10.2 Class Goals

• Review wordiness
• Evaluate a peer essay and offer feedback
• Receive feedback on Essay 2
• Reflect on the process of writing

10.2. Class Activities

This session is centered around a peer review workshop of Essay 2. Please complete the following activities by the end of the day on April 1 (by 11:59pm). I recommend completing them in the order that they’re listed. Note: please do not wait until the very last minute to complete these tasks, as they require collaboration with your classmates.

1. Review: wordiness
2. Read & give feedback on a classmate’s essay
3. Receive/read feedback on your own Essay 2 Draft
4. Read: “Radical Revision” handout
5. Reflect on your draft in a blog post

10.2.1 Review: Wordiness (Time: 5m)

The assignments in this session are due on April 1, April Fool’s Day—but don’t be a fool by falling for wordiness! As a review of this revision strategy, watch the short video below:

10.2.2 Read & give feedback on a classmate’s essay

By now, you should have received an email pairing you with a classmate. Please read and respond to the classmate’s essay with critical feedback (and praise, where it’s due!) 

You have a choice of how to go about this. I’ll let you talk with your partner about your preferred method. I’ll send you each other’s essays via Word Doc.

You can choose:

1. To give each comment/give feedback via track changes in Microsoft Word. When you’re done, please email the revised document both to your partner and to me, so I know you’ve done it.

OR 

2. To share your paper with your partner and me via Google Docs. Then, your partner can revise and make comments in “Reviewing” mode at the top (the Google Docs equivalent of “track changes”). That way, all three of us can see your feedback.

As you read and offer feedback, here’s a guiding list of questions to help you.

10.2.3 Receive/read feedback on your own Essay 2 Draft

Once you’ve received critical feedback, read it carefully. If you have any clarifying questions, write to your partner—or you might even chat with your partner on a platform of your choice—in order to understand their feedback fully. Take note of how you want to revise.

10.2.4 Read: “Radical Revision” handout

As you think about the next steps to revise for your essay, read this handout on “Radical Revision.” 

Choose (at least) 2 to perform on your essay for the final revision.

10.2.5 Reflect on your draft in a blog post 2.4

Write a blog post that responds to the following questions:

• What are you proud of in this draft? What’s working well?
• More broadly, what do you think your strengths as a writer are? Why?
• What are the most important issues to address in revising Essay 2? Why?
• What are your goals for revising? (Share your 2 “radical revision” steps you’ll take, too.)

When you’re done, check “Post 2.4” in the categories and Publish it. (Note: “Post 2.3” was the wordiness revision, if you chose to make it a blog post, so don’t be confused if you did that assignment via Google Docs and don’t have Post 2.3.)

10.1 Class Goals:

1. Review the goals of Essay 2
2. Write & submit a complete draft of a lens analysis that describes, analyzes, and makes an argument about a contemporary cultural object
3. Reflect on the process of writing
4. Review revising for active verbs
5. Learn how to tighten wordy sentences & apply what you’ve learned to a paragraph of your draft

10.1 Class Activities:

This session is centered around completing and revising a first good draft of Essay 2. After you submit the essay, we’ll think about wordiness and how to avoid it. Then you’ll apply these strategies to a paragraph of your own draft. Please complete the following activities by the end of the day on March 30 (by 11:59pm). I recommend completing them in the order that they’re listed.

1. Review Essay 2 prompt & read short handout: “Visual Analysis”
2. Submit: Essay 2 (Draft)
3. Watch: “Revising Prose” by Richard Lanham
4. Read: “Tighten Wordy Sentences”
5. Revise one paragraph of your draft

10.1.1 Review Essay 2 Goals, Model, and Prompt (Est. Time: 30m)

Before you complete your draft of Essay 2, be sure to re-read the assignment prompt here.

In addition, if you’re struggling with describing and analyzing your cultural object, read this one-page handout on “Visual Analysis”. Apply the questions in the handout to the analysis in your own draft. Are you doing the right thing(s)?

Finally, if you want, read another model of Essay 2. This one breaks down the structure of the essay and labels what each paragraph is doing. The final section outlines the essay.

Be sure that you’re not just summarizing the cultural object! Give a brief, detailed summary at the beginning, but the vast majority of the essay should analyze and make claims about the object as well as use at least one of the ideas in the lens texts we’ve read to connect to your analysis.

10.1.2 Submit Essay 2 (Draft)

When you’re confident that you’ve a) met the assignment goals and b) proofread the essay carefully, save the essay as a Word Doc—please only Word Docs!—and submit it to Dropbox by clicking here.

10.1.3 Watch: “Revising Prose” by Richard Lanham (Time: 30m)

Now, we’re going to turn our attention to revising your prose for wordiness. We’re going to focus on this for a few sessions and from a few perspectives, since it’s such a powerful tool. 

Please watch/listen to the video below. This video, made to complement a book of the same name by Richard Lanham, defines the “Official Style” of writing. Don’t be confused by the label! You should avoid “Official Style” writing at all costs. It’s the jargon-y language of lazy academics, bad business people, and unpracticed writers. In order to revise, Lanham introduces a method he calls the “Paramedic Method.” Follow along with the video, and feel free to take notes. (Also, feel free to laugh at the video’s *vintage* feel and cheesiness—it’s from the 1980s.)

To re-cap, here are the steps of the Paramedic Method:

1. Circle the prepositions.
2. Circle the “is” forms (the forms of the verb “to be”).
3. Find the real action.
4. Put the action in simple active verb.
5. Get the sentence moving fast.
6. Write sentence and mark rhythmic units.
7.  Mark off sentence lengths.
8. Read aloud with emphasis and feeling!

Largely, this should be review of what we did with active verbs.

10.1.4 Read: “Tighten Wordy Sentences”

Feel like you’re getting the hang of revising for wordiness? For extra support, read this section called “Tighten Wordy Sentences“ from Rules for Writers.

To re-cap, here are their strategies:

1. Eliminate redundancies.
2. Avoid unnecessary repetition of words.
3. Cut empty or inflated phrases.
4. Simplify the structure.
5. Reduce clauses to phrases, phrases to simple words.

Now, to strengthen your understanding, do Exercise 16-1 and write your answers as a comment/response to this assignment post. (Scroll down to the bottom of this page and comment with your answers.) I’ve copied them out below, for your convenience. 
Directions: Edit the following sentences to reduce wordiness.

a. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who set a high standard for future leaders to meet.
b. Alice has been deeply in love with cooking since she was little and could first peek over the edge of a big kitchen tabletop.
c. In my opinion, Bloom’s race for the governorship is a futile exercise.
d. It is pretty important in being a successful graphic designer to have technical knowledge and at the same time an eye for color and balance.
e. Your task will be the delivery of correspondence to all employees in the company.

10.1.5 Revise One Paragraph of Your Draft

Lastly, show me what you learned about wordiness by revising one paragraph of your draft.

Instructions: 

1. Choose one paragraph of your Essay 2 (Draft) to revise.
2. Use one of the above strategies to revise the prose.
3. Reflect briefly on what you did, how you did it, whether/how it was challenging, and what changed. 

You can do this in one of two ways:

EITHER 1) make a blog post (Post 2.3) in which you post a) the original paragraph followed by b) your revised paragraph followed by c) a brief reflection. Under “Categories” check “Post 2.3” and Publish.

OR 2) share a Google Doc with me that copies the original paragraph and then, using the “Reviewing” mode at the top, makes track changes (and might also comment on) to show how you’re revising it. Underneath this, write your brief reflection in the same document.

Either way is fine, though I’d prefer the Google Doc, so I can see more clearly exactly how you’re revising.

Good luck and have fun!

10.1 Conclusion

I hope you’ve learned some strategies for revising for wordiness and feel confident in applying some of those to your own writing. Now that you’ve done one paragraph, go ahead and do this for the whole essay—though you might want to wait until you get comments from me and your peer review partner.

Next up: Peer Review Workshop 2!

9.2 Class Goals:

1. Deepen understanding of the purpose of a thesis
2. Strengthen skills at locating and thinking about main claims in a text
3. Understand how to use paraphrase to unlock meaning in a dense text
4. Work to draft a preliminary thesis for your Essay 2

9.2 Class Activities:

Please complete the following activities by the end of the day on March 25 (by 11:59pm). I recommend completing them in the order that they’re listed. Note that some activities encourage you to comment on your peers’ thoughts and writing, so you may have to return to an activity after you’ve contributed in order to read what your classmates have written.

• Introduction (Total Time: 2m)
  Watch a short intro video (2m)

1. Read a Handout on Writing Strong Theses (Estimated Time: 30m)
2. Read & Comment on Andreas Malm’s “The Anthropocene Myth” (Estimated Time: 60m)
3. Draft Your Essay 2 Thesis Statement (Estimated Time: 30m)
4. Optional: Watch a Video Relevant to Malm’s essay (Time: 20m)

9.2.0 Introduction (Total Time: 2m)

9.2.1 Read a Handout & Watch a Short Vid on Strong Theses

Read this handout on what makes a strong thesis. This should be mostly review. Pay attention to the two kinds of theses. For Essay 2, you want to develop an analytical thesis.

Important reminder: you do not “pick” your thesis and then find the evidence to back it up (this is the dreaded 5-paragraph format method!). Instead, you want to analyze your object/text and gather details through description and analysis, and only afterward, develop a thesis based on what you’ve found. The first way (the dreaded 5-par format way) is simple and ineffective deduction. The second way is analytical (i.e. induction). Remember: first, analyze like a detective; second, argue like a lawyer.

For added emphasis, here’s a 5-minute video from the Purdue OWL that offers a different perspective.

9.2.2 Read & Comment on Andreas Malm’s “The Anthropocene Myth” (Estimated Time: 60m)

Click here for essay and full instructions. When you’re finished, return to this page to complete the final assignments.

9.2.3 Draft Your Essay 2 Thesis Statement

Take the time to choose your Essay 2 topic, make observations about it, analyze, and form a preliminary argument about one aspect of it. (This will take some time.) Given what you’ve learned about strong thesis statements, reply to this post (at the bottom) with a one-sentence preliminary draft of your thesis. As you reply, I’ll comment on them and give you feedback.

9.2.4 OPTIONAL: Watch This Video Relevant to Malm’s Essay

If you’re feeling ambitious, listen to this interview with writer Arundhati Roy about the connection between capitalism and climate change. 

After you watch, head over to the discussion forum to post your thoughts.

9.1 Class Goals:

1. Deepen our understanding of how evidence works and how to use reasoning to “make the evidence speak”
2. Learn and practice some strategies for describing evidence that will help you in your essays.
3. Read and evaluate a lens analysis, focusing particularly on how the essay describes and analyzes from the visual evidence and connects it to specific claims

9.1 Class Activities:

Please complete the following activities by the end of the day on March 23 (by 11:59pm). I recommend completing them in the order that they’re listed. Note that some activities encourage you to comment on your peers’ thoughts and writing, so you may have to return to an activity after you’ve contributed in order to read what your classmates have written.

• Introduction (Total Time: 2m)
  Watch a short intro video (2m)

1. What is Evidence? (Total Time: 18m)
   • Watch a lecture to review and deepen understanding of evidence and reasoning (18m)
2. Describing Evidence (Estimated Time: 45m)
   • Write a detailed description of a photograph (10m)
   • Watch a short video on the strategies for describing (16m)
   • Revise descriptive paragraph (10m)
   • Post descriptive paragraph to the course blog (5m)
3. Evaluating a Model for Essay 2 (Estimated Time: 45m)
   • Read a model for Essay 2 (15m)
   • Make at least 3 comments on the essay on Google Docs (10m)
   • Reply to at least 2 comments from your peers (5m)
4. OPTIONAL: Contribute to Discussion around COVID-19 

• GRADING: You will be graded completed/incompleted based on your thorough engagement and participation only. Specifically, I’m looking for your blog post and comments on the Google Docs, as well as engagement with your peers’ comments by replying to them. 

9.1.0 Introduction (Total Time: 2m)

Instructions: Watch this short intro video (2m)

9.1.1 Lecture: What is Evidence? (18m)

Goal: Deepen our understanding of how evidence works and how to use reasoning to “make the evidence speak”

Instructions: Watch and listen to this lecture. I recommend watching with a notebook (in case you want to jot anything down) as well as Ch. 4 of the Rosenwasser and Stephen, “Reasoning from Evidence to Claims.”

9.1.2 Describing Evidence (Estimated Time: 45m)

Goals:

• Learn and practice some strategies for describing evidence that will help you in your essays.
• Practice asking “So What?” to the descriptive evidence, and push the descriptions toward tentative claims about what they might mean.

Description of Activity: Below, I’ve posted a contemporary photograph. For this activity, you’ll describe the photograph, gathering the details into your own language, with as much objective and sensory detail as you can. Then—and only then!—you’ll state what you take those details to mean. Ultimately, you want to make a tentative argument for what the image is communicating beyond the obvious. (Note: NOT what the photographer intended the image to mean or even what the image “symbolizes,” but what the image communicates. Subtle difference!) This will build your skills for describing the evidence that you’ll need for Essay 2.

Instructions for Activity: 

1. Describe the photograph above for 10 minutes. (Click here if you’re having trouble seeing it.) Set a timer for 10 minutes (really!) and describe the photograph in as much detail as you can, focusing on what seems most significant to you. Don’t worry about why it’s significant yet or what you take the details to mean. Try to suspend judgement. Instead, simply describe using vivid, sensory detail. Be specific. Be creative. (You’re going to eventually publish this as a blog post, so it might be best to type it out. If you’d rather do it by hand, that’s fine, but you’ll need to type it out later.)
2. Once you’ve described the image for 10 minutes, and you feel like you’ve done a thorough job of describing, watch & listen to this short lecture on description:

3. Save the original paragraph of description, but write a new paragraph in which you revise the description in light of the ideas in the above lecture. You might cut the parts that you feel are not as important. You might revise words to be more appropriate in connotation to the image. Or you might add more specificity. Or you might add more sensory description. It’s up to you. And this time, push the description to claims by asking “So what?” Why are these details important? Ultimately, use your description of the details to write about what the image communicates (beyond the obvious) and why? At this point, you should know that the photograph is called “Shopping Cart, Tanger Factory Outlet Center, I-10, Gonzales, Louisiana, 2010,” by the photographer Richard Misrach, from a book called Petrochemical America, which collects his photos that he took around the petrochemical factories in the Louisiana Delta. Does this influence your thinking at all?
4. Label clearly the two paragraphs “Draft” and “Revision.”
5. Reflect on this activity in a 3rd paragraph. What was that like for you? What it challenging? Why? How did you choose to revise your description? Why? 
6. Publish your activity as Post 2.2. Be sure to check “Post 2.2” in the Categories box. 

9.1.3 Evaluating a Model for Essay 2 (Estimated Time: 45m)

Goals:

• Read and evaluate a model of a lens analysis essay.
• Analyze the writing by annotating the text.
• Discuss the essay by raising questions in the annotations, answering the questions of others, and replying to comments by your peers.

Instructions for Accessing the Document

1. Go to “Bloodshed in Our Homeland“ on Google Docs. This is a student model of a lens analysis essay. The class theme was different (“Monsters”) and the lens texts were different (Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s “Monster Culture,” which may sound familiar to you—I’ve used it as an example for several handouts.) Although the theme and texts were different, the assignment was very similar. So consider how it might serve as a model of what to do (and maybe what not to do) for your Essay 2.
2. If you have a Google Account, make sure you sign in. (If you’re already logged in, you’ll see your profile icon and/or name in the upper righthand corner. Click it to make sure you’re logged in. If you’re not logged in, you’ll see a blue button in the upper righthand corner that says: SIGN IN. If you have an account already, please sign in. Signing in allows me to see who is posting comments. Proceed to Step 5.
3. If you don’t already have a Google Account, please sign up for one using the QC Google App. Full instructions are here. After you’ve successfully signed up, access the doc and make sure you’re signed in. If you have any trouble, please contact the IT help desk at 718-997-4444 OR [email protected]. And please let me know.
4. If you’re having trouble signing in/up, you can still access the doc, but you’ll be “anonymous.” This means that you’ll need to mark every comment you make with your name, so I know that you’re participating. At the top of the document, you should see an annotation from “Anonymous” (written by me) that shows you how to do this. Again: you should only take this option if you don’t have a Google account and can’t sign up.
   

Activity Instructions

1. Read the essay all the way through first. I recommend turning off the comments / annotations for now. You can do this by going to the top right, where you’ll see this:
   
   If you click on it, a drop-down menu will open that looks like this:
   
   If you choose “Viewing,” the comments will be hidden temporarily. When you’re ready to annotate / comment, go back to the drop-down menu and choose “Suggesting.”
2. Annotate the essay with at least 3 comments. Once you’ve read the doc, make sure you’re in “Suggesting” mode, and comment on any aspect of the essay that you’d like. You can comment by highlighting certain parts of the text with your cursor. When you do this, you’ll see a square box with a “+” symbol pop up to the right. It looks like this:
   
   Click on it, and you’ll be able to comment on that particular part of the essay. It should look like this:
   
   You can also make a comment anywhere by right-clicking on any part of the Google Doc page.
   When you’re done typing the comment, hit the blue “Comment” button and it will post for everyone to see it.
   Feel free to comment as much as you’d like! (But at least 3 times.)
3. Reply to at least 3 comments by me or your classmates. Engage in discussion by replying to the comments of your classmates. To do this, find a comment you want to respond to and click it. When you do, you’ll see an option to “Reply…”:
   
   Type your reply in the box and submit it. Afterward, someone else can reply to your reply:
   
   Do this at least 3 time, but feel free to do it as much as you’d like!
4. Have fun with it. This is your time to think about what works and what doesn’t in a lens analysis. 

Advice: Focus particularly on how the essay describes the visual evidence and analyzes it in order to connect the evidence to specific claims. You might simply point out what certain sentences are doing, and how they’re doing it. You might suggest what’s working really well in the essay. You might also suggest things that could have strengthened the essay.

9.1.4 OPTIONAL: Contribute to Discussion Around COVID-19

OPTIONAL DISCUSSION: If you want to, feel free to post in the Discussion Forum to air out any thoughts, anxieties, resources, questions, or struggles with the current crisis. Much of what we’re doing in this class is critical thinking and information literacy, examining claims and testing evidence—as ridiculous as it might sound at first, the current COVID-19 crisis is a terrific situation in which to explore, refine, and strengthen these skills. Also feel free to share feelings or stories.