Course Folder and Conferences

1. Course Folders include all graded essays and paragraph assignments. These are used to do a final appeal for any student and teacher who believe the student should move on to 101A despite second and third readings.


2. Our 1-on-1 conferences, which we will schedule on Friday, are for Monday, May 12, from 2:45-4:45pm.

Doing Evaluations

Click here: https://mc.simplyvoting.com/

Take 15-20 minutes to evaluate your professors this semester.

How Will You Work On Transferring Knowledge?

On Wednesday, I want you to write a paragraph in class in which you explain how you plan to develop your critical thinking skills over the summer.

First, though, I want us to read some passages in an article called "Why Don't They Apply What They've Learned" Part 1 and Part 2

"Ambrose and her co-authors point to two reasons for the failure-to-transfer that all of us see sometimes in our students. First, they might tie whatever knowledge or skill we are teaching too closely to the context in which they learned it. Thus, students can write innovative opening paragraphs in my freshman-composition course, but in their other classes they continue to rely on the same strategies they learned in high school. Second, the inability to transfer a skill or information to a novel context might indicate shallow levels of learning. If students are capable of solving problems, writing essays, or answering questions according to some formula they have learned, they might not have grasped the underlying principles of our course content. Without that deeper knowledge of what lies beneath the formula, they can't pick up what they are learning and put it back down in an unrelated context."  [from Part 1]

...

"For example, one pattern he found among highly successful college students was the willingness to embrace and learn from failure. The comedian and talk show host Stephen Colbert, one of Bain's more famous subjects, describes how improvisational theater taught him to see the value of failure—to learn from the experience and then move beyond it. "You haven't done it before," Colbert says, speaking about how he learned to embrace failed first-time learning efforts, "how could you possibly get it perfectly right?"

But the pattern that struck me most forcefully in Bain's subjects related to the subject of far transfer. The very first story he tells in the book, after his introductory chapter, describes a student who entered college with four major questions he wanted to answer—deep, profound questions, the kind that it would take a lifetime of learning to understand, much less answer. The first of them was "Why does anything exist?"; the last was "What's the nature of intelligence?"

That student, unsurprisingly, "took a deep approach to learning, asking in every field why and how, and trying to connect everything together." His own words describe a thinking skill—building theoretical models—that he learned and then transferred to multiple disciplines: "You could build models in math," he said to Bain, "but you could also do it in music, in business, and in engineering."

Transfer occurred for that student because he was seeking answers to his own questions. Every learning experience he had was automatically filtered through the lens of the big questions he wanted to explore, and the habit of seeing across courses and disciplines led him to the kind of connected educational experience that we want for our students.

Bain heard something similar from Colbert, who "took control of his education and began to decide what areas he would explore when he was 10 years old." Bain heard the same thing from an investigative journalist who would earn his fame working with students to help overturn death-penalty convictions, and whose big college questions "centered around justice and how to maintain it and create it." He heard it from a doctor who "chose every course at Boston University with one goal in mind: getting into medical school and becoming a physician." And not just pre-med courses: "She majored in social psychology because she thought it would help her become a better physician."

Those students transferred knowledge and skills from course to course because they brought their own questions and interests to their college experience. Whatever they might have been asked to learn in any one course, they sought to understand how everything they learned connected to their overarching questions and interests. They were able to see how a problem-solving skill learned in one class could help them in another, or how a piece of knowledge from one course connected to another, because they oriented themselves toward some larger question, challenge, or problem. That orientation encouraged them to transfer learning across contexts, to make connections, and to see the bigger picture." [from Part 2]

Critical Thinking Questions on Reading Kitchen Confidential

• What are two ways the memoir challenges you to think about the larger world that we all live in? 

• What knowledge (think of the subjects we've covered) did you gain from reading the memoir (hint: an answer of 'nothing' or 'very little' does not make you look smart)? 

• Also, how have you tried (or may you try) to transfer or apply the knowledge to the rest of your life?

Final Exam Preparation for 4/30

Prepare for the final exam, which is 1 hour and 25 minutes. Make sure to bring the following with you:

• a dictionary or thesaurus for word choice/spelling
• Kitchen Confidential
• Rules for Writers
• One page of typed up (or handwritten) notes--only on one side.

• include:
• thematic ideas that you may make thesis or topic sentence points with

• including problem, struggle, epiphany and resolution ideas for Bourdain

• important passages that you want to use as support

• reminders of grammatical rules, such as FANBOYS or PRE
• Compare and contrast language, transitional devices

1. Subject by Subject

• each text is discussed separately
• often the "high school way" -- and can weaken an essay's larger analysis IF the writer lacks a solid thesis and analytical topic sentences

2. Point by Point

• two (or more) texts discussed by points
• a comparison point
• a contrast point
• some other "connection" point, such as how one is more important than the other
• cause and effect

1. "The danger of this subject-by-subject organization is that your paper will simply be a list of points: a certain number of points (in my example, three) about one subject, then a certain number of points about another. This is usually not what college instructors are looking for in a paper—generally they want you to compare or contrast two or more things very directly, rather than just listing the traits the things have and leaving it up to the reader to reflect on how those traits are similar or different and why those similarities or differences matter. Thus, if you use the subject-by-subject form, you will probably want to have a very strong, analytical thesis and at least one body paragraph that ties all of your different points together."    -- University of North Carolina's Writing Center website


2. "Alice Walker and Maya Angelou are two contemporary African-American writers.  Although almost a generation apart in age, both women display a remarkable similarity in their lives.  Each has written about her experiences growing up in the rural South, Ms. Walker through her essays and Ms. Angelou in her autobiographies.  Though they share similar backgrounds, each has a unique style which gives to us, the readers, the gift of their exquisite humanity, with all of its frailties and strengths, joys and sorrows." -- Student Example, Roane State CC 

Help with FAFSA applications

During the week of April 28-May 2, the Financial Aid Office will dedicate the week in providing assistance to students to complete their Financial Aid Application early.  Please inform students about this week.  We are trying to get as many students as we can to complete the financial aid process early so they will not wait until late August to start thinking about how they are going to pay their tuition and fees. 

Do You Need Assistance Completing Your FAFSA ?

The Financial Aid Office Staff Is Available To  Help You

Monday           Wednesday           Friday

             April 28^th           April 30^th              May 2nd  

  9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

&

Tuesday, April 29^th 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

	WHAT TO BRING

 

• ·          2013 Tax Returns (or your estimates)       
  ·          2013 W-2s & other earning statements
  ·          Bank Statements & any Benefit Statements
  ·           Social Security Numbers
  ·          Pin (go to www.pin.ed.gov.

 

 

TURN IT IN TUESDAY

(May 6^th)

                      Bring in all of your Financial Aid forms  to complete your file

 

Wednesday, 4/23

For the next 50 minutes, work on one of the following editing strategies for your two Portfolio Essays:

1. Run-ons: both fused sentences and comma splices. Review the blog and Rules for Writer for techniques and examples.

2. Fixing pronoun references and pronoun agreement issues, including replacing confusing or weak usages with synonymous, more accurate word choice.

3. Test all sentences for subject-verb agreement issues.

4. Verb tense shifts and mood shifts. Get rid of them! See pages 136-138 in Rules for Writers for help!

5. Work on subordination of ideas, using run-on techniques discussed earlier this term. Look for places in essays where two ideas exist back-to-back, and this is where you will want to spend time considering and trying out subordination (and coordination, if necessary). See pages141-145 in Rules for Writers for how to do so, and pages 146-152 for considerations when to subordinate and when not to...

If you feel editing is okay, focus on one of two major content areas where an essay may need improvement in the writer showing authority and supporting ideas. To strengthen authority, look at:

1. Your illustrations of ideas.  Do they fit the point? Are they specific enough, descriptive, and more than one sentence when needed?

Are they placed effectively within paragraphs as hooks in intros or as supporting examples in PRE formed body paragraphs?  

Are,they appropriate examples for the prompts purpose and point of view? 

2. Context for subject matter. Do you give enough background on your subject  that you can use or do address in essay? Do you spell out who people are or what things or places are? Do you give a framework of important factor, or do you assume too much? Think more about individual qualities that your subject has. For instance, in Essay 3, define the culture you give advice on. Address who is there and what are some norms and beliefs that your advice is relevant for. What is a person up against in this culture that they should follow your advice?

Identify and Fix Fragments

Identifying fragments:  look for dependent clauses that start sentences, but that lack a subject or verb modified by that clause.  Read your sentences aloud and ask: Who is doing what in this sentence? 

Here are some common errors we can identify as half thoughts, dependent thoughts:

• Prepositional phrases  (ex.:  “During the war.”)
• –ing verb starts off   (ex.: “Beginning the story over.”)
• infinitive form starts off  (to verb, ex.:  “To command the army.”)
• Relative clauses starts off  (who, that, which, whose, ex.: “Which was awesome.”)
• Appositives on their own. ( ex.:  “The first president.”)
• No verb (action), or no subject doing the action

Methods for fixing:

• First, identify fragments by doing the subject-verb-object test. You may want to read the piece backwards to slow down and catch more possible errors:

• Underline the subject
• Circle the verb
• box in the object
• If you are missing one of the above, you likely have a fragment; something or someone must be done onto something or someone else! 

1.     Add a subject and verb prior to the existing fragment and lower-case the fragments first word to show proper mechanics.

• Example fragment:  During the war.
• Fix:  We fought during the war

2. Change the period into a comma, then add the subject and verb.

• Example fragment:  During the war.
• Fix grammar: During the war, we fought. 
• Improve idea by adding a modifier:  During the war, we fought for oil deals. 

2.     Or, it is likely that your fragment is just improperly attached to the sentence before or after it. If this is the case, add the phrase to the sentence next to it that you are most likely using the fragment to modify by: 

• If you are attaching the fragment to the beginning of the next sentence, you will need a comma before the subject!

• We had to be back at the office in twenty minutes. To save time. We ordered cold sandwiches.
•  We had to be back at the office in twenty minutes. To save time, we ordered cold sandwiches.

• If you are attaching the fragment to the end of the last sentence because it modifies the object, then erase the period of that sentence and lowercase the first word of the fragment.

Revising Examples: Strengthening Logic and Details

If you have a good point and you have good reasons for making that point, then using the rest of a paragraph to demonstrate--or illustrate--that point becomes a key to your paragraph being fully supported and unified.

If you had the comment "Details" or "Examples" or "Illustrate" or something similar, that is a place where you lacked the showing of your point. You need to work on an appropriate example that has concrete details. 

For the memoir, the examples are fairly easy. Concrete details come from the source. Go to a specific page and quote, paraphrase, or summarize a passage; then, make sure to use the ( ) at the end to show citation. Make sure, too, to start those sentences with "signal phrases."

For essays in which you are the primary source...where does the "I" experience your points? For instance, if you state your topic sentence point as, "I learned from the quote how to be a stronger father," then your examples must be about things you do as a father that show how you've become a stronger father. Show some example of when you were not as good, and an example of when you were better. Why? That point implies that there was a before and an after, and I am NOT ALLOWED to simply just make the point and move on with life. That paragraph must illustrate the point. PRE. PRE. PRE.

When you must invent the examples:

• Personal anecdotes becomes important examples
• Creative examples that reference popular culture, history, or some other place that you find relevant to the thesis point, if not more directly the topic sentence's point in a body paragraph.

 

Examples:

• If I'm writing about the dangers in with using the wrong language in my neighborhood--I have to describe a moment in time when somebody said the wrong thing and give the result.  

• If I tell somebody that language is a barrier, I must describe a real or fake person or persons who has had a specific moment where language was a barrier.

 

A Helpful Structure Guide

Santa Barbara City College has a really great handout, click here, that you can use. I will have handed out this handout today. Try and use it to help you organize all of your essays.

Some notes:

1. The outline has different language (no PRE), but  Topic Sentence (Point), Supporting Evidence (Examples) and Analysis (Reasons/Reasoning).

2. The outline reorders PRE, but that's okay. We've talked about that. You should feel empowered to reorganize the RE to fit in naturally with how your evidence and reasons play off of the main point.

3. Analysis is like the second meaning of E in PRE. Explanation. Where the outline slots analysis in paragraph structure is the same as where we have been taught to explain evidence: at the end of the paragraph, after the evidence.

4. Transitions: we have not spent enough time on transitions, but we have discussed very briefly having the last sentence in a paragraph also operate as a hinge to the next sentence or to have the first sentence of the next sentence have a transitional phrase that connects back to the last paragraph. These hinge sentences are really effective techniques to make the body paragraphs all connect to each other more clearly.

Adding context to basic claims/making more specific and full of depth

1. Start simple:  S-V-O

• People must learn to work hard ( A generic claim for advice essay.)

2. Then, to make more thoughtful:

• What people?
• What does work hard mean?

3.  Expand the subject anew

• Those who want to be economically successful  = people

4. Expand the object

• Working longer hours than others and taking on extra projects =Ways of working hard 

New topic sentence:

Those who want to be economically successful must learn to work longer hours than others and take on extra projects.   

• See how one shows more thought to the reader; the second shows a clearer point. Plus, now you can brainstorm clearer examples to fit that point because you've given yourself a focus...

Now, your paragraph has other questions to answer to support that clear claim

• What are reasons working long hours matter?
• What does taking in larger projects show?

• What is an example of you or someone you know taking on extra hours or extra projects?
• What were the results of that effort?

For Wednesday, 4/16

1. Bring in Essay 4 so that I can grade and provide feedback.

2. Bring in Essays 1, 2, 3 and Midterm, too. From each essay, write out the five most awkward sentences in the draft. In order to edit, we must have some kind of idea about where we might be confusing our readers. Bring Rules for Writers to class, too.

Drafting 3rd person claims by reflecting on evidence

The Simple Sentence

Subject + verb + object


Subject | Let's give a quick review to the Linking Key Words exercise. How do we create synonyms of the subject?

• What are some adjectives and adjectival phrases you would use to describe Bourdain?

Verb | Let's review those action verbs. Which one's might allow us to see what's most happening to Bourdain in these chapters?

•  What are some strong action/analysis verbs that go with "describing one's behavior" or "change"? What verbs fit that purpose of critically describing how Bourdain's changed?

Object | What has happened? What is the context for example(s)?

• What are some repeated behaviors that we see Bourdain go through?
• What repeated things he says about his own career?
• In what ways do his actions change from chapter to chapter?

Reviewing Bourdain's Personal Struggles

Here was this weekend's homework:

Find five (5) passages from at least 3 chapters in Third Course that discuss Bourdain's personal struggles with keeping or staying at a job. Write down those passages and their page numbers in the left hand side of a Two-Column chart. On the right side, interpret what that passage says about Bourdain's struggles.

Let's start discussion of the Third Course with those important passages.

K.I.S.S.: starting an essay

1. Let's review our thesis statements on the blog.

2. What are your subtopics? Do you need to list the top 2-3 points you want to make about yourself and your how your quote informs that "idea of you"?

3.. Let's review then write one body paragraph for that thesis statement, based on the first subtopic you have indicated in your thesis, or have in an outline.

4. Find five (5) passages from at least 3 chapters in Third Course that discuss Bourdain's personal struggles with keeping or staying at a job. Write down those passages and their page numbers in the left hand side of a Two-Column chart. On the right side, interpret what that passage says about Bourdain's struggles.

Draft a thesis that answers the prompts question

Directly, you could borrow the prompt's language to start your thesis statement.

Indirectly, your statement might just focus on reusing your quote as the subject and working hard to answer the prompt's basic idea specifically with that quote...

What do those two things mean?

Possibile Context, Thesis, and Subtopic starters for Essay 3 introductions

1. What are the key words in your quote, and what do they mean to you?

2. Who/where are these words from? How do you relate to the person who gave you the words?

3. In what areas of your life does your quote most fit? (Don't worry about "everything" type language...focus on a few examples.) What part of your larger identity do these words most represent? MOST represent?

4. If you had to give a thematic tagline to the essay and to the quote, what would it be? ...

As a Memoir: Bourdain's Journey

Problem, Struggle, Epiphany, Resolution: 

• These stages are generic and, within a larger memoir like Kitchen Confidential, more blurred within many subplots. 

• But…we can still use this knowledge as a good frame for how we organize one idea we have about Anthony Bourdain's stories. 

• You can use the knowledge of the "Personal Narrative Essay" of how writers structure a story to deliver readers messages to do some 3rd person literary analysis. 

• What is a problem that Bourdain repeatedly identifies in his life?
• What are some behavioral ways he struggles with this particular problem?
• What does he realize about his problem?
• What does he resolve to do or do to overcome the problem?
• (There are a few problems that you could center an entire analysis essay around, and that is the "trick" you--dear student writer--must work with)

Structure of the Personal Narrative Essay

How should you structure your personal narrative essay. Adair Lara, who has written countless personal essays and taught creative writing, and who is the author of the bestselling text, ”Naked, Drunk, and Writing”, suggests that the structure of a personal narrative essay or memoir essay include the following:

• Problem
- Your goal is to describe a problem in vivid details. What is the significant event that lead to a problem?

• Struggle
-This problem creates conflict, which can be external (the outside world) and internal ( within your mind or psyche) obstacles or setbacks.

• Epiphany
- Your problem and struggle results in an epiphany or flood of new understanding. The epiphany transforms your story from merely an anecdote to a personal narrative that has significant meaning to you, and shared meaning with others.

• Resolution
- What you have done differently since you had the epiphany.

How might we use these four structural points (problem, struggle, epiphany, resolution) to fit the academic essay formula (intro, body, conclusion)?