This morning in class, after I collect your third Check, Please! assignments, you will compose a short essay in which you reflect on the processes of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. Questions to consider include the ones below. You don’t need to address all of the questions, focus on the ones whose answers reveal the most about your work.
- What aspect of the writing seemed the most challenging? Determining the focus of your narrative? Developing the story? Crafting the conclusion? Why did that aspect of the writing seem the most challenging?
- Did you change the subject of your narrative? If so, what was the original subject? What did you change it to? Why?
- Did you change the organization of the narrative? For example: Did you initially present the story chronologically, then change it?
- Did any of the sample essays we examined (“Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” “A Bridge to Words”) prove helpful to you as a model? If so, how? (Offer one or more concrete details to support your claim.)
- What do you consider the strongest element of your literacy narrative?
- At what point in the process did you decide on a title? Did you change the title during the writing process? If so, what was the original title?
- What image did you include that documents part of your writing process away from the screen? Why did you choose that particular image?
- What relevant website did you link to your blog post. Why is that particular site relevant to your narrative?
- In addition to metacognition, did any of the other habits of mind of successful college students play a significant role in your writing process? If so, which one? The other seven are curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, and flexibility.
Students who have their physical copies of Writing analytically have the option of integrating a quotaion from the textbook into their reflection. See the directions and the example below.
Directions
- Read the section of Writing Analytically titled “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.”
- Choose a short passage from the section that is relevant to your writing process and include it in your reflection.
- Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase and end the sentence with a parenthetical citation. At the end of your reflection, include an MLA-style work cited entry. See the example below.
Example
The authors of Writing Analytically note that beginning a piece of writing on a computer can “lock you into a draft or a particular idea too soon” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 124). Early in the process of writing my literacy narrative, I found myself locked into an idea that I was able to discard only after I resumed writing longhand.
Work Cited
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 124-25.
Postscript
Here is my version of the Check, Please! lesson three assignment that you submitted at the beginning of class this morning:
Check, Please! Sample Assignment Lesson Three
In the third lesson of the Check, Please! Starter Course, Mike Caulfield, author of the course and research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, continues his instruction on the second step in four-step SIFT approach to determining the reliability of a source. Lesson three, “Further Investigation,” covers these topics: (1) Just add Wikipedia for names and organizations, (2) Google Scholar searches for verifying expertise, (3) Google News searches for information about organizations and individuals, (4) the nature of state media and how to identify it, and (5) the difference between bias and agenda.
One of the most instructive parts of lesson three focuses on two news stories about MH17, Malyasia Airlines Flight 17, a passenger flight scheduled to land in Kuala Lumpur that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. While the second story, a television news segment, appears to present detailed investigative reporting challenging the conclusion of the Dutch Safety Board and Dutch-led joint investigation team–the conclusion that Russia was to blame–a quick just-add-Wikipedia check reveals that RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-controlled international TV network, a government propaganda tool rather than a source of fair and balanced news. The first video, the one produced by Business Insider, a financial and business news site, delivers accurate coverage of MH17.
Another notable segment of “Further Investigation” addresses the important distinction between bias and agenda. There, Caulfield observes that “[p]ersonal bias has real impacts. But bias isn’t agenda, and it’s agenda that should be your primary concern for quick checks,” adding that “[b]ias is about how people see things; agenda is about what a news or research organization is set up to do.”
Work Cited
Caulfield, Mike. Check, Please! Starter Course, 2021, https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/updated-resources-for-2021/.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips.
Jane Lucas 