Category Archives: Writing

Remaining Writing, Required and Optional

Posted on by

I hope that everyone is enjoying the spring recess so far!

Since we didn’t meet for class today, I wanted to update you all on the remaining opportunities you have to improve or demonstrate your mastery of the Four Capabilities, which is the sole thing that I will be looking at when assessing your final grade for the course.

You have now received all of the required writing-based-on-reading assignments, which are collected under the Reading Questions category.

Over the next week, I will be catching up on giving you feedback on any assignments I have not yet read and commented on. By April 7, I will be caught up, and after that there is one more required writing assignment for you to do. You will need to write a self-assessment of your own learning progress in the course that uses (a) the principles outlined in the rubric and (b) specific evidence from your own work in the class to justify your conclusions. This final assignment will be due by April 22 (the last day of classes for the semester). This self-assessment should be written in complete sentences and paragraphs, and should be about the length of one of your usual reading responses. It needs to be guided by all the same principles of Position Taking and Effective Communication that should guide any piece of writing in this course.

In addition to that final required writing assignment (and your group’s work for our presentation), you also have some optional things you can do if you have not yet achieved mastery of the Four Capabilities and want to show me continued progress on the rubric.

First, you can revise and resubmit up to two of any of your previous assignments in the Google Doc. Just write the new version at the bottom of your Doc and clearly indicate that it is a revision. As long as I receive these by the final day of final exams, which is May 4, I can consider them when making a final assessment of your mastery of the rubric. Keep in mind that these revisions only help you on that score if they in fact show improvement in the areas that you and I have already flagged as needing improvement, so I’d encourage you to talk with me about planned revisions, but that talk, too, is optional.

Second, you can write an optional position-driven essay based on material in one of the "extra" posts I have published on this blog—that is, posts that were not about the assigned weekly readings. These include a post about a controversial children’s book on Washington and slavery, about controversies over Woodrow Wilson at Princeton, about Presidents’ Day and the use of Presidents in election cycles, about some news items on figures we’ve studied, and about my four-year-old daughter’s perceptions of two legendary Americans. (By the way, I swear she picked out that John Henry book from the library on her own. I didn’t put her up to it!)

I’m giving you considerable flexibility with this assignment, but you need to tell me the scenario you are writing in (the form of writing, the audience, etc.) yourself and make sure that you are taking a position. The audience could, of course, just be me, and you can treat this essay much like a standard reading response. But if one of the areas you need to work on is audience awareness, it might be in your interest to think about how you could use the assignment creatively to show progress on that skill.

Because of these optional assignments, you have no shortage of ways to show that you have mastered the Four Capabilities by the end of the semester. But remember that because of the way your grade will be assigned, simply doing these optional assignments doesn’t immediately give you extra credit. The optional assignments help you improve your grade only insofar as they help to demonstrate your mastery of the rubric.

This Wednesday: Workshop on Style

Posted on by

Andrew Klein, a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Communication, is going to be holding a workshop this Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. in the CWOVC (Fondren Library 201). The workshop is on improving the clarity of your written work. Klein says, “It will address aspects of academic writing at the sentence, paragraph, and text levels so as to enable students to produce smooth, readable prose that takes the reader from sentence to sentence in a coherent manner.”

I would strongly encourage all of you to attend, as I think it could be of benefit to anyone! But I would especially encourage any of you who have been getting comments from me about Effective Communication to consider going. Remember that Self-Reflection, in terms of our rubric, means you can “honestly identify areas for improvement in your own understanding, and then execute and evaluate strategies for addressing them.” Attending a workshop like this is one such strategy, and by going to the workshop, you’ll learn other strategies for improving your work!

Writing Aids for This Class

Posted on by

Over the last several weeks, we’ve developed some documents in class that will help you as you complete assignments for the rest of the semester. If you’re concerned that your writing isn’t improving or you aren’t sure how to do better, one of my first recommendations would be to revisit these resources and make sure you understand them! Here’s a list:

I will add any other documents of this sort created this semester to this list.

Depolarizing People

Posted on by

I saw this article on The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People making the rounds on social media, and thought it worth sharing. I found interesting how many of the tips discussed by the author resonated with statements on our learning rubric. Notice how the points on “qualifying” and “specifying” (instead of generalizing) are reflected in the rubric’s advice about complex position-taking, just as the points on “doubt” are reflected in the rubric’s advice about self-reflection. The advice about taking counter-arguments seriously is also a point that I’ve tried to stress in class. So who knows? Maybe working on the Four Capabilities won’t just make you a better writer, but will also help depolarize our political culture, just as Washington’s Farewell Address would have wanted!

Writing Assignment for Feb. 18

Posted on by

Next week’s reading and writing assignment will depart slightly from our usual practice.

Before beginning the assignment, you should still complete the assigned reading, which is Camilla Townsend’s Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. But I won’t be giving you specific reading questions this time, so to prepare for our discussion, you’ll have to use the reading skills you’ve gained this semester, as well as your understanding of the Three Big Questions and related issues we’ve raised, to think about what we will likely discuss.

Your writing assignment will also be different. Instead of giving you specific questions to respond to, I’m going to give you some “real world” writing scenarios (listed below). Though the assignment is different, my expectations about it are not: you should still use the rubrics on position-taking and effective communication when writing.

Choose TWO of the following scenarios and complete the task associated with each. Put your work in your Google Doc as usual.

Scenario 1: Recently the Treasury Department has announced its intention to put a woman on $10 bill. Imagine that the Department were to announce that it has selected a representation of Pocahontas for the bill, sparking a controversy pitting supporters of the bill against opponents. Your task is to develop your own position, and then imagine that you have decided to create a petition to the White House using its online portal. You should write the text of the headline and description that you will use for your petition on that site, as well as the text of an email you plan to send to your friends and family explaining why you want their support for the petition. Both must draw on the available evidence from this course and the understandings and expertise you’ve gained so far in “Legendary Americans.”

Scenario 2: Imagine that students at one of the colleges on campus have announced plans to host a new themed public party called “Colors of the Wind.” From the marketing for the party, you have learned that the organizers planned to encourage attendees to costume themselves as Native Americans; the poster features an image of Pocahontas. Controversy has ensued over the college’s plans, especially after the University has announced that it will not allow the party to take place because of the theme. Your task is to write a letter to the Rice Thresher staking out your own position on the controversy. The letter must draw on the available evidence from this course and the understandings and expertise you’ve gained so far in “Legendary Americans.”

Scenario 3: Imagine that the HISD School Board is reevaluating the movies that it keeps stocked in its elementary schools. One of the movies up for discussion at the Board’s next meeting is Disney’s Pocahontas. Your task is to write a statement that you will read to the School Board, following its guidelines for addressing Board meetings. The statement must draw on the available evidence from this course and the understandings and expertise you’ve gained so far in “Legendary Americans.”

Important Notes: Regardless of the scenarios you choose, you will need to practice Audience Awareness, the fourth of our Four Capabilities in this class. That may mean you need to do some research about the real-world expectations and requirements for each of these writing scenarios. Whichever you choose, you should also keep in mind that you have a broad base of evidence, readings, and insights to draw on from this course, and so you should use those available materials as fully as possible. Don’t hesitate to use applicable points or evidence from earlier weeks’ readings and discussions if it will help you defend your position. While you may use the same points or evidence in your responses to both scenarios, that may not always be advisable; keep in mind that some evidence that may be especially powerful for one audience may not be as powerful for the other.

Upcoming Style Workshop

Posted on by

Andrew Klein will be offering a workshop on “improving writing style” this Wednesday evening at the Center for Written, Oral, and Visual Communication. I recommend it if you have time to go! Here’s his description, as sent out to all FWIS instructors:

I’ll be teaching a workshop on “Style” at the CWOVC–Fondren 201–this Wednesday, from 7:00 – 9:00. It’s designed for undergraduate students who are seeking to improve the clarity of their written work. It will address aspects of academic writing at the sentence, paragraph, and text levels so as to enable students to produce smooth, readable prose that takes the reader from sentence to sentence in a coherent manner. I won’t claim that it will solve your student’s writing problems, but it should be able to offer them a few concrete strategies to improve their clarity. All students are certainly welcome to sign up, but it will be particularly helpful for those who have trouble at the level of the sentence. If you have anyone in your classes this semester who you think might benefit from this, please encourage them to attend.

So this is me, encouraging you to attend!