Thursday, February 19 2008

Today’s Agenda

Over the course of the past week, you have written the following assignments for me:

1) You condensed your précis into a one or a one-and-a-half page assignment. You also wrote a one or a one-and-half page evaluation of “The Oblivious Empire.” In that document, you needed to consider A) how well Hertsgaard’s claims and evidence supported his thesis, and B) the extent to which the order of information in the argument helped to support that thesis.

You e-mailed me this work, and I have responded. For many of you, the primary concern was a lack of quotation and citation. We need to be quoting and citing in every paragraph, sometimes more than once. And when we quote we need to follow the three-step process:

1) Introduce

2) Present

3) Explain

You are here today with three copies of your next writing assignment. In this assignment, you were to find a way to join these two documents into a single document. You needed to find good transitions between section. You needed to omit repeated or redundant information, and you also had to make sure that the entire document flows and is reader friendly.

Let’s start class today by getting out these documents and turning one of them over.

On the backside of the copy, I want you to write on the following topic for the next 10 minutes: In specific detail, explain the process by which you joined these two documents. How did you edit, modify, or revise these individual writings so that they would make a coherent whole? No detail it so small to consider here. Describe the process of writing and revising from beginning to end.  (10 mins)

Document Workshop

In your groups, I want you to exchange drafts with one another. We will be performing focused proofreads on these documents for the next 20 or so minutes.

1)      Analysis:

a.       Content Check

i.      Has the author successfully analyzed the essay in the required space? Did he or she lay out the basic parts of the arguments (situation, issue, and thesis) in a way that makes sense? Is the writing balanced or unbalanced? That is, is the author skipping over important information?

b.      Mechanics check

i.      Let’s begin with a focus on paragraph structure. Are these paragraphs well-developed, i.e. 6-8 sentences long and focused on a general topic or idea. If so, great – but if not, then we need to let the person know that.

ii.      Citation check. Are quotes and paraphrases properly cited? Essentially, any information that appears to have come from, or have been gleaned from, a specific source (the essay) needs to be cited appropriately.

2)      Evaluation:

a.       Content check:

i.      Has the author clearly identified a thesis early in either his section or in the previous analysis section? Are they clearly explaining how the parts of the essay either relate or do not relate to the thesis? Has the author made an attempt to clearly explain the value of these parts within the essay as either supporting or confusing the author’s thesis?

b.      Mechanics Check:

i.     Again, let’s begin with a focus on paragraphs. Has the author written in well developed paragraphs, 6-8 sentences long, focused on one topic or idea? If so, the next step it to see if they have, again, cited correctly.

Okay, now let’s give papers back to the owners.

The now we are going to learn a new concept.

Now that we’ve done a little bit of writing, we can revisit the assignment that we are working towards in this class:

Our assignment: A 3-5 page argument, using a variety of sources as material.  In the argument, you will analyze and evaluate the source material and synthesize it into a coherent whole.

We have already learned what it means to analyze and evaluate something. Today we are going to learn what it means to synthesize something.

Synthesis: The combining of the constituent elements of separate materials into a single or unified entity.

We saw the phrase “constituent elements” when we were thinking about “analysis.”

Remember, the definition for analysis was: the separating of any material into its constituent elements.

When we analyzed “The Oblivious Empire,” we took in apart into its situation, issue, and thesis sections.

Now, it wouldn’t make much sense for us to simply synthesize something that we have already analyzed, as we would just be putting something “back to together the way it already was.”

So here is what we are going to do:

In the “synthesis” portion of our paper, we are going to attempt to combine some of the basic parts of “The Oblivious Empire” with material from other sources. We can do this for essentially one of two reasons, to affirm Hertsgaard’s claims and evidence, or to challenge these same claims and evidence.

Well, in order to begin this process, the first thing we need to do is identify another source to use. Eventually, you will need to find two more sources for your paper, but I am going to provide you with one of the two. On page 1003 of your textbook, you will find an article entitled “America the Beautiful: What we’re fighting for” by Dinesh D’Souza.

Class work:

Your job in class today is to begin working with this document. I want you to read and annotate, but I want you to annotate in a specific way.

1) Read through the document, citing comments you think are important.

2) Re-read the document and

Homework for Monday(5:00 PM)

Your homework for the weekend is to do the following: Write a one to one and a half page synthesis of Hertgaard’s article that uses quotes or evidence from D’Souza and one other source of your choosing. This source needs to be addressing the reasons for contemporary American foreign policy. I would suggest you begin your search for sources by considering mainstream publications like Time, Newsweek, or US News and World Report.

I will read these and have them back to you on Tuesday at the end of the business. Late papers will be treated as such.

Homework for NEXT Thursday BEFORE CLASS

1) After reading and responding to my comments, you are to include your synthesis of Hertsgaard, D’Souza, and one other source into your analysis and evaluation of “The Oblivious Empire.” Essentially, you will be finding a way to include your synthesis as the third section to this document.

2) After you have included this new section to your paper, you are to go through and re-write the draft so that it is an argument: that is, it argues a _specific_ point about Hertsgaard’s “The Oblivious Empire” AS YOU WRITE THIS ARGUMENT, BE AWARE OF THE VERY IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN USING SOMEONE’S WRITING AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO STATE YOUR OWN OPINION AND USING SOMEONE’S WRITING AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO RESPOND DIRECTLY TO THAT WRITING. I WANT YOU TO DO THE LATTER, NOT THE FORMER.

3)  You are to e-mail me this argument before class next time, and you are to come to class with three printed off copies of the document to share and workshop with your peers.

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