Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Attributive Tags and In-text Citations

“Attributive tags are short phrases that help you indicate that an idea in your writing comes from somewhere else”  – Uni. of Wyoming English 1010 handbook

Attributive tag examples
"Being all boy. . . means being less lovable," argues Eugene August (448).

According to Myra and David Sadker,  “At the highest educational level, where the instructors are most credentialed and the students most capable, teaching is the most biased” (95).

But at the end, Junod hints that we knew who the falling man was all along (80).

In-text citation examples
(See page 342 in the DK Handbook for further guidance)
Wise says we are “born to belonging” (1).

Smith response to this claim by simply saying, “Well, that’s a lie” (429).

Quote inside a quote:
Wise discusses a conversation he had in which a family member asked him if he “thought there was ever going to be a ‘race war’ ” (57).

Remember that punctuation comes after the page number, unless it is a question mark or exclamation point. Then the quote would look like this:
Ash seems to always be asking at the end of our assignments, to our annoyance, “Does this all make sense?” (1).

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Guiding Questions

As you prepare to revise your critical interpretive essays, ask yourself the following questions:
  • Who do you picture as your audience? What kind of background information will you need to give them in order for them to understand what you’re saying?
  • What kind of tone do you want to have? How will you develop your own ethos?
  • How do you plan on “connecting” with your audience?
  • How do you plan on persuading your audience?
  • How do you want your audience to respond to your essay? What do you want them to take away from it?

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Homework for Tuesday, April 16


English 101: Introduction to College WritingSpring 2013
Draft 1.3 or 2.2: revising a critical interpretive essay

1.     Reread your homework, comments on your homework from your peers and me, your previous draft(s), and the reflective writing we've done in class. Use all of these materials to help you revise a draft of your Sedaris or Orlean critical interpretive essay. Review the course goals and outcomes before, as, and after you write to guide you. 

2.     Bring one printed copy of your revised essay to class.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Draft 4.0


English 101: Introduction to College WritingSpring 2013
Draft 4.0: writing a first draft of your reflective essay

1.     Look over previous homework assignments in which you did reflective writing. This includes the blog posts titled [Group work] Reflection, Assignment 9, Assignment 8, and Reflecting on Revision.

2.     Based on your experiences in class, the above homework assignments, drafts of your essays, and conferencing with your peers and me, write a first draft of your reflective essay. Keep in mind that your reflective essay has certain course goals and outcomes that it must meet, but it also needs to explain your own writerly choices in a personal way. Sometimes it helps to write with a theme in mind (but make sure to avoid commonplace.)

3.     Consider the course goals and outcomes:
With the REFLECTIVE ESSAY, a writer will, in addition to the above goals and outcomes, account for and evaluate the choices made in the interpretive essays by…
·      considering the writer’s own composing and design strategies developed through successive revisions given the writer’s rhetorical situation.
·      Describing how the writing works to build productive, ethical relationships with other people and their ideas and writing.

4.     As you write, use evidence (specific moments or quotes) from your own essays or other students’ essays to support your reflection.

5.     Bring one copy of this essay to our next class meeting.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Draft 3.0


English 101: Introduction to College WritingSpring 2013
Draft 3.0: developing your critical interpretive essay

1.     Read pages 144-51 in The DK Handbook, considering academic genres in reference to Sarah Stein’s essay “The ‘1984’ Macintosh Ad.”

2.     Based on your thoughts from the reading, as well as what you have learned from your previous writing about “The ‘1984’ Macintosh Ad,” write a formal essay that pulls all the pieces together into a clear and coherent explanation of the essay as a whole. Please keep in mind:
a.     What is your purpose? Is it different from Stein’s purpose?
b.     Does your purpose discuss one or more writerly choices Stein has made and how those choices influenced your reading of the piece?
c.     How do Stein’s writerly choices work together in order to accomplish her overall purpose, given her audience and context?

3.     As you write, use evidence from “The ‘1984’ Macintosh Ad”—quotations, summaries, paraphrases, etc.to support your critical interpretation. Use this as a chance to show how your particular understanding of this text has been arrived at critically. Choose your supporting evidence from across the essay.

4.     Bring TWO copies of this essay to our next class meeting.

Note: do not publish your essay on your blog. Bring hard copies (printed) to class instead.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013


English 101: Introduction to College WritingSpring 2013
Assignment 11: rhetorical analysis and explaining choices (the Golden Six)

1.     Create a blog post and title it Assignment 11.

2.     Read pages 108-109 in the DK Handbook (the fat yellow book).

3.     Choose three questions (in different sections) from these pages. Attempt to answer each question, and make sure to use direct quotes from the Stein article. For each question, make sure to include one or two specific writerly choices Stein makes.

4.     Include one more thorough paragraph that discusses how you see ALL of these writerly choices working together to affect your interpretation of the text. Conclude this paragraph with a tentative controlling purpose.

5.     Publish your post. 

Remember: be honest when answering these questions—this is about your interpretation. Bring your personality to the assignment; make it more than just dull paragraphs you *have* to write. Think of how you want to address your audience and consider how you want your writing to stand out from the other students’ writing for the class.