Assignment 7

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

Assignment 7: generating interpretive questions

1. Create a blog post and title it Assignment 7. In assignment 6, you generated a list of choices that Orlean seems to have made in her writing. Choose two choices that seem most difficult to explain. Next, work to develop interpretive questions that would help you explain these choices. Write these questions at the top of your blog post.

(For example, my interpretive question might be “Why does Orlean contrast the ‘art’ of taxidermy with the silly dialogue of the taxidermists?”)

2. For each question, write several paragraphs in an attempt to explain the choice. Remember that this is writing to learn, so explore as many possibilities as you can think of. Make sure to use the text to ground your ideas. As you work, remember that good interpretive questions ask you to connect observations that you have made about a text to other observations you have made about that text. This means you should try to connect the two choices you are focusing on or should elaborate on why they do not seem to connect.

In the way of reading we call “rhetorical analysis,” interpretive questions can help you move from making observations to seeing those observations as choices—to explaining how these choices work as strategies that might further the writer’s purpose, given her context and audience. This assignment will help you make sense of your interpretation of “Lifelike” and give you a focus for your interpretive essay.

Assignment 6

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

Assignment 6: explaining choices as strategies (context, audience, and purpose)

1.     Reread Susan Orlean’s “Lifelike.” Make a list of your new observations about the text or how you interpret moments in the text differently after class discussion.

2.     Create a blog post and titled it Assignment 6. After rereading the text, write a longer, well-developed post that describes what you think Orlean is trying to by writing this essay, using specific moments from the text to support your thoughts:

a.     What is Orlean’s tone or voice? Where do you notice it? Is Orlean a reliable narrator? Why or why not? Where do you think she builds or loses her ethos?

b.     How does the way she sees the world she is in fit with the ways she sees/imagines her readers? What about her readers does she want to touch, reach, or effect? What thoughts or feelings might Orlean wish to produce or change in her readers?

c.     Why has Orlean written an article to accomplish these instead of a different medium? How could this genre help her achieve her purpose?

3.     Next, create another blog post and title it Assignment 6: Choices. Write several paragraphs explaining three to five of your observations as choices. That is, ask yourself, “Why might she have done that? Why would she use that word instead of another? How could this further her purpose?” Think about how these choices might affect her readers and how these choices reflect the context that she is writing in. This time, write with the goal to connect these choices to each other.

4.     Publish these posts. Bring the text and your DK Handbook to our next class.

Assignment 5

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

Assignment 5: making preliminary observations about an article

1.     Print and read Susan Orlean’s “Lifelike.” As you read, take notes in the margins. As you’re reading, pay attention to the words that Orlean is writing—vocabulary, repeated words, arrangement of the text, images and figurative language. Also note any distinctions, assertions, or questions that stand out to you for any reason. Make a list of these.

2.     After this first close reading, create a blog post and call it Assignment 5. Write a few paragraphs that explore the following questions about the article, including moments from the text to support your thinking:

a.     Why do you think Orlean composed this article? How is Orlean’s topic different from her purpose?

b.     What do you think she might have hoped readers would feel or think while reading? What makes you think that?

c.     What effect did the article have you on? That is, what were you feeling and thinking while reading? Do you think Orlean wanted you to feel/think that way? Why or why not?

3.     Based on your reading of the article and your writing about the article, formulate two questions for you and your classmates to discuss further in class. Include these at the end of your blog post.

4.     Publish this post. Print “Lifelike” and bring it to our next class.

Link to "Lifelike"

Click here.

Scattered Ideas Coming Together

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

Scattered ideas coming together: Visual design, a new draft of your essay, and your CP

1. Find an example of visual arrangement of a print text that changes the way you might read it. Make sure your example is print-based rather than just visual. Bring this example to class along with a typed paragraph describing both the choices the author made and how it might change a reader's experience. 

2. Write/Finish writing a new draft of your "Standing By" essay. Bring one print copy to class. Do not publish your essay on your blog. (Consider playing with the arrangement of your essay if you believe it will help readers understand your writing better. Use the examples from class today to get you thinking.)

3. Create a blog post and title it "Standing By CP." Write only your CP in this post before publishing it.

Send me the URL to your blog!

Please comment below with the URL to your blog. In order to update the blog roll with your new blog names, I have to resubmit them. Thanks!

Draft 1.1 and Preparing for Conference

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

Draft 1.1: revising your critical interpretive essay and getting ready for our conference

1.     Using your writing from class today and previous assignments, discussions, and group work, revise your critical interpretive draft.

2.     As you work, remember that you’re writing to communicate, so you should shape your writing by making explicit connections to the text and the points you are making, explaining your ideas and where they come from, and making sure that your purpose reflects your interpretation of the text (and does not simply restate Sedaris’ purpose.)

3.      Bring a COMPLETE copy of your essay (printed) to your conference time. Also bring two to three questions that we can focus on during your conference.

In-Class Reflection: Draft 1

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

In-class activity: reflecting on revision

1.     You have been given several essays written by your classmates. Read them, marking them up just as you did “Standing By.”

2.      Create a blog post and title it “Reflecting on Revision.”

3.      Next, write several paragraphs in which you explain:

a.     What was most interesting to you in the other students’ writing?

b.     What stood out or surprised you?

c.     What do you wish you had noticed that someone else noticed? How do you think the other writer(s) were able to see those things?

d.     Use quotes or specific examples from the other students’ writing to help explain what you mean.

4.     Now, take what you noticed in the writing of others to focus on your own essay, writing a few more paragraphs in which you consider the following:

a.     How did you go about writing your essay and making choices—like the order of your paragraphs, your introduction, the evidence you used, the questions you asked, the distinctions you made, etc.

b.     What changes would you make in your own paper, if you were to revise it now?

c.     Use quotes or specific examples from your own writing to help explain what you mean.

Draft 1

English 101: Introduction to College Writing – Spring 2013

Draft 1: developing your critical interpretive essay

1.     Using what you have learned from your previous writing about David Sedaris’ “Standing By,” write a formal essay that pulls all the pieces together into a clear and coherent explanation of your reading. Remember that your purpose should be different from Sedaris’ purpose—your purpose should reflect what mattered to you as you were reading, describing something (some things) that Sedaris’ did that led you to a particular interpretation.

2.     Also consider the following:

a.     How do Sedaris’ writerly choices work together in order to accomplish his overall purpose, given his context and audience—all as you understand it from your reading?

b.     As you write, use evidence from “Standing By”—quotations, summaries, paraphrases, and images or descriptions of images—and from class discussion to support your critical interpretation. Use this as a chance to demonstrate how your particular understanding of this text has been arrived at critically, so choose your supporting evidence from across the text.

3.      In the writing you turn in, remember that you’re writing to communicate. This means you should attend to how others might interpret Sedaris’ text differently from you (and why), so write to others in ways that address what might matter to them.

4.     Bring TWO copies of your essay and your course texts to our next class meeting.

NOTE: do not publish your essays on your blog. Bring them as hard copies (printed) to class instead.