Week 7 (Oct. 11 – Oct. 17)

Table of contents

To-do and Weekly Schedule

Reminders

  • Check out the page with useful tips on project and time management, from the tiniest (how to make the most if you have half an hour, with a “pomodoro”) to the largest (how will I eventually make it through a CUE for my major?). Definitely figure out where to fit your coursework, and the reading and writing for your essay into your daily schedule.
  • I’ve pushed the feedback on the forlorn blogposts to Friday Oct. 15, but of course you can finish that up anytime before that new best-before date!
  • Make an appointment with Brianna for your second “mandatory meeting with the Writing Assistant” (out of 3). Please check the details in the email sent on Fri, Oct. 8. Time to talk about your essay ideas!
  • Links to starter packs:
  • You are welcome (encouraged!) to add more materials if you have assessed them as reliable, preferably scholarly. You can always run your findings past me to get my feedback.

By Tuesday, 12:30PM

LOCATION CHANGE: TREXLER B01 (same as last week)

  • Please let me know your preferred email address for our group library in Zotero, and add it to the spreadsheet.
    • Kelly Cannon suggests a personal email address, so you can keep up with the group even after you lose access to your Muhlenberg address. As this library will build up across the years, and each time I teach this course, you sure want to keep following along even after you graduate, don’t you?
    • I promise I won’t use it for anything else!
  • Download Google Chrome on your laptop if you don’t have it installed yet. During the session itself, we will install Zotero and the Zotero connector and they work best with Chrome. Then you can connect easily to the group library, keep track of all your references (not just for this course!), and cite with ease.
    • Laptops are for this particular exercise better than tablets, and phones will simply not do, the software doesn’t work properly for today’s purpose.
    • If you don’t have a laptop or it turns out your tablet doesn’t do the Zotero things we need, you can try later on your own, but it will be easier when we can provide tech support for each other in class.

By Thursday, 12.30PM

Bring to class: what you have for your essay so far so you can continue working on it.

  • ideas
  • reading lists (bibliography): what additional materials have you looked at? (did you add the to the Zotero group library?)
  • reading notes
  • folders, files, books and documents connected to your project or idea
  • drafts, outlines, wishes, hopes, and sunken test-balloons (maybe they’ll spark a new idea if you share them!)
  • a “can-do” attitude

There is an amazing amount of energy that comes from writing together in the same space – TIP: even virtually over Zoom this can work, with a quiet side-chat! You can confer with each other, with me and Brianna, and at the end of the session you’ll have a clearer idea of where will go, and what to do next time.

We will also do a few exercises to have you make connections on a larger level, beyond a single text.

By Friday, 11:59PM

Peer feedback: catching up!

I’ve collected here posts that have fewer feedback comments from peers than average, because random sometimes means that this happens. (It can also happen because some of you are behind on your commenting/feedback duties!) So jump in and help your peers to see their writing through readers’ eyes.

Remember you can always rewrite a post based on feedback from your peers. I encourage you to add a short description at the end of the post how you rewrote it, or what you did with the feedback, and then alert me or Brianna to your revised post. You can also use this in your (upcoming) reflections as evidence of growth as a writer.

What if you think you don’t have anything nice to say and you’d rather not comment than come over as mean? Sometimes, a student is in a hurry to post something, or is just not motivated to write and “phones it in” (it has happened in other classes, so why not here?). Perhaps you don’t want to be negative. But you can turn your criticism into encouraging feedback:

  • suggest checking the requirements of the post (and leave a link to the assignment) and leave a suggestion where they can expand or make changes.
  • start with “what I find interesting about your post is…” and fill out the sentence. Then suggest briefly how they can expand on that part.
  • sometimes, we just need somebody to tell us what we don’t know: that we’re not working as hard as we should, or that we actually can do better/more. And if you leave a suggestion where to start (e.g. “you can probably add an example here and analyze that using the X technique”), that’s really useful.
  • provide a link to another post about the same text or topic that you found was really well done, or funny, and suggest they try something similar.
  • Post 1:
  • Post 2:
  • Post 3:
  • Post 4:

By Sunday, 11:59PM

Share a Google Doc with a first draft of your essay so far.

WHAT?

  • an essay draft in Google Docs shared with Dr. D and Brianna to allow us to “comment,”
  • that is as close to the 3-5 pages requested. Use a “normal” font (e.g. Arial 11pt, Times New Roman 12pt), and 2 line spacing (the more complete your draft, the better your feedback for the rewrite will be!),
  • that includes a full “scholarly apparatus”: footnotes in the Chicago Notes and Bibliography style (17th edition), and a separate bibliography at the end,
    • TIP: use Zotero to help you with this!
  • that has a short paragraph at the end on the one or two things you most want to get feedback on. I may also provide feedback on other aspects, but I will respond to your request,
  • and that may have comments/bullet points for sections where you ran out of time.

WHY?

  • Google Docs is easiest to share feedback and comments.
  • the spacing makes it much easier on my eyes.
  • the bibliography and notes reveal which materials you used, and if done properly also cover you against accusations of plagiarism (I’ll help you do it right!).
  • if you prefer me to focus on structure of the argument, because that was the skill you were working on most, that’s what you need feedback on, not spelling mistakes (which I rarely comment on, unless I see a pattern).
  • if you have ideas that you didn’t get into prose yet but they help your idea to move forward, they need to be in the text for the reader to follow, even if your draft isn’t quite finished yet!

WHEN?

  • Sunday night, 11:59PM but of course you can finish up earlier and share the link.
  • You can keep working on it after sharing it on Sunday: writing is never finished! On Tuesday, Oct. 19 everybody will share their essay with others for peer feedback in the class.

Slides

Thursday: Writing, minute thesis, and other possibly useful stuff

Where to get help