09 Revision and Journaling // Due the week of November 5, 2015

Hi Everyone!


Homework is a little different again this week because of the different days' class sizes:

Wednesday and Friday:

• Now that everyone's papers have been peer reviewed, spend this week fixing your rough drafts!
• A lot of people in the world think that revising (fixing) the rough draft involves just changing a couple of words and then you're done. This is not the case :D Even the most amazing rough draft written by the most amazing doctor has plenty of things to fix, so I'll be looking at your rough drafts and your final drafts for big changes like:
• Adding more evidence or cutting out irrelevant information
• Explaining your evidence in your own words more
• Tweaking your thesis so it better fits the evidence you found
• Adding citations to your essay***
• Etc
• I would say most people should spend at least 1-3 hours revising

Thursday:

• Your class is larger and therefore still working on peer review—but you've all already home-reviewed the essays, so your homework this week is:
• Write for 1-3 hours. 
• This writing can involve any of the following:
• Short stories
• Journaling/Diary
• Research papers (yay!)
• Etc

***This is a big one a lot of people forgot about—it's incredibly important to tell people where your information came from!

• To do so (at least in this class for now):
• Write in parentheses after each fact (at the end of the sentence) which source it came from by writing the number of the source from your works cited page. 
• ie: "Cats are 98% better than dogs (4). They even have saved several people from burning buildings (3)."

08 Peer Review 2 // Due the week of Oct. 28, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, your homework is to complete peer review on the essays you were assigned in class. Look at the post below (last week's post) for guidelines and tips for peer reviewing). If you're not sure who you should peer review, email me and I'll let you know.

Thanks!

07 Peer Review // Due the week of October 22, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week's homework diverges a bit depending on your day. Check out the directions for Peer Review below and then look at the homework for your specific day.

Peer Review:

1. Read through the entire paper once
2. On a separate sheet of paper/notebook:
1. Write a head comment which includes at least:
1. 1-2 specific things the writer did well
2. 1-2 specific things the writer could change for a better paper
2. Write marginal comments:
1. At least 1 comment per paragraph for a total of 5 comments
2. If you need ideas, look at the bottom of this post. 
3. We will be discussing your comments in class, so make sure they are clear and specific and kind :D

Wednesday:

• If your paper was peer reviewed in class this week, spend time at home making changes to it.
• If you didn't include in-text citations in your rough draft (whether it was peer reviewed in class or not), add those in before our next class period.
• In-Text Citations: Tell where you got your information from, within your paper. If you got it from the third source from your Works Cited page, then write (3) right after the fact/quote.
• IE: Dr. Jane Doe says, "Cats are the best" (3).
• Check your email for further directions. 

Thursday and Friday:

• Peer review the student papers I assigned to you at the end of class. 

———

Questions to consider when peer reviewing:

1. Attention-grabber:
1. Is it relevant? If not--how could it be made more relevant?
2. How could it be made more interesting? Even if it is somewhat interesting, what is another type of attention-grabber they could have used?
2. Thesis:
1. Does it follow the formula: Opinion because r1, r2, r3
2. Is the opinion an actual opinion?
3. Are the reasons relevant? Separate? What could be better reasons?
3. Body Paragraphs:
1. Give 1-2 suggestions for more evidence that the person could try to find.
2. Any evidence that should be left out?
3. Topic sentence and concluding sentence?
4. Concluding Paragraph:
1. Does it wrap up the whole paper?
2. Does it give new information not seen in the rest of the paper? (This would be bad.)
3. Is there a call to action?

06 Rough Draft // Due the week of October 16, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, you'll be writing your rough draft!

The organization checklist of everything you need to write is below:

1. Introduction Paragraph:
1. Attention-grabber
2. Thesis: Opinion because R1, R2, and R3
2. Body Paragraph 1 about R1
1. Topic sentence
1. Evidence
2. Evidence
3. Evidence
4. Evidence
2. Concluding sentence
3. Body Paragraph 2 about R2
1. Topic Sentence
1. Evidence
2. Evidence
3. Evidence
4. Evidence
2. Concluding Sentence
4. Body Paragraph 3 about R3
1. Topic Sentence
1. Evidence
2. Evidence
3. Evidence
4. Evidence
2. Concluding Sentence
5. Conclusion
1. Wrap up the paper (Don't add new information!)
2. Call your audience to action ("So go out and save a cat!")

The rough drafts need to be completed on time for next week so we can spend time in class peer reviewing them.

**Double-space your paragraphs and post your rough draft to Google Drive.

Email me if you have questions :D

05 Research // Due the week of Oct. 7, 2015

Hi Everyone!

This week, use your sources that you found last week to find at least 15 different pieces of evidence (ethos, pathos, and logos) to support your thesis' reasons!

In class, I gave your three colors of notecards (if you get home and realize you've lost them, you can always make more by cutting out colored paper).

Each color corresponds to one of your three reasons from your thesis, so everything that goes on the cards should fit into one of these three reasons. (If you find an interesting fact/quote/etc that would work well for your intro or conclusion paragraph, you can write these on separate color notecards--or just on a piece of paper in your notebook.)

You should have at least 5 notecards (one piece of information on each) for each of your 3 reasons (15 total).

Make sure to note on each card where the evidence came from (did it come from the 4th source in your works cited page? the 2nd? the 6th?)

If you feel the need to find more or different sources, definitely feel free to do so!