For the final sample of the session, I’ll be drafting the kind of postscript that students in the class are asked to compose. They are prompted to look back at their self-assessed strengths and weaknesses in reading and writing, then to articulate in one paragraph how they plan to overcome those challenges that presented themselves during the session before, in another paragraph, noting how they mean to continue to improve upon their performances as they move forward through classes. Students are asked to submit those reflections in an APA-formatted document. Consequently, I’ll be doing much the same.

To begin my own work on the exercise, I once again set up an APA-formatted document in double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman type, with one-inch margins on letter-sized paper. I constructed my title page and stubbed out my main text as appropriate, inserting running head and pagination as needed. And I then pulled up my own self-assessment from the first week of the session, which I reproduce here from the online discussion:

With that list before me, I considered how I had worked to address the challenges I’d identified, drafting a narrative report of that work as my first paragraph of response and making sure to include explicit reference to my earlier words to help my readers understand my topic of discussion.

The second paragraph required a bit of adjustment; I’m not enrolled in any future classes, and I am not likely to become so. (I toy with the idea of going after an MBA, but that’s a later concern–if it ever becomes one.) But the fact that I am not in any formal education at this point does not mean that I cannot look for ways to improve my performance further, and reflecting on that allowed me to draft materials for the second requested paragraph.

The materials composed, I worked to make the writing more accessible to my expected primary audience, again acknowledging a consistent issue in my work. Once it was at a place I felt comfortable giving it to that audience, I reviewed my work for alignment with the orthographical standards at work in the course. Finding no deviations, I rendered the document into an accessible format once again, which I present here as what I hope will be of useful service to my students and others: G. Elliott Wk 8 Sample Assignment Response.

This won’t be my last go-around; I’ll still appreciate help.

Last week, noted here, I posted a sample of a response essay, another piece working to emulate the work my students are asked to do. I felt obliged, for several reasons, to address a slightly different prompt than that offered to them, but I still feel that the model offered was useful. But there is more to do, both for the students and on the piece I offered, for which reason I proceed now to narrate my process for arriving at a model for the revised essay expected of students and to provide the model arrived at. I do so in the continuing hopes that my students and others will benefit from my efforts.

The week’s assignment asks students to take the draft provided the previous week and expand upon and revise it with comments from the instructor. While the previous week would have admitted of a partial draft (I did not offer one), the current exercise requires a completed draft, albeit one admittedly brief. Aside from the expectation of fuller development (“fuller” instead of “full” because every piece of writing can be refined further), requirements follow those of the previous week’s work.

To mimic the exercise, I began by opening the previous week’s assignment and saving it under an updated name; doing so allowed me to retain a base copy in case things went strangely during revision while still letting me make updates–and helping me to find them. Then, as with a previous revision exercise, I printed out a hard copy of the text on which to make my initial edits. (I might note, too, that when I review my own work in hard copy, I rarely use red ink, preferring blue ink or pencil. Both stand out from the black ink of the printed pages while avoiding the glaring sense of “problem” that arises from red ink. Pencil allows for more adjustment, though it tends to smear a bit, while blue ink tends not to do so.)

As I went through the earlier draft, I did so looking first for ways to make the content more accessible. I expect that relatively few of my students–my anticipated primary audience–are familiar with the content I discuss, so I have a particular burden to make that content clear and understandable. Additionally, as I reviewed my work, I found that I was not satisfied with how I had transitioned into a couple of paragraphs, so I adjusted those transitions, as well as making the aforementioned changes to content.

With my on-paper notes ready, I moved into adjusting the electronic text. As before, I worked from the end of the paper back to the front, so that my changes did not move others that would need making. And I made sure to save my work repeatedly; I’ve lost papers before, and even so brief a work as the present exercise would be an annoyance to redo. I also reviewed the text for readability; again, accessibility to the primary expected audience is a concern, and I know my tendencies well. But the document tested out as at an acceptable reading level while still reading how I would have it, so I accounted it good enough.

The essay revised, I gave it another quick review to ensure that its orthography was as it should be. Nothing showed up to that review, so I rendered the document into an accessible form that I present here in the hopes that it, too, will be helpful: G. Elliott Wk 7 Sample Essay.

Seriously, please help me keep on doing this!

Last week, noted here, I had another instance of encountering an assignment for students that did not demand a new sample from me. I was fortunate to have already developed a number of samples of the kind of work students were asked to do, so I gathered an assortment of them for ease of reference and left them for the students to read through. There was some pushback from them on how I want things done–I am of the opinion that summaries need to identify their subjects, which not all of my students seemed to appreciate–but they seem to have done largely well with the exercise.

The assignment for the present week appears to be another such thing. Students are asked to expand upon their summary work by writing a response to the issue treated by the summarized piece, and the examples of summaries that I had provided to students contain responses. As such, I thought I had already done the work for this week that I sought to do to help the students. But that is not entirely accurate.

For the present week’s assignment, students are asked to write a draft of a response essay. It needs to be in APA format, and it needs to make formal reference to an outside source–in the present case, the article that had been summarized in the previous week’s work. A four-paragraph structure is suggested by the University; introduction, one paragraph relating and explaining personal experience with the subject, another summarizing the article and explaining its relevance, and conclusion. And that expanded structure suggests that I compose a sample to help guide students.

To do so, I began by stubbing out a document according to the APA format template my students and I had developed in the class. That done, I looked at my current-to-the-writing news feeds for an article to summarize and respond to; as is ever the case, I do not want to do the students’ work for them in putting together examples for their use. Nor yet do I want to be too narrowly constrained against future iterations of the class for which I write the examples. Ultimately, I pulled up an article I had long bookmarked for another project; it seemed appropriate to turn to it for the present work.

Having decided upon a piece to which I would respond, I entered its information into the required References list, looking at APA standards to do so. I then read it, annotating it for summary. And it seemed a simple thing to then draft the summary, since I would either be responding to it or prefiguring it, so I did so.

With the summary written, I then considered whether my own comments would precede or succeed it. The former would have the advantage of leading from my own situated ethos to the invented ethos of outside documentation, corresponding to traditional rhetorical ordering by placing what might appear to be a stronger point in the stronger position. The latter, though, would figure my work as a more direct response, moving from the abstract to the concrete in a way that often reads well for students. Given that the piece is meant as a sample for students, the latter course suggested itself more strongly, so I drafted my own comments after giving the summary.

As I drafted, a thesis emerged for me. I took it, rephrased it slightly, and put it in the “expected” position–just before the body of my essay begins. I then drafted an introduction to move readers into the thesis smoothly. I followed that with a conclusion that moves forward from the thesis into an idea of what can be done with that thesis, a style of conclusion I typically prefer in shorter academic pieces.

The draft compiled, I gave it a quick review to ensure that its orthography was as it should be. Nothing showed up to that review, so I rendered the document into an accessible form that I present here in the hopes that it will be helpful: G. Elliott Wk 6 Sample Essay.

Please help me keep on doing this!

Earlier in the session, I found myself thwarted in my attempt to provide a sample assignment response when the first week’s assignments were quizzes alone. As I sat down to draft a response for the fifth week’s assignment, though, I found myself having the opposite problem. Instead of encountering an assignment I could not meaningfully or ethically exemplify for my students, I encountered one I have already abundantly exemplified for them. Instead of having no work that could be done, I had ample work that had already been done–which is a much better situation to be in than that I had had before.

What the students are asked to do in my class this week is read an article, write a summary of it, and write a response to it. I have no shortage of such things already available, in this webspace and elsewhere, even if they are not necessarily in the APA format requested by the institution. But I’ve practiced that format enough with my current students that I do not know that I need to give it them again, so, instead of making an offhand reference to where they can find examples in this webspace, I’ll give a list of a few of them that seem to have attracted most attention:

• Sample Textual Analysis: Picking apart a Fictional Puzzle
• Sample Evaluation: Fitting a Fictional Puzzle into Place
• In Response to Paul Sturtevant
• In another Response to Paul Sturtevant
• In Response to Adam Kirk Edgerton
• Responses to Erin Bartram
  • In Response to Erin Bartram
  • In another Response to Erin Bartram
  • In yet another Response to Erin Bartram
  • In Response to Erin Bartram Once Again

I hope they provide useful models of content for my students and for others to follow.

Help fund more quality instructional materials, please!

To follow up on the work of last week and before, continuing what I’ve found to be a useful pattern, I mean to press on in drafting sample assignments to help my students better understand what they are asked to do for the class. I also press on on in the hope that my efforts will prove to be of both that benefit and others to readers yet unknown to me. In doing so, I narrate my process of composition and present another sample paper near the end of this blog post.

For the present assignment, students are asked to revise the drafts they submitted during the previous week in light of instructor comments about them. Submission guidelines remain the same as for the previous piece.

Accordingly, to complete the exercise myself, I opened the editable copy of the paper I had written, saved it under a new filename, and printed it out. When I review my own work, I do so more effectively from paper as a result of years of practice doing so, and I try to cater to my strengths when I do such work. Printed copy in hand, I pored over my earlier work, looking for places I could tighten phrasing–particularly in the long body paragraph of the earlier paper. Where I could, I marked such passages and penned changes between the printed lines. I then transferred the comments back into the editable paper, working from the end of the paper towards the beginning so that the changes I made would not displace other phrases I needed to change.

With that done, I again reviewed the piece for readability by applying the Flesh-Kincaid reading level test. It again returned a result in line with what I had hoped to find. I was thus able to proceed to review style and mechanics in the work. After making the adjustments that needed making, given exercise requirements and ease of reading, I put the document into an accessible format, which I present here in the hopes that it will be of use: G. Elliott Revised Sample Essay.

I can still use more support as I work to support my students more.