First Year Comp

Metacognitive: Due SUNDAY at MIDNIGHT!

Post responses on your blog by Thursday @10am

1. Does the question deal with a topic or issue that interests me enough to spark my own thoughts and opinions?
2. Is the question easily and fully researchable?
3. What type of information do I need to answer the research question?
   e.g., The research question, “What impact has deregulation had on commercial airline safety?,” will obviously require certain types of information:

• statistics on airline crashes before and after
• statistics on other safety problems before and after
• information about maintenance practices before and after
• information about government safety requirements before and after

1. Is the scope of this information reasonable? (e.g., can I really research 30 on-line writing programs developed over a span of 10 years?)
2. Given the type and scope of the information that I need, is my question too broad, too narrow, or o.k.?
3. What sources will have the type of information that I need to answer the research question (journals, books, internet resources, government documents, people)?
4. Can I access these sources?
5. Given my answers to the above questions, do I have a good quality research question that I actually will be able to answer by doing research?

For Tuesday..

Read this… and submit Q&Q’s…

For Tuesday.. You need to have two research journals completed… Post to your blogs…

The Research Journal

Research is a critical part of college writing, but it is also just a really great way to learn more and be able to think about things from new perspectives. The research journal asks you to do the following:

• Briefly summarize the main points of a single piece of research you may include in your Inquiry project. This might be a newspaper article, a scholarly journal, a credible website, a documentary, or any number of primary and secondary sources. If you aren’t sure if it is appropriate, ask.
• Why is this piece credible?
• Critique the piece: How well was it written? Is the argument convincing? Is anything missing?
• Is the piece useful to your research? How and why? Or why not? If the piece is not useful for your purposes, what are the purposes for which it would be useful?
• Use MLA style citations

The complete journal should be 250+ words each… posted to your blog.

Please read CAREFULLY!  Singer’s Solution to World Poverty.  Keep in mind what we discussed re: rants and we will be doing an exercise in class on Thursday… So you must read it…

This is the corkboard we will be using…

As we begin our next essay, “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines,” I want you to read and assign the following awards…

1. Best Line
2. Best Quote
3. Best Visual Line
4. Best Emotional Line
5. Best Story line
6. Most Intellectually Phrased
7. Most Influential sentence
8. Most Descriptive
9. Best Scenery Description
10. Most Intense Moment
11. Most Emotional Scene
12. Best Mental Image
13. Most Horrific
14. Best developed character
15. Post Provocative Paragraph
16. Best Storyline
17. Best developed character
18. Most Influential sentence
19. Post Provocative Paragraph
20. Most Thought Provoking

In Class:

• We explored our own definitions of our nouns, Google‘s and an formal dictionary definition.
• We also looked up synonyms and antonyms.
• We searched the Oxford English Dictionary for the historical uses of our word.
• Next we found 3-5 quotes spanning time that had our word in there.
• And we discovered what, if anything, the Urban Dictionary had to say about our word.
• I asked you to draw your word.
• Then you created a concept map of your word.
• With all of this information fresh in your minds, you then created a new definition based off of this.

Every Day:

• You are tweeting daily now about your abstract noun.

For Sunday:

• WJ3:  Topic is something (anything really) to do with your word.  Expand upon your daily tweets, weave them together, fiction, non-fiction, etc.  Your choice… But it must be 500-750 words (add word count on the bottom) and be published/tweeted on your blog by 11:59pm on Sunday.

For Tuesday:

• Finish reading Essay in NRR
• QQ 5 due two hours before class & Tweet your Thoughts
• Bring Laptops if you have them, if not, you can use classroom computers

For Thursday:

• VOMIT DRAFT of Define It.  Submit via course website & Bring in HARD COPY to CLASS
• Read NRR 213-226 and submit Q&Q 6

In Class:

• We cut paper for your actual body map.
• Expanded our writing from Tuesday (5 moments, 1 Moment) down to encompass a 1 minute sliver of time.
• We created Lost Ad’s for a Lost Banana.
• Listened to a 4 minute section from the book 1Q84 as an example of the amazing depth of details.
• Analyzed Steve Jobs and Randy Pausch through the Levels of Meaning Chart.

Due Sunday:

• WJQ2:  My Writing PTSD is… (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) — 500+ words posted to your Home page on your WordPress site (Top of the page, New… Post).  Tweet the link!

Due Tuesday:

• Q&Q3 Dropped to me TWO hours before class. (NRR 7 mths, 10 Captivity–Rhodes)
• Body Mapping Product:  A fully decorated/designed/detailed outline body (yours preferably) brought into class with only ONE word on it.  A 500+ word essay that tells the story of your multi-media body map.  Your body map may only represent/tell the story of ONE MINUTE of your life.  (Think back to in class activities).
• You need to Post your Body Map to your own WordPress site on its own Page (top of page, new, page.)  You must also upload a picture of the actual body outline (decorated) and your 500+ words of text.
• You need to drop your 500+ words of text as well.