Two Examples of Effective Reflective Cover Essays from Fall 2008.

Examples of effective reflective cover essays/letters, ENG 112, Fall 2008.

As always, write with questions.

Steve

Examples of Effective ENG 111 Course Portfolios

I have posted this link in this week's assignments, but here it is another time. Remember, suspenders and belt are best insurance.

I am looking for examples for ENG 112; but, so far, I've only found two from sections a year old.

As always, write with any questions.

Steve

The link to the assignments for week fourteen is now active.

Get started on your portfolio.  It's due Tuesday, 11 May, at 9:30 in my office, Massey 231.

Steve

Assignments Links for Weeks Twelve and Thirteen Are Now Active

The assignments links for weeks twelve and thirteen are now active.

Please note, because I will be delivering a paper at and attending the VCCS New Horizons conference next Thursday, 7 April, we will have no physical class.  However, I have designed the work over the next two weeks in such a way that you should learn as much or more from doing it as you would in class.  More, I've designed it to allow you to practice and re-inforce the research and research paper writing skills you've learned so far this semester.  I think you'll find the research paper topic more interesting and personally useful than doing a rhetorical analysis of King's "Letter." 

As always, one of the tricks to success is to fully read and make sure you understand the assignment.  The second trick, as always, is to start the assignment as early as possible; hence, you'll give yourself a chance to do your best work.  Finally, the last trick is to, as always, write me with any questions.

Steve

Announcements for 25 March

1.  Your assignments link for the week has been made active.

2.  We will not meet today in 206.  I gave much thought to meeting with you in class today, and I realized there was little to be gained, and you would learn more by getting started working on finishing your King research paper.  The way one learns proofreading--the only new topic for this week--is by practice and trying out techniques until one finds a set which works with where one is as a writer.  I've outlined the most common proofreading/editing techniques on a web page to which I've provided a link.  As you finish up the revisions of your King paper and come to the stage where you are satisfied with it, then proofreading begins.  Try out one or two techniques.  Do try the one which involves getting someone else to proof your work, but--in addition to asking them to proof--make sure you ask them, "What's the one thing I could learn to do in terms of grammar and usage which would make my writing clearer?"  This is the next thing you should work on fixing in terms of your grammar.  Ask me for help when you find your answer.

3.  Most of your week will be spent reading through, revising, and improving your King paper. Make sure to schedule your week with enough time to go through multiple revisions, format the paper in MLA style, create a Works Cited page, and have your printer run out of ink.  One of the tricks you should be learning in terms of writing process is to start early enough that you plan for problems to crop up and be fixed.  You've been working on this paper in stages all semester, just pull it out here at the end.

4.  One final note, whenever I have a physical paper due, especially one folks have been working on as long as you have the King paper, the universe seems to conspire to make absences jump through the roof on the day the paper is due.  Even if you don't have the paper done and ready to hand in, come to class on 1 April.

5.  The 6-8 April, I will be out of town presenting at New Horizons--a Virginia Community College Conference on teaching innovations.  [We won't have a physical class, but don't worry.  I'll have work for you to do.]  Many of you were in the "Getting a Clue" learning community last fall.  Miles McCrimmon, Jena Morrison, and I will be presenting on the course design at the conference, letting the rest of the system know about survivingsarge.pbworks.com, and maybe getting a teaching award.  As part of preparing for this award, we created a video presentation which stars some of your writing and the basic elements of the course design.  I thought those who were involved might like to view the video, so I've included a link to it below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuqAzlogdo0

As always, write with questions.

Steve

Welcome back from Spring Break

Welcome back.  I hope you return rested, safe, and ready to hit the ground running.

Remember, your reflective essay must be posted to your blog or ready to hand into me by Thursday, 25 March at the beginning of class.

25 March is the last day to withdrawal from a class with a grade of "W."  In doing your mid-term reflective essay, you've discovered that your learning or performance warrants a grade of a "D" or an "F," then you should consider withdrawing from the course.  While a withdrawal may impact your standing as a full-time student, a "W" on your final transcript looks much better than a "D" or an "F."  "D"s don't transfer, but they may count toward graduation in most AA majors.  If I can answer any questions to help with this decision, write.

Remember, your reflective essay should shoot for four or five pages in which you review your performance in the class with an eye toward improvement, argue for the grade your performance and learning warrant, and--most important--use fully developed PEA paragraphs to reflect on what you have learned this semester and to provide examples, evidence, and analysis from your work which help "prove" your learning.  You'll be writing a similar reflective essay at the end of term as a cover essay for your final portfolio.

Also remember that the final draft of your King research paper/rhetorical analysis is due on 1 April.

It's Spring Break, but...

Remember your two upcoming deadlines, and plan your work accordingly:

1. By Thursday, 25 March, you should have completed a 4-5 page reflective essay in which you argue for the grade you've earned so far this semester, critique your performance in the class with an eye toward a plan for improvement, and--finally and with the bulk of the paper--develop a series of PEA paragraphs describing your learning (in detail) throughout the semester.

2. By Thursday, 1 April, you should have finished a final draft of your King paper, published it to your blog and handed it into me in print form.  This paper should include parenthetical, MLA form citations and a work cited.  Again, go for five plus pages, exclusive of the work cited page.

Steve

Assignment link for Week Eight is now active.

The assignments discussed below are explained and discussed more fully in the weekly exercises.  You can find this link by following the weekly assignment tab for week eight.

Topics Covered Week Eight:

• The last of research notes. Say, "Yeah."
• Producing a second draft of your research paper.
• Keeping a working bibliography up to date.
• Basic MLA parenthetical citation.
• Introduction to a portfolio's reflective cover essay.
• Pre-writing for your mid-term reflective essay.

Discussion:

This week, you'll finish the last of your research notes for the King paper, write a draft of your King research paper/rhetorical analysis, and do the basic prewriting for a mid-term, reflective cover essay.  

Last week you explored the research notes taken by others, offering feedback and just learning what goes into a good research notes.  You received feedback on the research notes you'd taken on your two secondary source, journal articles, and you wrote a post integrating this feedback and planning how to best improve your notes for those in your group who will be using them.  The first half of this week, you'll be taking this plan forward and updating your notes into their final form.  You'll need to complete your work the first half of the week, because in the second half of the week, you and your group will need access to your notes.

The second half of the week, you'll finish a second draft of your research paper.  This time, you'll add an introduction and conclusion, and you'll flesh out your body with the addition of any evidence you can now add via the improved research notes on your group's blogs.  At this point, you should also feel free to bring in additional outside sources, but remember to cite them.  For many of you, citing will be new.  Each time you cite a source, you'll need to make sure it is in your working bibliography, and you, hence, create a citation for it in MLA format and put it in the correct alphabetical order by last name.  In MLA style, when you cite a source in the text of your paper, you do so within your sentences using something called parenthetical citation.  This means that just before the end of your sentence you stick in a set of parentheses, like this, ().  Within the parentheses goes: 1) the author's last name--use the first author's last name if there are multiple authors; and, 2) the page numbers of containing the material you're citing.  It should look something like (Brandon 231-4).  Note that the last name and the page numbers are separated by a space. Also note that if there are multiple page numbers, you shorten the final page number, so you don't repeat information and keep your citation short.  For instance, 231-234 becomes 231-4.  279-281 becomes 278-81.

Since MLA citation style was designed to cover the needs of print material, usually humanities books and articles.  The style becomes more cumbersome if you use online sources, which are likely not to list an author and not to have page numbers.  Since for right now, you've only taken research notes on journal articles, you don't have to worry too much about citing online sources.  Remember that the library has several pages set up to guide you through how to cite sources in different styles, including MLA, and their guide can help you with citing online sources.  You can find the library guide to citation here: http://libguides.reynolds.edu/mla

Last but not least, you'll do two brainstorming assignments to begin to gauge and write about what you've learned and about your performance in the class.  The exercise will make you conscious and, through your writing, me more conscious of how you are doing in the class, what you've learned, and how you're learning it. 

The Assignment Link for Week Seven is activated, and some notes on how to work with your group.

Over the past two weeks, you moved from reading and taking notes on journal articles to a first, rough draft of the body of your research paper.  Putting this draft together could have proved either easy or difficult.  A lot depended on the how useful the notes were you took and how useful you found the notes of your group and class mates.  This is an important moment in what you are finding out in terms of writing research papers, that is, the better the quality of research notes to which you have access, the easier it is to draft your paper and the better paper you can draft. 

This week, you will offer feedback/criticism of the research notes produced to date by some of your peers in your group.  In the process, you should learn more about what is involved in producing a good research note.  You will also begin learning how to offer constructive feedback, receive it yourself, and respond to it.  

I've also build in some time to begin getting caught up on assignments.  If needed, additional time will be available over Spring Break.  

One piece of advice and a few notes on how group work works in terms of the fifty percent of your final grade derived from class participation.  Some groups are communicating better than others. Consider contacting those in other groups to ask how they are structuring communication and group work, the difficulties they've encountered, and how they've worked to over come them.  

Working online with groups isn't easy. Heck, working with a group isn't easy, but good communication is the key.  Another key is setting up some way to identify what each person is responsible for doing, setting intermediate deadlines with some fudge time built in, communicating when you are not going to be able to make a deadline, having backup plans to cover someone missing their deadlines, and holding others responsible to their actions (or, sometimes, lack of action).  

Remember, I have designed each week's exercises so they will be easier on everyone if everyone or most in a group do their work.  The exercises and, in specific, the King research paper can still be done if everyone doesn't do their work, but they will be harder to write--as hard as in a class which doesn't design in others to help. I am not expecting perfection in structuring online group work; this is a new, difficult, and sometimes frustrating experience for most.  I am expecting you to keep *trying* to work with everyone in your group and to ask for help when you hit snags.

Also remember, if your not completing an exercise needed by your group or your not working with your group makes their jobs as students harder, just as with any other job, there will be consequences.  People get fired for such behavior in industry.  In the case of this class, your class participation grade will take a hit, not theirs, yours.  Under such conditions, those who continue try and get the work of the group done in spite of the times life gets in the way or in spite of those who don't shoulder their share will be viewed with the utmost sympathy.  Those who attempt to get the group working together and who take leadership and facilitator roles in their group will receive extra credit on their class participation grades.  

In short, there are rewards for those who try to figure out and work through the complexities of online group work.  Learning how to incorporate others into your writing process in appropriate ways is a learning outcome for the course.  Learning some of the many challenges of online group work and how to overcome them is another learning outcome.  Why? In most jobs in industry online communication and making the time to help others on your team succeed is a required and rewarded skill set.  Again, why? Because most businesses need to make money, and when most of those involved is in the position to do their jobs better because folks help one another and shoulder their portion of a complex job, the business makes more money.  

Steve

A New Regimen for Getting in Touch and Meeting with Me.

About a month ago, I was diagnosed with vertigo, which is a fancy Latin word for dizziness.  The vertigo first presented itself during a visit to Baltimore and following a cold, and the doctors seem convinced it is related to a chronic sinus infection.  As a result, I have been on antibiotics, heavy decongestants, and allegory drugs for over a month, but symptoms have become worse rather than better over time.

I don't usually share health issues with a class.  So far,  I have been able to make every class I have had to teach and interact with and help students.  However, the vertigo has affected my ability to drive, and episodes come and go unpredictably, though they do get worse as the day progresses, which means I am limited in the times I will be at my office.  While I can still make arrangements for face-to-face meetings, and I will be happy to do so, if you need to see me in person, until further notice, the best way to contact me is via one of the website contact forms or via phone, 804-885-3727.  Moreover, until further notice, please contact me to arrange each face-to-face appointment rather than stopping by my office, as I want to make sure I am there when you do stop by.  

Steve  

Assignment Description for Week Six Now Active

Make sure to write with any questions.

Steve

Some advice about taking notes on the King letter and about working with your group.

A student wrote with the following questions, and I thought my answer to her might help a few of you.  For asking the question--one which helps other students learn, the student who asked gets two points extra-credit on her final class grade. The student asked,

Dr.B, I need help...My group has picked 2C for our topic. So I have to re-read MLK's letter and explain the 5 most important things king has accomplish? How do I take these notes? I see you gave us some pointers on how to take notes but is it a certain software? Can I just take the notes how I want to do them? ...I am also going to try to get help from my group which sometimes is hard for me because we all have different times we do homework. 

My answer follows:

My advice is to set up a file in your favorite word processor, and use this file to take your notes.  You should be able to copy and paste the notes to your blog later.  You can also consider using the blog itself to take notes. Here, you would save your notes as a draft instead of publishing them right away as a post, and you can come back later to finish and post your notes to your blog.  You can use the "Edit Posts" link to use your blog in this way, and you'll see the link off the blogger dashboard, right next to the "New Post" button.  Just for information, you can also use "Edit Posts" to go back and edit or revise a post you have already made to the blog.

In terms of how to take the notes and what to look for: 

Read through the letter again.  The key questions you'll be thinking about are: "What is King trying to accomplish in this section of the letter, and what is it in the text which makes me think this is what he is trying to accomplish?" You'll be taking one or two notes for each section as you find answers to these questions. Your notes will be the answers to these key questions plus enough information about the section you are reading to describe it to your reader.   If you'll notice, these notes will then correspond to a point you could make later in a paper, saying something like, "In the section of the letter where King talks about X, he is attempting to accomplish Y.  You can tell he is trying to do Y, because if you look at ... you can see ..."

Don't get carried away here.  My guess is you'll end up with one or two pages max of notes on the various things the text lets you infer about what King is trying to accomplish.  As your research for the paper develops, and you read more about the context and what others say about what King is doing in the letter--you'll be doing some of this reading this coming week--you'll begin to be able to pick out what you think are the priorities in what King is  attempting to accomplish.  

Let me also offer a word or two of advice about working with your group.  Call rather than email, and try and get a list of times when it's OK to call and talk about what your group is doing.  You might consider setting up a calling tree, where you talk to a couple of people each week at a particular time, and they talk to one or two people at another time, filling each in on what is decided.  You can also consider setting up a short conference call or IM or texting session, that is, if you can identify a particular time for these sessions.

Get in touch if any of the above doesn't make sense or doesn't work.

Steve

The Assignments Link for Week Five Is Now Active.

Last week, you began learning about different kinds of research sources and how to take research notes on your primary source(s).  In the case of your research topic, King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  You also got to begin working more closely with your group, as you needed to make a group decision among a set of option as to the research topic of your King rhetorical analysis.

This week, you'll begin learning how to read secondary sources, that is, journal articles and to take research notes on them.  You'll also get an overview of the steps one goes through in writing a research paper--one of the major learning goals for ENG 112.  As you read and learn the steps in the research paper writing process, you should gain a better idea of where taking notes on your primary source, creating a working bibliography, and taking notes on secondary sources fits into the process of creating a research, analysis, or term paper.

You also have two exercises to complete with your group.  The first is a basis check in to make sure everyone is doing well and to see what help you can provide to help get anyone lagging up to speed.  As part of this check in, you'll divide up a set of journal articles, making each group member responsible for two articles.  As always when interacting with your group, be supportive and act toward each member as you would a colleague.  You want them to succeed, and it's worth your investing time to help them, because without good colleagues, your own success won't be as great as it could be with their support and help. All this is part of the process of learning to work with a team and learning how the professional world usually functions.

As always write with questions.

Explanation of Terms Used to Describe Different Kinds of Research Sources

A student wrote to ask what was meant by "outside refernce-both online and print," in the description of the research topics in this week's assignments.  I thought everyone could benefit from the answer, and it is my custom to publish such questions and answers here in the class announcements.  For asking a question which helps many in the class learn, the student will receive one point extra credit on her final class grade.  It's my way of encouraging good questions from you.  

Here is my explanation:

"There are two kinds of sources, primary and secondary.  A primary source is the text you want to understand and interpret.  In the case of our assignment, King's letter is the primary source.  When you read or find references within the letter to help you say something about the letter, you are using the letter as a primary source.  For instance, quoting the salutation to the ministers would be using a quote from your primary source to make sense of your primary source.  This is the basic idea behind analysis, that is, breaking your primary source down into parts and examining the parts closely to help you make better sense of the whole text.

When you create a text, like a paper or post about your primary text, you are creating a secondary source, that is, you are creating a text which explains your primary text/source.  The secondary source you create joins any number of other secondary sources created to attempt to explain the primary source or text.  Taken together these secondary sources form what is referred to as "the discourse" or "conversation" about the primary text.

When you use someone else's explanation of the primary source you are both trying to explain, you are said to be using a secondary or "outside" source.  This is a source or text created to help make sense of a primary  source.  Secondary sources can be found in any number of places.  You can go online and google a website which explains, for instance, who the audience was for King's letter.  Such a secondary source, would be called an "online secondary source."  You can also go to the library and find a journal article or a section of a book which explains King's audience, this kind of secondary source would be a print secondary source.  

Because print sources often require expert peers to approve and act as readers for print sources before they appear in print, in academic conversations, print secondary sources are considered more likely to be legitimate than online secondary sources which don't require this prior approval of experts in the field to be published.  There is no denying, however, that online sources are often easier to find and use, as you can find and use online sources any place you can find an internet connection.  My guess is that how we judge the legitimacy of online versus print secondary sources will continue to change in the near future; however, for right now, those who participate or use professional discourse, that is, professionals and academics like students and teachers, need to know to find and use both online and print secondary sources.

While the research topic your group will be exploring will have you looking at both kinds of sources, and I wrote the description of the research topic accordingly, for this week's assignments, all you need to do is to decide as a group which of the three topics you will research and, later, write about.  This week, you are also re-reading the letter and taking primary source notes, finding references within the text which will help you explain aspects of the rhetoric of King's letter.  The kinds of quotes and examples you look for and take notes on as you re-read the letter will depend on the topic your group picks to research, so that is the place to begin."

As always, write with any questions.

Steve

I have activated the assignment link for week four.

I have activated the assignment link for week four.  Within the assignment, I also wrote a short essay on taking research notes which contains most of the material I planned to cover in yesterday's class.  Reading this essay is your first exercise for the week.

As always, write with questions.

Steve

PS For those who have asked or sent get well messages, my thanks.  I wish I could say I am feeling better, but I've still a hacking cough and a sinus infection.  Since I was already on a course of antibiotics and nasal steroid spray, the doctor, who I visited this morning, has me finishing these up and checking on the progress of what he thinks is a secondary sinus/chest infection.  How unlucky is it to go into the doctors one week, and then catch something on top?  In any event, I am resting, and I hope to conduct a full week of classes and office hours next week. If there are any changes to these plans, I will post them here.

Office hours cancelled for Doc B, Thursday and Friday, 4-5 Feb.

I have been fighting off a chest and sinus infection since last Friday.  The cough which has accompanied it has become much worse overnight, and my voice is affected. The upshot is that I won't be keeping office hours today, Thursday, 4 February, nor will I be able to teach.  I don't normally have office hours on Friday, but I am also cancelling all meetings and appointments Friday as well, as I have a doctor's appointment in the morning and want to get in as much rest as possible, all with an eye toward being rested and--hopefully--well enough to tackle a full week next week.

If you had planned on stopping by my office, please email using one of the forms on the webpage, as my voice isn't all it could be.

Since for our section my not being there also entails my cancelling our face-to-face class for the week, please check the website tomorrow afternoon for your online work for the week.  I also have a final note and a favor to ask:

1) Do make sure to check the class website for your assignments this week.  I doubt if they'll be posted today, but they should be by tomorrow.  In the process of posting the assignments, I'll also post, probably in the assignments themselves, on the concepts we were to go over today, that is, the basic structure of an academic paragraph and how to take good research notes.  We won't be able to replicate the group workshop I had planned for class today online, but I'll plan this activity into next week's face-to-face class.

2) Finally, not everyone checks the announcements on the webpage or their VCCS email as regularly as they should, and I would like to save folks a needless trip into campus.  Would you take a few minutes and use the contact information for your group--you can find it on the Forums page of the class website--and call the members of your group to let them know class and office hours are cancelled? You might set up a kind of calling tree, so you will only call one or two folks in your group, and they can contact the others.  

Thanks, and I'm sorry for any inconvenience my illness may have called.  As always, write with questions, and I hope and expect to be in to keep a full week next week.

Steve

Office hours Monday, 1 February

I've spent the day hoping the streets in front of my home would get plowed, but my wife is just back from a walk in the neighborhood looking at the streets and stopping by the neighborhood grocery.  

It looks as if the interstates are plowed, but secondary and neighborhood streets are still only, at best, snow-packed.  I suspect this will translate into refreezing overnight and dangerous driving tomorrow morning, during my regular office hours; so, I'm going to keep virtual office hours as usual from 8:00-1:00, but I am going to keep them from home.

You can call and speak with me by calling 804-885-3727; you can email me at sbrandon@reynolds.edu, or you can IM me at prof.brandon@gmail.com to get in touch with any questions you may have.  If there is an a need, I will come into campus, but--unless asked--I will only be available from home to help.  

Steve 

Week Two Assignments are Hot

I've activated the link for the second week's assignments.

This week, we will continue our discussion and introduction to rhetoric and rhetorical analysis.  We will continue to discuss the rhetoric of King's "Letter."  You'll get some practice taking notes toward a rhetorical analysis, and you'll get a chance to apply what you are learning to your own life.

Steve

Welcome. How to get started.

Welcome to the Announcements/Home page for our section of College Rhetoric and Composition II, ENG 112 15CP.  More important, welcome to the class.

This spring promises to be productive and fun learning experience.  This is a hybrid section; so, we'll meet face-to-face almost every Thursday, and you'll be practicing the craft of writing--the craft you are learning--the other half of a traditional face-to-face class. This is an ideal way to learn Rhetoric and Composition, as the best way to learn any craft is to practice the techniques and theory and to work with your materials as much as possible.  You learn as much or more by doing as you do by reading, classwork, and working with your professor. 

To get started with your assignments, click on the "Assignments" tab above and then on the link to this week's assignments.

At any point, if you have questions about the course, our shared reading, or an assignment, come by my office for office hours or contact me using the various "Contact Doctor B" forms scattered around the course webpage.  My office hours are posted under the Contact Doctor B tab above. 

Doctor B (aka Steve Brandon, PhD)