Course Recap for Thursday, May 7th, 2015

Final Blog Post Topic
Thank you all for a wonderful semester.  I want you all to answer the following questions for your final (required) blog post.

1. What was your favorite project this semester and why?
2. What was your least favorite and why?
3. What have you learned?
4. What do you wish you had learned?

For those of you who need to make up blog posts, here are a list of the topics that were previously assigned and a few extras (because I'm nosy).

1.  What  is a story? What makes a good story?
2.  What is a piece of writing you enjoyed reading in high school and why? What is a piece of writing you hated reading and why?
3.  Review of a movie you saw recently
4.  What is your guilty pleasure?
5.  What is a word you personally find offensive that others may use casually? Why don't you like it? OR What is a word that you use casually that another person found offensive?  Do you still use it? Why?
6.  What are your summer break plans?
7.  Where were you when a national/international tragedy and triumph occurred (think the Mad Men episode)?
8.  What TV shows are you obsessed with?
9.  What is your major and why?
10. Are you a creative person?  If yes, how so? If not, why not?
11.  Chocolate or vanilla? Why?
12.  If you're a reader, what was the last good book you read? Why did you like it?
13.  Besides social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc), what other websites do you frequently visit?
14.  Team Android or Team iPhone? Why?
15.  How much did you love me and the class?  (I'm kidding.  Don't write about this.)

Homework

• Final Draft of Historical Narrative and I-Search Paper (Fri, May 8th by midnight)
• Revision Project including your revision and you Letter to the Reader (Mon. May 11th)
• Have a wonderful, wonderful summer!!!!!!!!! (ongoing until September 2015)

Course Recap for Thursday, April 30, 2015

ANNOUNCEMENT: We will not be holding class on Tuesday, May 5th.  Instead, I will be holding open conferences in The Bridge.  I will be there all day Tuesday from 9am until 8pm.  Please come to discuss any concerns you may have about your papers, your current grade in the class, etc.  We will be holding class Thursday, May 7th.

Tips for Your I-Search Paper: View this paper as a defense of your narrative and your research process.  You are writing this paper to prove the amount of effort you put in to learn all you could about your time period and to let me know that your narrative is based on real factual information.

• Review the sample paper.
• Make sure each section flows and are connected to one another.  It should read like one paper not 3 different papers.
• The first section should give us a really good idea of what you knew about your time period prior to research.  Your last section should reveal how much more you've learned.  We should see a progression.  If you haven't learned anything, you didn't do this project correctly.
• The second section is where you can air your grievances.  What did you like about the process?  What didn't you like?  What did you find easy?  What did you find hard?  How was the group process?
• The last section's goal is to show me the ways in which you managed to use the information you learned from 10 different sources in your narrative.  Discuss similar sources in the same paragraph.  For instance, if you used two different sources to learn about what the Gulf War was like, talk about those two sources in the same paragraph, and then talk about the sources that provided you with information on popular culture in the same paragraph, etc.
• Be sure to provide specific information from each source and to properly cite them in your piece.
• Don't just give me the information you learned.  Explain how it influenced what you wrote in your narrative. 
• INCLUDE A WORKS CITED PAGE.  I need to know which sources you specifically used in your narrative.  If you used most of the sources your group collected, all you'll have to do is copy and paste from your annotated bib (citation only/don't copy the description).

Plans for Next Week

Check the Revision Project Assignment Sheet for instructions on your final project.  You will be revising and expanding a previously written paper for your final project.  If you choose to revise a paper from the first or second project, you could potentially earn a higher score than your original.  If you like the scores you received on your first two projects, I would advise you to revise and expand your last project.  If you missed class and are confused, you should come see me Tuesday in the Bridge.  If you're not sure where to go with your revision, you should see me Tuesday in the Bridge. If you're worried about where your grade is, you should see me Tuesday in The Bridge.

Extra Credit Opportunity

If you review the historical narrative assignment sheet, you will remember there was an extra credit project offered.  You must have that completed by Thursday, May 7th.  You will be informally presenting this to the class.  You're just going to show us what you created and explain how it relates to your narrative.  You will also receive extra credit just for attending class on Thursday.  You can receive up to 75 points extra credit by attending class on Thursday and presenting a visual piece.  

Homework

• Rough Draft of I-Search Paper (due tomorrow Friday, May 1st) (I will not provide feedback for any papers I do not receive on the due date)
• Extra Credit Visual Piece (due Thursday, May 7th)
• Final Draft of Historical Narrative and I-Search Paper (due Friday, May 8th)
• Revision Project (due Monday, May 11th)

Course Recap for Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Homework

• First Draft of Narrative (due Thursday via Google Docs and printed copy in-class)
• First Draft of I-Search (due Friday via Google Docs)

Annotated Bibliography

Your annotated bibliography has several purposes:

1. To practice your skills creating a Works Cited/Reference Page in the appropriate research format (in this case MLA).
2. To practice your skills using in-text citations if you choose to directly quote from any of your sources in your annotation
3. To show the instructor that you know how to synthesize data.  That you can find a reliable source and identify the information from the source that will be most useful to you and your group members' purposes.
4. To provide your group members with a master list of sources to choose from that covers as much information as the five of you could find on the time period you are writing about.
5. To help your group members determine which sources will be useful for the narrative they intend to write. 

Your descriptions of the source should give a brief summary of the overall purpose of the source and then point to specific details that you and/or your group members might find useful.  Check the Sample Annotated Bib in the right hand corner for more of an idea of what it should look and sound like.

Get your research done as soon as possible.  The sooner that is out of the way, the sooner you can start on the narrative and the i-Search Paper.  

i-Search Paper (where you should be at this point)

We wrote a very rough draft of the Intro to your i-search paper on Tuesday.  It should be at least a paragraph answering these two questions:what do a know about my time period/event before I research it and what do I want to know, what must I learn in order to accurately tell a story set during this moment.  

The second section of the i-Search paper is a description of your search.  How did you find the information you are going to be putting in your annotated bibliography?  Answers to the following questions can help fulfill this section

1. Where did you find your sources? The web? The library? What search engines did you use?  Did you request help from anyone?
2. How did you keep track of the sources you found? Did you write a list? Copy and paste links into a document? 
3. How did keep track of the useful information in each source? Did you print and highlight articles? Copy and paste?
4. How did you determine what information was useful and what information wasn't?
5. You probably won't use every source you look at? How did you decide which sources to keep and which ones to disregard?
6. How did you and your group exchange information? Did you meet in person? Chat online? How well did you work together?
7. What issues did you struggle with? Did you have a hard time finding the answers to any particular questions?  Were you able to stay organized?  Were you able to stay sane?  

These are the things you will have to think about for the second section of your i-search Paper.  We will talk about the last section once your research is completed and you've started on your narrative.  

Homework

• Annotated Bibliography due Thursday April 23rd

Course Recap for Thursday March 26, 2015

Homework


Friday Blog Post Topic: What is a word that you personally find offensive that other people may use casually?  Why don't you like it?  If you're extremely open-minded and are never offended by anything, tell me about a time that you casually used a word you thought was harmless but someone else found it offensive.  What did you learn from this experience?First Draft of Short Story Analysis (Due Tuesday) Pick one of the 3 stories we talked about this week to write your analysis on.

Course Recap for Monday, March 24, 2015

Homework

• Read Virgins by Danielle Evans
• Friday Blog Post Topic: What is a word that you personally find offensive that other people may use casually?  Why don't you like it?  If you're extremely open-minded and are never offended by anything, tell me about a time that you casually used a word you thought was harmless but someone else found it offensive.  What did you learn from this experience?

Course Recap for Thursday March 19, 2015

Homework

• Read The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and The All-Girl Football Team by Lewis Nordan.  Come to class prepared to talk about whatever themes you see in the two stories (Due Tuesday)
• Read Virgins (Due Thursday)

*You're going to pick one of these 3 stories to write your short story analysis on.  The rough draft will be due Tuesday March 30th