Month: November 2024

Today in class, after your Scrabble debriefing, you will read a sample final essay and annotated bibliography written by a student in a previous semester. After you read and make notes on it, you and two or three of your classmates will collaboratively compose a one-paragraph assessment of it. Questions to consider in your assessment include these:

• Does the essay answer the questions included in the first bullet point in the key features section of the assignment?
• Does the essay include quotations from at least two of the sources in the bibliography? Are the quotations introduced with signal phrases? Are parenthetical citations included where needed?
• Does the bibliography include a minimum of five sources, an interview with a classmate and at least four print sources?
• Are the sources in the bibliography listed in the correct order?
• Does the bibliographic entry for each source include complete MLA-style publication or interview information?
• Is the publication or interview information for each source followed by a paragraph of summary?
• Is each summary followed by a paragraph of commentary?
• Does each commentary answer some of the questions included in the third bullet point in the key features section of the assignment?
• Is the final essay and annotated bibliography marred by errors of diction, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and/or style? If so, note at least one specific example in your assessment.

After you complete your assessment, review the grade criteria on your final essay and annotated bibliography assignment handout, and assign a grade.

For those of you who are absent today, the sample student paper is posted on Blackboard.

Next Up

In class on Wednesday, you will have additional time for locating sources and composing annotations for your own final essay and annotated bibliography.

This morning in class you will read one of your classmate’s analyses and post a comment on his or her blog. The complete assignment appears below.

1. Go to the class blog page, https://janelucas.com/english-at-high-point/,and click on the link for the blog of the of classmate whose name precedes yours on the roster. If you are first on the list, go to the blog of the student whose name is last on the list.  
2. If the student’s blog is not accessible, email the student and ask that he/she email you a copy of his/her literacy analysis.
3. Read the classmate’s analysis and compose a response (75 words, minimum) that addresses one or more of these elements: the title, the thesis, textual evidence, a quotation from the text.
4. Does the blog post include an image that documents part of the blogger’s writing process away from the screen? ___ (yes or no)
5. Does the post include a relevant embedded link? ___ (yes or no)
6. Identify one or more of the “Nine Basic Writing Errors” (see Writing Analytically, 423-44). In your response identify the error by name and number, and also quote the writer’s error. If you cannot identify one of the nine basic errors, include a sentence in your response that quotes a sentence of your peer’s and identify by name and number the error that he or she avoids.

Examples

• An instance of BWE (Basic Writing Error) 3: Errors in Subject-Verb Agreement occurs when you write, “Mr. Zylberberg’s head and torso appears” (par. 2). The singular verb “appears” should be “appear” because the subject, head and torso, is plural.
• You avoid an instance of BWE (Basic Writing Error) 7: Errors in Using Possessive Apostrophes when you write, “Spiegelman further emphasizes the mourners’ identification with the hanged men by extending two of the nooses’ ropes upward” (par. 3). Both “mourners” and “nooses” are correctly presented as possessives with the addition of an apostrophe after the final “s” in each.

Next Up

In class on Wednesday, we will review a sample final essay and annotated bibliography, and you will have the remainder of class to devote to your own research and writing.