person. i agree with the article because it can teach readers how to write effective sentences correctly. "that" is a word i use more than "which" and i think i would need to change it to "which" because it fits in the sentence better, as according to the article on pg. 268.
a.) I think when I write i am a lot more conscious about the order in which I use words. When I talk I tend to make more mistakes but its nothing drastic.
b.) Sometimes I do to put maybe an extra adjective on the end to describe the subject but I not that profound.
c.) Yes i do because its like we r getn in2 the txting language era
d.) I think overall it is a problem for both of them.
e.) I haven't found any lately because I don't read that much. Throughout middle school and high school I'd have to say Shakespeare caught my attention. It was just different.
f.) The fans threw drinks and food at the team as they walked off the field in an utterly disgraceful manor.
g.) My view on word order hasn't changed but I will think before I speak a bit more nowadays.
Patrick and Carl sentences
1. Some busybodies cause serious trouble.
2. Because I was 3 hours short of graduation requirements, I had to a course during the summer.
3. A hot-tempered tennis player, Chris charged the umpire stand swinging his racket
4. Directly behind the man, stood an evil looking creature.
5. As they got to the top of the roller coaster, which took a long time because it was 250 feet in the air, they turned around and saw the city of Dallas
6. My house - which is almost directly on the county line - had a tree branch fall down on the back porch 2 weeks ago
Today, we are dealing with the grammar topic of WORD ORDER.
Task 1:
Read / skim through the 9-page chapter "The Order of Words" by Ken Macrorie from his book Telling Writing, which is posted here as a Picasa slide show.
Task 2:
Write a comment to this blog (100-250 words) about your personal opinion regarding WORD ORDER.
It should contain at least some of the following issues (you can also add to them):
a) How secure/insecure are you with regard to word order in your writing? b) Do you shift words around for stylistic purposes? If yes, why, when, what for? c) Do you think word order is a problem nowadays for high school and college students? d) Do you think word order is rather a problem for ESL students than for native speakers? e) Are there any public or well-known texts where the word order has caught your attention, or disturbed you? f) Can you give an example sentence where an uncommon word order might be needed for expression or stylistic purposes? g) After reading this article, did your view of the importance of word order change?
If you cannot post to this blog (as a comment, NOT a new thread!!!) because of password issues, I'll either log in for you, or you can email me your post and I will publish it. The purpose of a blog is for your peers to be able to see your responses, so all contributions should be public rather than in an email to your professor ;-)
If you are not in class today and are excused, you can post from home and receive the points. If you cannot post, email your instructor.
Task 3:
Go to this Cliff Notes website and read through the examples. Then, we are doing a little exercise:
Invent sentences with the following structure, and type them in a blank Word document. When you have all your sentences, copy them and paste them into another comment to this blog:
1) one sentence where you begin with a single-word modifier;
2) one sentence where you begin with a modifying phrase or clause;
3) one sentence where you begin with an appositive;
4) one sentence where you put the verb before the subject;
5) one sentence where you delay completing your main statement;
6) one sentence where you insert an interruption as a surprise element, using parentheses or dashes.
If you want, you can work with a partner (maximal: groups of 3). Then, put all your names on the comment when you post your six sentences!
must be the best-written part of the whole research essay
must answer your research question (you can restate it!)
must relate to your Literature Review (example: if one of your article in the Lit Review was against marijuana, and listed reasons for it, but your own survey found out that most people were in favor of it, write about the differences.)
must contain MAJOR findings (Unlike your Results section, which talked about ALL your findings from ALL your questions step by step, the Conclusion only contains the main findings in %.)
must contain speculations/assumptions WHY your findings were like this. You don't need to be "right", since you only assume certain reasons for the answers you got. Example: If you found out that 90% of your surveyed students do not participate in off-campus activities, you might assume that their university work load and their job hours make it impossible for them to participate in off-campus activities....)
must contain implications/recommendations for the practice. Example: If you found out that texting really makes students' grammar worse, you could recommend that teachers instruct their high school students in code-switching, so they become aware that texting lingo is appropriate in informal settings, but not in academic papers.
Today, we are composing the Introduction and Conclusion, and then, our papers are finished - yay!!!
Below are the guidelines for how to compose the
Introduction
don't use the words FACT, PROVE, and TRUTH!!!!
don't use, "the writer brings his point across." Say directly what the message is.
stay general
no quotes
no personal opinions (non-evaluative)
some facts and the status quo of your topic in society today
can (not: must!) include statistics (%) that you got from the Internet. If you use statistics, you need to mention who found them out, and in which year, so that we know if they're still valid. Example: "According to a study of the Ministry of Health Education from 2006, 80% of the U.S. women who get an abortion are white...."
if it is "common knowledge," you don't need to cite your sources. That means, if you get ideas from the Internet that could be common knowledge (i.e., could have been your own perception), then it suffices to say, "according to many students' view, the drinking age in the U.S. should be lowered because...", and then you list reasons you find on the Internet.
last sentence: justify why your research was needed, and what GAP in existing research literature it filled. (Example: all your three sources were from the 1940s-1960s. Your research is from 2009 and gives an up-date on the situation. Another example: your three sources only talked about English students. Your research talks about other content areas, like History, as well.....)
Task1: Go to this website and read about the four components of an abstract:
1) Motivation/problem statement: Why do we care about the problem? What practical, scientific, theoretical or artistic gap is your research filling?
2) Methods/procedure/approach: What did you actually do to get your results? (e.g. analyzed 3 novels, completed a series of 5 oil paintings, interviewed 17 students)
3) Results/findings/product: As a result of completing the above procedure, what did you learn/invent/create?
4) Conclusion/implications: What are the larger implications of your findings, especially for the problem/gap identified in step 1?
Also read the many example abstracts for different fields (social studies, humanities, biology, etc.) offered on this website. This is what your abstract is supposed to look like. Mind the word limit: 150-200 words!
Task 2: Then, compose an abstract for your own research essay, using the "real" data you got back from surveymonkey.
On Wednesday, Nov. 4th, you need to have your completed Literature Review with you in an online version (with the corrections of the visiting Writing Center tutors applied).
In class, we will pair you up with a peer editor, to give the Unit Essay 2 (= Lit. Review) a final polish. You will hand in your Literature Review AS HARD COPY to me coming Friday, Nov. 6th, with your peer editor's comments attached to it.
THERE ARE NO REWRITES!!!!
Your chance for a rewrite was when the Writing Center tutors told you their comments, and when your peer editors gave your essay the final polish. You'll get your final grade for Unit Essay 2 (= 100 points) from me after Friday.
If you were at the Writing Center tutors' workshop last Friday (I count everyone who has signed the sign-up sheet), you will get the points for the workshop automatically. If you missed the in-class workshop last Friday and went to the Writing Center instead, I will give you the points for the in-class workshop as soon as your WC tutor sends me your conference summary in the campus mail. I won't collect any Lit Reviews of people who did NOT attend the workshop, or did NOT go to the Writing Center. Those will be considered an F. You can still hand them in for your Unit Essay 4, but that won't change your F for Unit Essay 2.
Of course, in case I still found a mistake, you need to correct it, because the Lit Review is a component of your Final Unit Essay 4 (the complete research essay; 200 points).
For those who go to the Writing Center because they were sick on the Workshop Day: you'll never know when the Writing Center will have time to fit you in the schedule for an appointment, so you can have an extension, if necessary. However, you need to submit your Lit Reviews so that I can grade them BEFORE you submit your final essay; otherwise, you'll make the same mistakes again in the final essay!!!
Also due on Wednesday: the finished "Participants" and "3 graphs" that we started on today in class. Those are homework. Please put them in the same essay (your template) that you submit to me for grading the Lit Review this Friday. The sections of "Participants" and "3 graphs" are only homework. You also need to repair those, because they are major components of your final essay. next Monday, Nov. 9th, as HARD COPY with your peer editor's comments attached. I won't collect any without peer-edits; those will be an F. THERE ARE NO REWRITES, since your peer editors already pre-edited your essays.
Grade Overview:
Unit Paper 1 (Icarus): 100 points (last rewrites can be handed in on the last day of class before Thanksgiving break!!!) Unit Paper 2: Lit Review (100 points) Unit Paper 3: Annotated Bibliography (100 points) Unit Paper 4: Complete Research Essay (200 points)
All unit papers together = 500 points out of a 1,000.
That means, when you had very good Unit Papers 2 and 3, your very important final essay will also be at least good (even if you were not so perfect in the other components)!!! ;-)
Overview of what we have finished by now (yay!!!):
1. Lit Review 2. Annotated Bib 3. Participants 4. the three graphs (with the REAL numbers, not the fake ones) 5. Annex (= your printed-out surveymonkey report sheet with your data)
What we will do on Wednesday, Nov. 6th:
1. pair you up for peer-editing of the Lit Reviews and Annotated Bibs (homework for the same day; email it back to your peers, so they can hand in their final corrected Lit Review on Friday, and their Annotated Bib on Monday next week!)
3. compose the Abstract
4. find out how to display the "qualitative data" (your open-ended text boxes that were not visible in the pdf report sheet that we printed out in class today)
5. begin to write the Results Section (which will be due on Monday, Nov. 9th)
For those who missed class today, Monday, Nov. 2nd:
Step 1.a: If you have LESS than 10 survey answers, take your own survey (from different computers) until you have 10 answers. Then, proceed as below.
Step 1.b: If you have 10 or more survey answers, click on "Collect," and CLOSE your survey, so nobody can take it any more.
Step 2. Then, click on "Analyze," and then on "Request Download" on the left side. Put the black bullet in "pdf format," and request download. Double-click on the download which appears on top of everything else on the right side of your screen. A zip file will open up your pdf file for you. Double-click on it, and print it out. This will be the Annex of your whole research essay.
Step 3. When you have printed your pdf document (= Annex), open your xls file with the "fake graphs" we created last Wednesday. Put the REAL numbers into your three tables (two were for matrices; one for a question of your choice, but no demographics).
Step 4. When you've created your REAL graphs, click on each picture separately (make sure you highlight the OUTER frame; otherwise, you just copy a little part from inside the graph!!!), right-click, say "copy," and paste it into your Word document (= template of whole research essay, where you also have your Lit Review, Annotated Bib, and participants).
For all:
HAVE YOUR WHOLE ESSAY WITH YOU IN AN EMAIL EVERY DAY, so you can type in the components that are still missing during our in-class workshops!!! Don't leave anything on the desktops; they might be cleaned up!!!
Preview:
The complete Research Essay (with Annex) will be due the last day of class before the Thanksgiving Break, Friday, Nov. 20th!!!
There are NO REWRITES, since we composed almost everything together in in-class workshops, and you could ask for help then. You also had plenty of peer-edits, and my comments on your Unit Papers 2 and 2 (Lit Review, and Annotated Bib).
This Friday, Oct. 30th, six tutors from the Writing Center are going to visit us. They will work with us in groups and go over our Literature Reviews, and teach us about successful peer-editing.
Today after class, I will email the Writing Center tutors your Literature Reviews that you have emailed to me before class today. Everyone who did not submit it will receive a failing grade for this homework assignment. You can still participate in the workshop on Friday with the tutors, but they won't have proofread your essay, and you won't receive any feedback. Those people lose the right to do a rewrite of their final essays.
If you cannot come to the workshop with the tutors on Friday, Oct. 30th, you MUST go to the Writing Center in person (either the center in Morris Library, or the evening-hours center in Trueblood) and have your essay proofread by a tutor there. The tutor needs to write a "conference summary" for me. You need to tell the tutor that; he/she won't do it automatically!!! If you don't attend the workshop, and don't provide a Writing Center conference summary, you will receive a failing grade for the workshop.
Today, Oct. 26th, we are composing our Annotated Bibliography in a class workshop.
It is DUE on Monday next week, in an email to yourself (and cc: to me).
For our in-class workshop today: Instructions & 2 Sample Annotated Bibliographies:How and why to write Annotated Bibliographies Link to an Annotated Bibliography in APA
Link to an Annotated Bibliography in MLA
We will write examples of each version on the board. You need your three sources with your underlined quotes again.
1) Our first activity today is to test-take a survey and grade it with the Survey Grading Rubric. Click on the survey below your name on the list, have a piece of paper and a pen ready, and note down every button that does not work, every option that is missing, every spelling mistake, every wrong deadline or header, etc.!
Then, you are going to give the author of the survey you took WRITTEN feedback (by email; cc to your instructor for grading) of all the mistakes you found in the survey, and all the suggestions/additions you might have. You will also assign a grade and email the author (cc to me) the grading rubric (in the same email, as attachment).
Each student takes the survey of the person below his/her own name on our list on the blog below. The last person on the list takes the first person's survey. This way, every student will receive ONE peer-edit.
For those students who have missed classes: check my grade book for how many unexcused classes you have missed. I give you the unique opportunity of earning up to 3 extra credits to make up for 3 missed days by taking an extra survey per day, and by sending the corrective email and the grading rubric to the author of that survey. You MUST put in your email (in cc to me) that you did it for EXTRA CREDIT; otherwise, I will assume that it is for the mandatory one you did.
2) When you are done test-taking the survey, you can start on your Literature Review.
Basically, you will need the three research articles you have chosen, and which you brought to class today as print-outs, with the quotes underlined which you might want to use in your paper.
The Literature Review is a major component of your research essay and talks about the status quo of current research about your topic - its achievement as well as its shortcomings, which you are trying to fill by adding your own research.
It is a SYNTHESIS of your 3 external sources, not a SUMMARY. Merge, contrast, and compare your sources to one another, and find their shortcomings that you are going to fill with your own research.
You will need meaningful TRANSITIONS between your paragraphs. Don't talk about the first source in the first paragraph, then glue a second paragraph under it talking about the second source, and so on... You need to compare/contrast your sources, and find similarities and differences!
Read the following description of what a literature review is intended for, and of what components it consists.
You can choose whether you want to cite in APA or MLA, but be consistent! On this site, you will find a link to the APA style manual which helps you create the citations for your Lit Review in APA. On this link, you will find a link that helps you to create citations in MLA.
Remember these rules:
Quotes that are under 4 lines go in your text flow and have quotation marks, and you indicate your source in parentheses: (Miller 2008, 59).
Quotes that are 4 lines and over are indented, have NO quotation marks, and also have the source indication in parentheses. (See example text below.)
Then, create your own Literature Review, and type it into a blank Word document. Due date for the finished Lit Review is Monday, Oct. 19th, at class time, as an email to your instructor.
LENGTH REQUIREMENT:
Below is a sample of a Literature Review in APA style which I wrote for an education course:
(This is also the minimum length yours should be; you have 3 external sources, so you need to write 2-3 pages (double-spaced; we'll single-space after our peer editing session to achieve the required format.)
_______________________________________________________
A C.A.L.L. for Fresh Wind in Grammar Teaching: Computer Assisted Language Learning as Best Practice for Literacy Education
Literature Review
Who wants to learn grammar? Let’s put it another way: who wants to teach it? Given that this highly analytical topic with its morphology, etymology, and diagramming is one of the most unpopular curriculum components in English language arts both in the conception of students and teachers, there must be a best practice to convey it in an agreeable, content-immersed manner proper for our computer age. We notice that students in middle and high schools have a more and more limited knowledge of technical terms such as genitive or accusative, but skills in information technology exceeding those of the teachers. Instead of bemoaning the status quo, we should readily address those skills, for in 2012, technological literacy will become part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), or the Nation's Report Card, which means that in addition to reading, writing, math, science, history, etc., the technology literacy of students will be measured nationwide.
This important milestone in educational history justifies a more intense integration of information technology into the classrooms, exposing students and teachers alike to new software products and corresponding skills. Why not try it in grammar teaching? It can be argued that instead of drilling the technicalities of Greek and Roman grammar – a language the modern student does not understand – it might make more sense for teachers to use an alternative approach to teaching grammar, such as by imitation strategy, conveying it in the form of computer-assisted instruction in order to address the needs of the modern student.
More and more constructivist teachers change their methodologies by addressing their tech-savvy young audiences in a motivating way. According to Dexter and Anderson (1999), teachers make use of computer technology along a continuum of instructional styles ranging from instruction to construction, exposing their students to either drill and practice, with computer technology as complementation, or, respectively, to active work for knowledge-building, with computers as a tool (Dexter & Anderson 1999, p. 2). They purport that teachers are not only constant decision-makers, but also learners who have to go with the change in the “nowness” of instruction, and reflect upon their own effectiveness to make their teaching fit modern standards (Dexter & Anderson, 1999, 2).
In their study about teachers’ use of computers in their instruction, and their perception of the changes thus introduced in existent classroom practices, Dexter and Anderson quote one teacher who exemplifies the general attitude of all teachers interviewed by stating that computers are not driving, but facilitating the changes she makes: “It is not like there is a written curriculum for the computer. We kind of put it together as we go along based on the needs of the students. Like I said, we try and connect it as much as possible to what is happening in the classroom.” (Dexter & Anderson, 1999, p. 9)
Putting it together according to the needs of the students is also the aim of the present study about teaching grammar courses by using computer-assisted language learning (C.A.L.L.) in the form of WebQuests, blogs, online survey builders, etc. There are, however, characteristics of C.A.L.L. that Dexter and colleague do not mention – the immanent dangers, such as limited on-task supervision, the proneness to use Internet lingo in academic settings, plagiarism, and the leaving-behind of students who are less fortunate than the excelling tech geeks, such as the case study of an Amish student who had just learned what a computer was, but not yet how to use its higher functions. Kuang-wu Lee (2000) analyzes in detail the barriers of C.A.L.L., namely the financial obstacles, the availability of soft- and hardware, the technical and theoretical knowledge, and the acceptance of the technology. Despite all those adversaries, Lee concludes that what matters is not the technology, but how we use it, and states that
[c]omputers can/will never substitute teachers but they offer new opportunities for better language practice. They may actually make the process of language learning significantly richer and play a key role in the reform of a country's educational system. The next generation of students will feel a lot more confident with information technology than we do. As a result, they will also be able to use the Internet to communicate more effectively, practice language skills more thoroughly and solve language learning problems more easily. (Lee, 2000, n.p.)
While Lee – who tackles the subject from the point of view of foreign language learning – discusses computer technology in general, Zheng and colleagues (2004) go more into detail by describing the perceptions of WebQuests by higher-education learners. After a definition of the role of WebQuests and quotes of what they ought not to be, such as “a panacea for all manner of educational ills,” and “merely worksheets with URLs” (quoted in Zheng et al., 2004, p. 41), the researchers mention the key features of WebQuests: a) critical thinking, b) knowledge application,c) social skills, d) scaffolded learning. Their survey of the perceptions of males and females of their WebQuest learning led to the results that males and females both have equal opportunities to learn from scaffolding (including the components of content comprehension, learning, and goal attainment) as embedded in WebQuests without any gender preferences, and can perform equally well in cooperative learning. Although the researchers stress the difference between the old construct of WebQuests focusing on knowledge application and critical thinking versus the new one of constructivist problem solving, they underline that there cannot be uniform standards for WebQuests established, since they display a wide range of quality and design (Zheng et al., 2004, p. 48).
The present study is going to analyze university students’ perception of their grammar learning through WebQuests and other computer-assisted functionalities, hopefully coming to some general statements where this C.A.L.L. in literacy will lead us in the future.
Today, we are setting the foundation stone for our Unit 2 Essay: a research essay using your own collected data, and incorporating evidence supporting your thesis statement from secondary literature.
Our background will be Chapter 7 in our textbook. Homework for Wednesday is to read Chapter 7 (it's about "evidence").
Each student needs 3 external sources for evidence from which you'll cite in APA or MLA style (we'll review how to do this in class).
Your evidence may solely come from peer-reviewed research articles you found at research data bases, such as JSTOR, ERIC, and Google Scholar.
Hint: JSTOR requires a password if you try to access it from off-campus. Therefore, log into Morris Library first with your DAWG tag number, and then go to JSTOR and search for your topic. If you are on-campus, you can go to www.jstor.org and simply search the database.
We are going to write this big essay in separate workshops in class, and you will finish up the different components as homework. If you miss classes, you have to check on the blog what we did during the workshop, and make up for it at home. We are going to work with deadlines, and if you miss them you won't get your survey answers in time to analyze and report them.
Purpose of surveys:
We are going to do opinion surveys, attitude surveys, or perception surveys with the general public, or special audiences you might choose (e.g., students; but NO SIU FACULTY!!!), in order to collect data that deal with our research essay topics.
If we only related what our 3 external sources say about our topic, we would write a REVIEW essay; however, we are going to do a real RESEARCH essay, that means we collect our own data about people's opinions, and THEN we'll use external sources to compare our findings with theirs (either affirm, or contradict, or expand).
Topics:
You are free to choose ANY topic you like!!! :-) However, you must be able to find 3 research articles about your topic.
You can also choose topics from this list:
1. Do shocking images in anti-drug campaigns help prevent teenage drug abuse? like these ;-( 2. Does texting make students' grammar and writing worse? 3. Does the moral life of politicians influence voters' behavior? 4. Should ENG290 be offered as online course? 5. Does high school prepare students well enough for college essay writing? 6. Should art be aesthetic or political? 7. Should abortion be a decision of the mother-to-be? 8. Should euthanasia be legalized in the U.S.? 9. Should the attendance policy in college be abandoned? 10. Should cannabis for self-consumption be legalized in the U.S.? 11. Should the drinking age in the U.S. be lowered from 21 to 18? .... etc.
HERE is a sample survey that students in 2008 have done as a group project on the topic of Genetics & Enhancement.
HERE is an example of a research essay as one of your 3 required external sources. It would be for a survey (research paper) about cosmetic surgery. It's called: "Cosmetic Surgery: Beauty as a Commodity," and was written by Debra Gimlin in 2000, and published in Qualitative Sociology 23 (1).
Today, you will pick a topic you are interested in, and we will put your topic on this blog next to your name. It will later be hyperlinked to your survey.
What we do in class today (workshop):
1) Choose a topic 2) Find 1 research article online about topic (the other 2 are homework for next Monday). Email this article as an attachment to yourself. You need to print it out at home, and to submit it to me with your final essay (can have annotations and underlining). 3) Begin to create survey. We'll continue in another class workshop.
For creating your online survey, you need to log into your email account to retrieve the log-in and password I sent you. Then, go to this website: http://www.surveymonkey.com/, and log in as a member.
Create a new survey, and give it a title according to this model: firstname_lastname_topic, such as: christina_voss_anti-drug_campaign Choose a background color, and begin typing your questions (we'll model that in class).
You don't need to SAVE your survey; surveymonkey automatically saves while you are typing, so you can simply log out in the end and continue later.
Rules: 1. You need a minimum of 20 questions (a maximum of 24; no more!) 2. The first four questions must be demographic (age, gender, race, provenance, years of experience, income, level of education, GPA, etc.) 3. You must have at least 2 matrices, and 2 open-ended text boxes. Vary your other questions' layout (vertical, horizontal, one choice, multiple choices, etc.). Your topics:
Today, we are creating the rubric for our unit essay 1.
I have invited the Writing Center tutors to join our class, and before they come we will give them our papers and rubrics, so they know what the prompt was, and how the work will be evaluated.
While it is not clear yet whether the tutors will come for unit 1 or 2 or even later, we will practice making rubrics. If you missed the class where we all created our passwords, you MUST create your Rubistar password today in class (or from home, if you are not here today) in order to participate in the Writing Center activity. Log into Rubistar with your password (or create a new profile, if you don't have one yet): http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
We are going to create the rubric together, but each rubric will be a little bit different, depending on how you define what would be an A, B, C, D, or F paper. We will most likely all have the same components (such as title, thesis statement, etc.). They need to be weighed in % or points according to importance (e.g., content is more important than spelling).
In order to find out which components we need, look at the original blog prompt for the Icarus essay. Don't just create a rubric component called "follows the prompt," but split it up into meaningful categories. Some people might follow the prompt in 5 steps, but forget to do steps 6 and 7, and you can't say, "didn't follow the prompt" and assign a bad grade for that. This is why you need to specify a bit more.
We will hyperlink all the rubrics we've created to this blog entry, so I can grade them and you have access. Therefore, once you've created your rubric, email yourself the hyperlink, come to the smartboard computer, open your email, get your hyperlink, and put it on this blog. If you don't finish in class, finish your rubric and email me the hyperlink; I will put it on the blog for you then.
Today, you can finish up and finalize your essays, and email them to me for a group grade (first 15 minutes).
The groups that are already done can begin to fill in the study guides 5 + 6 (everybody by himself/herself) which are in your emails.
REMEMBER: No class this Friday, Sept. 25th, since teacher will be at a meeting!!!!!!!
HOMEWORK for Monday is to read chapter 6, and to finish up and print out and bring both study guides.
On Monday, we will have a workshop to start our UNIT 1 essays. Length requirement: a minimum of 3 pages double-spaced, font 12. The essay will be an ANALYSIS, and similar to the Blagojevich and George Grosz texts we've already done. You need to develop different paragraphs for your analysis, in analogy to the "blue comments" we've worked on.
You will receive a grading rubric for the UNIT 1 essay, and the PROMPT on Monday.
Today, we are going to get together in our essay groups again.
STEP 1: The groups will receive the rubrics and corrected essays from their peer editors.
STEP 2: Each group will discuss the peer editors' comments and decide which ones to accept, and which ones to reject. The writer of each group will make the accepted changes to the group's essay.
STEP 3: Each group will come before the class, pull up the group's essay on the smartboard, and explain to the class what changes were recommended, and what changes have been made. The group will talk about the (different?) grades it has received from the peer editors.
STEP 4: The group will email the final, corrected essay to the instructor for a group grade.
STEP 5: When each group has presented, give your peers' comments (rubrics, and corrected essays) to the instructor, so that the peer editors can receive credit for having done their homework! Peer editors: make sure you have written your name on the rubric you've created, and on the essay you've annotated!!!
HOMEWORK for Wednesday: Go to this Read/Write/Think website that teaches a middle school class about peer editing. Read through the whole website, and learn about the THREE STEPS OF PEER EDITING:
compliments,
suggestions,
and corrections.
As an exercise, edit the 4th grade essay that got 6 points, the essay that got 5 points, and the essay that got 2 points. Copy and paste the original essay text into a blank Word document. When you edit, apply the three steps. Write your corrections either in red, or with bold print, or with comment fields on the exiting paper, so that one can still see the original version. Remember to stay positive (you don't want to discourage the little kids by "bleeding on their papers"! However, they should also learn from their mistakes.).
Print out your peer editing sheets, and submit them to your instructor on Wednesday. You'll get them back a few days later to put them in your portfolio.
Info: I've invited the Writing Center tutors to visit our class for one of the 4 unit essays we are going to write and peer-edit this semester. It is not clear yet WHEN the tutors will come, but we will be well prepared and know about peer editing and creating rubrics before they practice a sample tutoring session with us.
If you are sick or missing that presentation day for any other reason, there is only one way to make it up: by taking your own essay to one of our Writing Centers (e.g., in Morris Library or Trueblood), and undergoing a documented tutoring session of 50 minutes (with a written confirmation to me by your tutor).
A. Today, we will spend the first 15 minutes for finishing up our group essays (picture analysis of "Pillars of Society" by George Grosz).
When you're done, email me your group essay. I will email all group essays out to every ENG290-5 student. Then, each student will choose ONE essay to peer-edit (NOT your own one!). This will be your homework for Monday next week:
you will print out your own grading-rubric that you are creating today,
will choose one essay to peer-edit,
will high-light or color all mistakes you find in that Word document, write comments and annotations on it, and repair errors,
and will check-mark on your printed rubric what grades that group gets for each category that you have determined.
Then, you'll define an overall grade for this group's essay.
On Monday, you will present your grading rubric and grade to the whole class, and give the group members your printed-out grading rubric and email them their corrected essay, so they can make the revisions you suggested.
B. We will spend the next 35 minutes of class modeling how to create a grading rubric for our Unit Paper 1 (Analysis).
The good thing is: YOU will determine what you want to grade with the rubric.
Then, you will create your own Rubistar rubric for what is important for you to grade when you peer-edit essays.
That also means you must stick to your own guidelines. Here is an example rubric that I developed for a theater play (script writing task) for middle school students. It was created with Rubistar. This is a free software for teachers and tutors to create rubrics online. Their students can click on a link and see their rubric that the teacher sends them in an email, or puts on his/her website.
Of course, we deal with a research essay, which means that there are different qualifiers than for a script. Qualifiers for a script (including performance) might be:
1. story was based on original text (book made into a play, for example) 2. characters were well developed 3. presenters remembered their roles' texts 4. presenters spoke audibly and with agreeable tone and inflection 5. group showed team spirit and distributed all tasks equally 6. written task was submitted on time 7. costumes were well chosen (or, developed) 8. props (equipment) and stage were well developed
YOU get to decide what you want to grade about a research essay (an analysis). Establish certain criteria first, and put them in order according to importance: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) etc.
TIP: a good idea is always to look at the prompt for the assignment!!! What were the original things I asked you to do with your picture analysis? Have they been fulfilled? Then, add your own qualifiers.
You need to have a certain hierarchy of your qualifiers, i.e. you need to weigh them. There are always components that are of major importance in a task, and others that are of minor importance. For example, if the tone of the speakers is more important to you than their costumes, you could determine that the tone is worth 30% of the overall grade, and the costumes are worth 10% of the overall grade the artists will get for their staging. Make sure your percentages add up to 100%!
Thus, a student who speaks loud enough but has a simple costume might get a better grade than a student who whispers so that the audience cannot understand him, but has a very elaborate costume. You can figure out the overall grade by weighing your qualifiers. If a student has all A's in the important qualifiers, but a C in something that is only worth 5% or 10% (like, for example, the costumes), this student will still get an A overall. But if a student writes a script in which the characters are not well developed (which should be a major requirement), he will get a C or D, even if he speaks loud enough and wears a nice costume.
MODELING OF RUBRIC CREATION
STEP 1: In order for you to create your own grading rubric (that you will later use for peer-editing one of our group essays), you will need to log into Rubistar. Click on sign up and fill in your new user form.
STEP 2: Then, click on "choose a customizable rubric below." (The only one that makes sense for our Analysis assignment.) When you define the qualifiers for your rubric in the menu list on the left, also click on the button that says, "no, my rubric is permanent." If you don't do that, you will say, "yes, my rubric is a temporary rubric," which means your rubric will be lost as soon as you print it out for your use. However, if you choose the first option (what we will do), your rubric won't be deleted after you have printed it out (and we can't print from our room!), but will always be available online until you delete it from your profile.
STEP 3: Fill in your rubric. In the left column, you put your qualifiers. You can either select from what is already there, or invent them by yourself.
On top, you put how you want to grade; either in points, in words, or in letter grades (for example: 100 pts., 50 pts., 0 pts.; or: "basic," "intermediary," "advanced"; or: A, B, C, D, F).
Then, you put in each column what your student (i.e., the peer/group whose essay you are peer-editing) has to do.
For example, in the A column, put "student forgot 0-1 sentences when performing," in the B rubric put "forgot 3-4 sentences," in the C rubric, "forgot 5-6 sentences," etc.
HAVE FUN!!!
P.S. I will grade what you present on the Smartboard on Monday. (You will show the class your rubric, and talk about what your suggestions / changes regarding the essay were. You will pull up the essay on the Smartboard and show what changes you made. Therefore, it would be easier to edit the essay in the Word document (with bold print or red marker) than on an actual paper copy. So make sure your rubric is "permanent," and that you have emailed the corrected essay as well as the Rubistar link to your rubric to yourself!)
Today, we are going to do the same exercise as on Monday, just the other way round: you will be given the comments (in blue), and you have to compose the argument analysis that corresponds to those statements. Work in groups of 2-3. When you're done, email me your essay for participation points, and don't forget to put the names of all your group members on your essay.
You will describe the famous picture above. It is by Georg Grosz and is called "Pillars of Society" ("Stuetzen der Gesellschaft" in German).
In order to analyze this picture, you will need some background knowledge about it, as well as about the time it deals with, and the artist who created it, in order to understand what the artist "wanted to say with it."
Here are your cues:
A. Use meaningful transitions when you proceed from one paragraph to the next! Transitions could be: Thus, accordingly, contrarily, in the same vein, in opposition, another approach to ... could be, as Grosz himself stated, when compared with, etc.
B. INVENT A TITLE FOR YOUR ANALYSIS
C. Start with an ATTENTION CATCHER (one sentence that relates daily life to the topic of the picture).
1. Writer names the issue, relating the title of the picture to its main purpose. Writer redefines linguistic implication of who is ususually called a "pillar" of a society, and who it is in this case. Which society does Grosz mean?
YOUR TEXT
2. Writer describes the tone/feeling/attitude of the picture.
YOUR TEXT
3. Writer describes the picture in detail, discussing binaries ofeach figure depicted.
YOUR TEXT
4. Writer analyzes meaning of picture based on Grosz' background (his life, his aims, his state of mind, his feelings towards the society he lived in).
6. Writer discusses effectiveness of this picture (personal opinion AND implication what it must have meant for Grosz to display that picture in the society he depicted).
YOUR TEXT
7. Writer discusses whether this picture can be called "ART." (Grosz was a Dadaist. Writer needs to explain what the Dada movement was before criticizing it.)
YOUR TEXT
8. Writer concludes with his/her personal opinion about Grosz' advice to artists what the purpose of their pictures should be.
Each month (September, October, November, December), we will write ONE big ESSAY. The first essay prompt will be distributed when we have finished chapter 6.
Today, we are tackling chapter 5. We are going to imitate exactly step by step how to analyze an argument stated in a newspaper article. (Guided practice.) This will provide you with a model of how to proceed when you are writing your unit paper later.
Homework for Wednesday, Sept. 16th, will be to read chapter 5.
In-Class Activity: (First as a whole-class approach; later in partner work.)
STEP 1: look in your textbook on page 78-82. Here are scans for those who forgot to bring their textbooks.
Read the description of the diagram on page 78, and be prepared to apply what you have learned about premises and revising the thesis before coming to a conclusion.
STEP 2: we will start to go through the sample essay ("Playing by the Antioch Rules") together, paragraph by paragraph, to explain what the author did (the blue comments in parentheses).
STEP 3: while doing so, we will perform analogous steps with this essay about Blagojevich. Instructions: Go to the link of the Blagojevich article, and copy and paste the text into a Word document. Delete the pictures and icons, for we only need the text (in black). Save it on your desktop. You are going to type your own comments in blue under the text (according to our example in the textbook, pp. 79-82).
We'll do the first few blue comments together. Then, work with one or two neighbors, and type blue comments under each coherent paragraph/statement of the Blagojevich article. When you're done, email me one document per group, and don't forget to indicate all your group's members!
This ad is clearly stating that the Champion brand shoe is a great shoe to buy. Underlying that message is also a statement saying that this shoe isn't just worn, it's walked by the owner. The shoe guides you, just as if it were your pet on a leash, it wants control.
This Ad focus is to let one know that being a smoker, will most likely kill you. However, it also makes the statement that your smoking can also kill children simply from second-hand smoke.
In this picture it is an advertisement for Captain Morgan. However, it also shows that if you are a guy and you drink Captain Morgan, then you have have very hot and beautiful women be all over you.
The most obvious part of this advertisement is the large man on the building. It seems to be showing that if you join the Powerhouse Gym, you will get as big as him. Because of the construction, the advertisement could also be saying that you are not a complete person until you have developed your body.
This image is telling people to go vegetarian. Over 55,000,000 animals are killed per year because we like to eat meat. This ad uses a women wrapped up in plastic to show how awfull killing animals is because humans are animals too. This ad also shows us that no matter how ugly or beautifull an animal is it is still just as bad to kill them. When we see an attractive women killed and being sold we realize just how bad it is to kill animals and sell them for human consumption
What is seen in this picture is an advertisement that all animals (including humans) are all composed of the same parts. Likewise, since meat and flesh are all parts of animals the PETA organization is claiming that for that reason people should go vegetarian. On the other hand, this ad could really be objectifying women. Simply a male could have been used in this ad, but instead a woman was used because of her beauty and close relation to the words that are inscribed on her. Is this ad claiming that all vegetarians are women? As well the website where this ad was found had an interesting statement that can relate to that cow in the picture,"Because women and cows are alike, right? And you wouldn’t eat a woman so you shouldn’t eat a cow?"
This ad seems to be an ad against McDonalds, however it could also be trying to show the growing issue of obesity in children in America.
The gatorade ad is expressing the effort and dedication that is needed to be a winner like Tiger Woods. In comparison to using gatorade to aid or help achieve the success Tiger has achieved as well.
This ad is jokingly saying that if you party with with some hot girls when you're married it will lead you to cheat and then will lead to divorce. However, it is really trying to state that there is a growing rate of divorce in America and it sadly is about 50%.
This ad seems to just be about fathers day but when you think about what it says at the top and read durex at the bottom it is actually an ad for condoms, saying that their product is the best and you shouldn't use others because you will end up a father.
Although this clearly is an add for Tequila, it also seems to be saying that American women will get "wild and crazy"(thanks Steve Martin), when they drink...What evey guy wants when buying a round of Tequila shots! Anybody disagree?
This axe ad wants to imply that wearing axe will be a better way to pick up girls than having a puppy. The ad might also want you to believe that if you wear axe, you will look like the man in the ad.
This advertisement seems to make fun of our fascination with nutrition facts by putting it on rubbish bins, but it really relates to the fact that some people receive their meals, and therefore their only nutrition, from trash. We must be aware of this.
Look at the following three pictures. They are excerpts from the graphic novel version of C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from the Chronicles of Narnia.
Even if you don't know the story, try to interpret those three pages -- what might they allude to? What story do they remind you of? What can they mean in a figurative sense?
Try to go more into detail -- what does the broken stone table stand for? Can you find other "symbols" that could represent something else?
In-Class Practice II: Group Work
Get together in the groups you worked in last time, and solve the numbers 2-9 on page 55 in your textbook. Below is a scan of the page, in case you forgot to bring your textbook. What implications can you detect in the statements? (Number 1 is an example.) Take some notes, and present your findings to the class.
In-Class Practice III: Individual Work
Look at pages 64 and 65 of your textbook. Read about the formula "Seems to Be about X, but Could Also be (Is Really) about Y."
Then, find an ad on the Internet (with an image or video) that seems to be about one thing, but really deals with another thing. Open a new blog thread, insert your picture or hyperlink your video, and compose a short statement similar to the example of the Nike Freestyle commercial evaluation at the bottom of page 64, analyzing why your ad has an implicit meaning.
If you don't finish in class, you can finish it up at home.
Homework for Friday, Sept. 11th:
Read chapter 4. On Friday, we are doing the study guides for chapters 3 and 4, so review the content.
Walking the dog through the havoc the night after the storm,
I stumbled over those two fledglings, one dead, one still alive,
In a front yard of cat-owners.
Whilst death was certain here, I wondered
Whether my feathered friend would stand the slightest chance
If I took it home.
My dog meanwhile carried its sibling.
Eating moist dog food from tweezers
Birdie survived the night. On the first day
It grew kind of accustomed to my hand. It was still raining.
On the second day, it greeted me with a faint peep when I came in the door.
It still rained.
On the third day, it hopped on my lap.
I did not need the tweezers any more.
It ate out of my fingers.
On the fourth day, the sun was finally shining. We practiced flying in the backyard. It talked to me in its squeaky little voice. The next day would be back to nature.
On the fifth day
When I looked into the cardboard box where it was sleeping
