Since this week is Election Week and also near the middle of the semester, I thought we’d take a chill week to reflect and rest and maybe have a chance to get caught up on things.

Optional Zoom Class: Monday, 10:50am

Due Dates

The only things due this week are your Unit 3/Mid-semester Reflection and an extra credit assignment about the election. Points from the extra credit assignment can be applied to Unit 1 (because it’s news) or Unit 3 (because it’s our current unit). Both assignments are due Sunday, November 8.

I’m designing the election assignment to be completable before any results are in, if you would prefer to do it then.

Goals For This Week

• Take some time for whatever you need some extra time for
• Reflect on your work for this class and give me some feedback on my work for this class
• Turn your critical eye to the political news

Overview of Tasks

• Write your Unit 3 /Mid-semester Reflection
• Optional: Complete the extra credit election week assignment

Unit 3/Mid-Semester Reflection

The reflection will be graded out of 5 points according to the same rubric as the Unit 1 and Unit 2 reflections.

1. What do you feel like you learned this unit that you didn’t know before?
2. What did you already know , but now understand better or learned more about?
3. What (if anything) do you feel like I wanted you to learn, but you still aren’t sure about?
4. What are the strengths of your final project article? What are you most proud of?
5. If you were to revise your final project article, what would you want to do differently?
6. How would you describe or rate your participation/engagement in this unit?
7. What did you do this unit that helped make you successful?
8. What (if anything) do you want to do differently in the next unit?
9. Please complete the sentence: “This class would be better if……”
10. For you, how did this unit compare to the News Unit and/or the Humanities Unit?
11. What (if anything) from this unit would you like to discuss/think about/explore further? (either this semester or just in your life)
12. What would you like to see in the remaining weeks of the semester?

Election Week Extra Credit

The 2020 presidential election is more complicated than Trump vs. Biden. For one thing, there are many different reasons people have to vote for one candidate over the other, or to vote 3rd party, or to vote for no one at all.

This week, please find news articles that express as many different points of view on the election as you can. Use the skills we practiced in Unit 1 to identify sentences or word choices that indicate the writer’s perspective. Try to find examples from the 3 major types we studied: informational, analytical, and opinion. It will be easiest to identify point of view in the opinion articles, so challenge yourself on the other two!

Please list what you find with a link along with a description of what you think the point of view is and what makes it different from other perspectives.

Welcome to Week 10, the third week of Unit 3. Click here for a full unit overview. This week, we’ll be looking at some more examples + analysis of academic writing in the sciences and revising our drafts based on peer feedback.

Optional Zoom Class: Monday, 10/26 at 10:50am

Due Dates

There is only one thing due this week– the revised draft of your imaginary science article. For examples of what this can look like, please see the examples posted in Week 9 or explore the other imaginary science articles at Science Creative Quarterly. 

Revised drafts are due by the end of the day on November 1 (Sunday). 

Goals for This Week

• Continue learning about the structural and stylistic norms of academic writing in the sciences
• Practice applying APA formatting
• Practice receiving feedback, deciding how to respond to suggestions, and applying that feedback to a draft

Overview of Tasks

1. Write your way into the week
2. Make sure you are signed up for QuickStart Session 4
3. Read excerpts from “Genre and the Experimental Article” (PDF)
4. Watch videos on APA formatting
5. Revise your draft based on feedback from your peer and your own self-evaluation
6. Optional: Experiment with additional revision activities

Detailed Instructions

Step 1: Write Your Way Into the Week

Here are your thinking questions for this week! Please spend 5-10 minutes freewriting about them (or ignoring them and freewriting more generally), which you can then share with me if you wish or keep to yourself. If you don’t want to write, please at least read the questions and think about them!

• What questions do you still have about the genre of academic writing in the sciences?
• How did the feedback you received make you think differently about your paper?
• What are your current plans for revising your draft? What things do you want to change/improve/work on?

Step 2: Make Sure You Signed Up For QuickStart 4

You can sign up for a time of your choosing here. This is the last one, and will count toward your points for Unit 4.

Step 3: Read Excerpts from “Genre and the Experimental Article”

Click here to view the PDF. I am going to write annotations in Hypothesis to help walk you through the article, so make sure you have Hypothesis activated on the page as you’re reading!

Step 4: Watch Videos on APA Formatting

Step 5: Revise Your Paper

Full instructions + rubric are here.

You can turn in your paper on Blackboard, via email, or by posting it here on the site if you want to share your work with your classmates.

Step 6: Additional Revision Activities

As you’re revising, you might know you want to change some more things but not know where to begin. I strongly recommend grading yourself using the real rubric to help you identify what areas you want to work on.

You can also compare your paper to some of the examples we’ve looked at.

If you want to, you and your peer review partner could decide to give each other a second round of comments. 

Or, you could schedule a digital appointment at the writing center.

Welcome to Week 9, the second week of Unit 3. Click here for a full unit overview. This week, we’ll just be focused on learning some basic genre features of academic science writing and putting them into practice in a first draft. **I strongly encourage you to begin your work for this week early.**

This week we’ll also be back to our normal Zoom schedule of Monday, at 10:50am.

If you have not already done so, ****please fill out the peer review survey now.****

Due Dates

Please send your first draft to me and your peer review partner(s) by the end of the day on Thursday, October 22. For me, you can also just upload the draft to Blackboard. But make sure your classmate gets it too.

Then send comments to your partner and send a peer review report to both me and your partner by the end of the day on Sunday, October 25.

Goals for This Week

1. Learn some genre features of academic science writing
2. Put these genre features into practice by creating a first draft of your own imaginary science article

Overview of Tasks

1. Write your way into the week
2. Watch a digital lecture on the genre of academic science writing
3. Read/skim some examples of science articles, looking for the genre features mentioned in the digital lecture
4. Write a first draft
5. Send your draft to me and your peer review partner(s)
6. Read and give feedback on your partner’s draft
7. Write a peer review report and send it to me and your peer

Detailed Instructions

Step 1: Write Your Way Into The Week

Here are your thinking questions for this week! Please spend 5-10 minutes freewriting about them (or ignoring them and freewriting more generally), which you can then share with me if you wish or keep to yourself. If you don’t want to write, please at least read the questions and think about them!

1. You may have written “lab reports” in science classes in the past. If so, what do you remember about them? How are they different from other kinds of academic writing you’ve done?
2. If you were a professional scientist trying to read about someone’s study, perhaps so you can replicate it and see if the results are the same, what information would you want to know? What arrangement or organization would make it easiest for you to find what you need?

Step 2: Watch My Digital Lecture

Part 1 (Structural/Big Picture Genre Features)

Part 2 (Sentence Level Features)

Step 3: Read/Skim Articles

Here are the links to the articles I discuss in the digital lecture, as well as a couple more. Read/skim through for yourselves to find examples of the genre features I discussed and see what they look like in practice.

1. Imaginary Harry Potter Article
2. Real Article on Shame and Embarrassment
3. Imaginary Article on Why Unicorn Poop Is Rainbow
4. Real Article on Twitter and the 2016 Presidential Election
5. Phony coronavirus article and my commentary in case you didn’t read them last week

Step 4: Write a First Draft

Click here for full assignment instructions/rubric.

For your first draft, try your best to write a complete draft. (Even if you’re not happy with your writing, you at least have all of the pieces you need.) If circumstances aren’t going to make that possible for you this week, try to write something for each piece of your article– a highly detailed outline is better than no draft at all.

Steps 5-7: Peer Review

I will be emailing you all with your peer review partner assignments, but am waiting to create the groups until more people have filled out the peer review survey.

Please share your paper with your partner according to the peer review method chosen, then give comments/feedback in a form appropriate for your peer review method. (For example, if you’re using Google Docs, use the Commenting feature. If you’re using email, you could write comments using MS Word comments or another program and email, or just write an email with feedback in paragraph or bullet point form.)

You should also share your draft with me, whether you use email, upload it to the course site, or upload it to Blackboard.

In addition to general feedback/comments, please also fill out a peer review report for your peer and share it with both me and them. Click here to view the questions for the peer review report.