Class, Tues, 10/18

Planning Your Second Essay

• In Workshop Groups: Finding Materials: Read aloud the sections of your plans in which you describe the project of repair you intend to write about. As a group, come up with a new source that each writer can use in their essay.
• In GTA Groups: Connecting to Spelman: Briefly describe the topic of your second essay. As a group, brainstorm some ways each author might connect their essay back to Spelman.

Documenting Sources

The point is to allow your readers to easily access the texts you are writing about. The key information they need to do so responds to four basic questions.

Who? When? What? Where?

Chicago Style of Documentation [pdf]

To Do

1. Thurs, 10/20, class: Come to class with four copies of a 500-word draft of e2d1, a thick description of the project of repair you want to write about.
2. Mon, 10/24, 4:00 pm: Post e2d1, a 1,000-word thick description of a project of repair, to your group Google Drive folder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Planning your second essay (p2)

A plan for your second essay is due on Monday, 10/17. This plan does not need to be a polished essay, but it should show careful thought and work.

Identify the project of repair you want to write about. Be specific. For example, don’t just say you want to write about calls for reparations on college campuses. Tell us you want to study the demands for reparations at, say, Brown or Amherst or Georgetown or UDel (after the “noose” incident). Or, don’t just say that you want to write about how speech therapists  help people. Identify a particular problem some people have with speaking and how therapists address that problem.

And then tell us how you are going to research this particular repair project. What will you read, or watch, or listen to? Who will you talk to? When will you do this?

I encourage you to draw on your own experience in writing this essay. But you cannot draw only on your experiences. You must do either some field research (interviews, observations) and/or some archival research (books, articles, videos, etc.).  I would thus be surprised and concerned if you submitted a plan that did not include a list of references.

So your plan needs to include these two elements:

1. A precise statement of the project of repair you want to write on;
2. The text you will either read, watch, or listen to, and/or the people you will interview or observe, in order to learn more about that project. I will expect citations, URLs, and/or names and dates of interviews.

A 1,000-word description of your project of repair is due on Monday, 10/24, so you will need to plan to do the reading/interviewing/observing listed in part #2 during next week.  So I encourage you to get to work!

Deadlines

1. Mon, 10/17, 4:00 pm: Post your plan to your group’s shared Google Drive folder. (I will invite you  to this folder on Friday. Title your document <lastname p2.docx>.
2. Tues, 10/18, class: Bring a print copy of your plan to class. Also bring a folder of the materials you will be working with. These materials may be digital or on paper, but you should have read, watched, or listened to them already. If you are planning to conduct interviews or observations as part of the research for your essay, you should have them completed or scheduled at this point.
3. Mon, 10/24, 4:00 pm: Post e2d1, a thick description of the project of repair you are writing about, to your group Google Drive folder. Title this document <lastname e2d1.docx>.

 

Class, Tues, 10/11

My thoughts after your plans and conferences.

Bull Durham (1988)

Essay Two

Project, Materials, Adding to Spelman

Trade drafts with a partner. Read through the essay. When you are done, write the author a note in which you complete the following three sentences:

• “Your project in this essay is to . . .”
• “The materials you work with include . . .”
• “You add to Spelman’s ideas about repair by . . .”

When you have completed your note, go back to the essay and mark those moments in the text where the author (a) articulates her project in the essay, and (b) states what she is adding to Spelman’s ideas. If you can’t identify those moments in the text, point to where you would expect to find them.

Copy Editing (Lite)

Go back through the essay you’re working once more, this time with a pen in your hand. Circle or draw a squiggly line by

• Typos, misspellings, repeated words, missing words
• Things that look odd (extra white space, changes in font, ¶s that seem too long, etc.)

Make sure that

• All quotations have a page reference
• The titles of books, movies, magazines, and websites are italicized

Formatting

• Document: 1.25″ margins, different first page
• Paratext: title info and running head, sans serif
• ¶s: 0.25 or 0.5 indent, 1.5 spacing, 6 points between ¶s, serif
• References: alphabetical by author, hanging indent, serif

Writing Geek

Pilcrow

Pilcrow

¶ (option + 7): Paragraph break (now marked by an indent or extra space between lines). See Wichary, “First In, First Out”.

To Do

1. Wed, 10/12, 4:00 pm: Email the final draft of your first essay, saved as a Microsoft Word document, to your GTA and me. Name your document: <lastname e1.docx>.
2. Thurs, 10/13, class: Have two good ideas for a “project of repair” that you’d like to write about in your second essay. Be ready to spend time in class locating texts that you might discuss in your writing.

Conferences, Wed, 10/05, Thurs, 10/06, Fri, 10/07

134 Memorial

Class, Tues, 10/04

Taking Stock

• Essay One
• Grades
• Plans and Conferences

Developing a Plan

Exchange proto-drafts with the person next to you. Your task as a reader is to help your partner create a plan to develop this proto-draft into a full-fledged essay.

Read the draft with a pen in your hand. As you go along, mark passages that strike you as strong, that the writer will want to keep pretty much as is, with a solid line. Mark passages that the writer might want to rework or cut with a squiggly line. Draw arrows indicating points where you think the writer could say more, develop their line of thought or add an example, and then add a brief note suggesting what that “more” might be. (See my sample annotations.)

Check also on some details. Does the essay have a strong title? Does the writer make the sources of their examples clear—whether these come from experience, observation, or reading? If the writer discusses other texts than Spelman, do these appear in a list of references?

Finally, while your main task here is not line-editing or proofreading, if a typo or mistake jumps out at you, circle it.

Take your time. I want you to spend at least 15-20 minutes working on this piece. Err on the side of over-annotating. Sign your name when you’re done so the writer can thank you in their acknowledgments.

Fastwrite

Add 200 words (or more) to your essay.

To Do

Before you leave today: Make sure you know when and where you are meeting with your GTA and me. Make sure you give each of us a copy of your proto-draft.

1. Wed, 10/05, Thurs, 10/06, and/or Fri, 10/07: Bring your annotated draft to your conferences with your GTA and me.
2. Tues, 10/11, class: Bring a print copy of an all-but-final draft of your first essay with you to class.
3. Wed, 10/12, 4:00 pm: Email the final version of your first essay, saved as a PDF, to both your GTA and me.
4. Thurs, 10/13, class: Have at least two good ideas for “projects of repair” that you’d like to write about in your second essay.