Overview, Week 7, 10/12–15

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

I enjoyed sitting in on workshops last week, and Ashley Steele tells me that the groups she coached did good work as well. You now have this week to finalize your work on Essay One. When you send me your Post-Workshop Memo, I will reply with some advice towards revision. And I will be happy to talk with you about your plans for your piece during my regular Zoom Student Hours. You should also consider making an online appointment at the University Writing Center. The tutors there are extensively trained and can offer you a useful second set of eyes and ears as you put the finishing touches on your essay.

I will discuss three topics in my Overview this week:

• Essay One (final draft),
• Posting to Medium,
• How I assign letter grades to final essays.

To try to make it easier for everyone to hear about these important issues, I will offer three Overview sessions:

• Monday, 10/12, 2:30–3:00
• Tuesday, 10/13, 2:30–3:00
• Thursday, 10/14, 11:30–12:00

My Zoom address is https://udel.zoom.us/my/joeharris.

To Do This Week (and Next)

1. Tues, 10/13, 4:00 pm (or earlier): Email me Writing 10.
2. Tues, 10/20, 4:00 pm: Post Essay One to Medium. Email me the link.
3. Thurs, 10/22, 4:00 pm: Post Writing 11, a link to and description of your piece on Medium, to this WordPress site.

Essay One

Please post the final version of your first essay to Medium.com. Send me the link for this piece by Tuesday, October 20, at 4:00 pm. Then post a link to and a 200-word description of your essay to this site by Thursday, October 22, at 4:00 pm. (This second post will count as Writing 11.)

You can post your essay to Medium as an “unlisted” piece—which means that only those people to whom you send the link for your essay will be able to access and read it. Or you can make your piece public—available to anyone who happens to stumble upon it. The choice is yours.

In either case, I will expect you to present your essay as professionally as you can. (You may want to consult my brief piece on Formatting on Medium.) Think of a good title. Find an interesting header image. Be sure to document the texts you cite and to provide captions for any photos or videos you use. Select relevant tags. Edit your prose for clarity and style. Make thoughtful use of the formatting options (bold, italics, BLQ) offered in Medium. Use paragraphing and white space to make your piece more attractive on the screen. Proofread.

I’ll use the form at the bottom of this page in assigning and explaining your grade. I will try to have grades back to you within a week.Your letter grade is not negotiable, but I am always willing to talk more with you about your writing. Remember that you have the option of revising one of your final essays for a higher grade at the end of the semester.

Good luck! I look forward to reading your work on Medium!

Grades E110 HarrisDownload

Conferences, Draft One, Essay One, Tues, 9/30–Fri, 10/02

Tuesday, 9/29
2:00	Hoda Q
2:20	Hannah S
2:40	Gwyneth C
3:00
3:20	Andy C
3:40
Wednesday, 9/30
10:00	Joshua G (?)
10:20	Suneil H
10:40	Stuart A
11:00	Angel C
11:20	Jacob W (?)
11:40	Spenser S
1:00	Nick C
1:20	Ethan P
1:40	Matt M
2:00	Rob M
2:20	Brandon B
2:40	Matt T
Thursday, 10/01
10:00	Katie D
10:20	Miranda A
10:40
11:00	Andrew P
11:20	Gianna S
11:40	Patrick S
1:00	Michael R
1:20
1:40
2:00	Nicole S
2:20	Katie O
2:40	Cheryl K
Friday, 10/02
10:00	Soren S
10:20	Tyler M
10:40	Lauren C
11:00	Kale S
11:20	Nicole S
11:40	Cameron H

Conferences with Joe on Essay One, Draft One

This is my current schedule of conferences on your first drafts. Please remember to email me your piece by 4:00 pm on Tues, 9/29. I will read it and be ready to talk about it with you. You should also be ready to ask me any questions you may have about your work. My Zoom address is https://udel.zoom.us/my/joeharris.

This will be the only occasion for you to get feedback from me on your first draft. (I will not be writing comments on your drafts.) If you have not yet signed up for a conference, you should do so as quickly as you can. Identify two or three open time slots that you can make, and email me with them. I’ll see if I can slot you in.

Writing 6: Goodreads Review

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Please finish reading How to Do Nothing, and then post a brief review of it to Goodreads.com.

Goodreads is a site that lets users catalogue books they’ve read, or want to read, as well as to read reviews by other users. Accounts are free to set up, but the site is owned by Amazon, so it is pretty cluttered with ads. Still I find it an easy way to keep track of the books I’ve read. I think you might too.

Let me offer my own Goodreads review of Odell as an example of the kind of thing you might write. I wrote it several months before I started thinking about this course, so I didn’t intend it as an example, but I think it will work reasonably well as one. It runs about 200 words, so I’d encourage you to shoot for somewhere between 150–250. (Most Goodreads reviews are shorter, although some run very long indeed.)

Let me stress: Your review does not have to be positive. I like Odell’s book a lot. (I’d never assign a book I didn’t think other people would enjoy reading; life is too short.) But I’m interested in the uses you make of Odell’s work, not in whether you share my admiration for her or not.

My goals in this assignment are to give you a deadline for finishing Odell, to provide you with an opportunity to sum up your thinking about her book, to learn about Goodreads, and, frankly, to give you a bit of a breather in a busy course. Because the week after this (9/29), you’ll need to turn in the first draft of Essay One, which will be the most important moment in the course. to that point So I also urge you to read the Essay One assignment, and to contact me with any questions you might have about what I am asking you to do in it.

Deadline

Tues, 9/22, 4:00: Post your review of Odell to Goodreads.

Important: Once you have posted your review, please email me a link to it, so I can read it and give you credit for your work!

I also think it might be helpful if you have a chance to talk about Odell before drafting Essay One. So I’ll send out a Doodle poll to see if we can set up a kind of book club meeting on How to Do Nothing sometime on Wednesday, 9/23, or Thursday, 9/24. Please respond if you’d like to be part of it.