How The Blog Works

Here's how it will work:

• You need a non-UR Google account. Give me the e-mail and I'll invite you as a blog-author. 
• Crucial technical note: when it is your turn to write a post, always sign OUT of your UR Gmail account, then sign into your Non-UR Gmail account when post or commenting. You may simply wish to open a new browser window and log in. Otherwise, you may encounter error messages or the blog post will be lost. 
• We'll be using our blog for out-of-class extra credits, showcases of best work by you folks, your mea-culpas about The Brick, and more. 
• I consider the "Profhacker" series at the Chronicle of Higher Education to be a good model for posts directed at an academic audience.

Writing Workshop Materials

Brett had the fine idea that I post the Writer's Workshop materials here. I urge you to do this on your own and not try to hack out a draft the night before it's due. You won't like the results, I guarantee.

Writing Workshop, April 10, 2014

Instructions: fill out one of these for each person you help. Give it to the writer when you are done discussing the draft. The writer can turn this in with the draft for Max (if it’s Project 4) or me (if Project 3)

Reader’s Name:                   __________________________________

Writer’s Name: __________________________________

Project 3 or 4? ___________________

Part 1: Start the Car: Finding Focus

Read the writer’s introduction.  Write down, in your own words, the writer’s focus. For instance, a focus might be as general as “Willow Lawn is a pleasant place to visit because I could walk around easily” or “On my road trip I found that a place I thought I knew had changed greatly.”

Then show what you wrote down to the writer. Writer, is that what you want the reader to see as your focus?  If not, what is the focus? Work with the reader to revise the introduction to make sure your focus is clear.

Part 2: Check the Road Map!

The introduction to an effective paper works like a road map, outlining where a reader will go and why that is important.  Look at this introduction. The road map follows the focal sentence (keep in mind, a focus often works best as or near the first sentence of an academic paper):

 On my road trip I found that a place I thought I knew had changed greatly. My old home town decided to turn several blocks of strip-shopping into a walkable, New-Urbanist development after the Town Council changed some zoning laws. We even have four locally owned restaurants open, including an award-winning pub and gourmet pizzeria. Kunstler would be amazed that a little factory town could still manage such a feat, in part because it challenges his notion that change will only come to Americans when they are dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ into a different way of living (Kunstler, Skype Talk).

Then read the rest of the paper, to see that the writer delivers on every “destination” promised in that introductory roadmap. For our example, the reader expects:

·       How or why the zoning changed

·       What the old “strip” was like

·       How the new local businesses are doing

·       Why Kunstler would be amazed in more detail than a single quick quotation, drawing from his talk as well as The Geography of Nowhere.

Each of these might become a separate paragraph. For your writer, write down here any points on the roadmap given in the introduction that are not visited in the paper.

·        

·        

·        

·        

Writer, make sure you revise either the roadmap or the body of the paper to include these!

Part 3: Check The Rear-View Mirrors

Read the body of the essay. Where does the writer “look in the rear-view mirror” at what was written earlier? Underline any spots where the writer does this. This technique really makes a reader get a sense of the whole subject. Here’s an example:

The next town over decided to bring in a Wal-Mart. Unlike the public discussion held in our Town Council, our neighbors found out about the zoning variance only when the bulldozers began to break ground for the Superstore. Two years later, there is no McSweeny’s Irish Pub and Dino’s Pizza, run by local owners. Our neighbors do have a Tripp’s Sports bar and P.F. Chang’s, surrounded by a sea of parking places beside the Wal Mart…

In the body of the draft, tip in advice as to where that looking back might take place.

Part 4: Summary: Are We There Yet?

Many of you struggled with this in Project 2. I’ve read the books and seen the films, so there’s no need to summarize too much. Project 3 may, however, need more description of places I have never visited.  In the draft, put a wavy line under any area that needs more description. Circle anything that needs support from our books or films (as you see it) and not in the margin, briefly, why.

Part 5: Polish the Car

Parts 1-4 really get at the reasons many writers lost three or more points in Project 2. Several of you lost a point or two for style and grammar. So now you get to have fun there! Read the paper through and mark any of the following with a little note in the margin:

·       Spelling errors

·       Incomplete sentences or other grammar errors

·       Failure to make transitions between points

·       First sentences in paragraphs that do not describe the paragraph’s topic

·       Quotations dropped in without an introduction

·       “Faculty Pet Peeves” and “Commonly Confused Words” (check the links here for the hand outs).