Author Archives: Tim Dalton

Class 12

Good morning, folks. Hope you were able to enjoy the long weekend.

We have peer editing for Essay 2 today. These experimental essays should be fun, but do bring to the editing process the same attention to detail in terms of main idea, evidence, and especially organization that you brought to Essay 1’s peer editing sessions. Something we’ll do between now and Thursday as an optional assignment is look at model lists from the open internet. Share what you find to this Class Notes post as a reply. (Again, this is optional but might be helpful for us to talk about). What formal features might we borrow for our lists? (An introduction? Bold text or italics? Sentences phrased in a certain way? Images or GIFs? An imagined audience addressed in a particular tone?)

Looking forward a little: Essay 2 is due in a week, on October 19. I’ll have you turn it in in two places. One place is to a Google Form, so I can give you feedback on it. The other place is to a page on your CUNY Academic Commons site. I’d like you to also post your final revision of Essay 1 there; these two formal pieces of writing will be key parts of your end-of-semester portfolio. Essays 3 and 4 will also end up there. You’ll share the first two pieces (Essay 1 and Essay 2) with your group on Oct 21, the day we officially start book clubs.

Yes! Oct 21, a week from Thursday, is the launch of book clubs. The whole schedule is on our neglected syllabus, and reprinted below:

See you in a few!

Module 3: Reading Alone and with Others (Oct 21-Nov 30) 

  • H, Oct 21:  Book groups start | We will meet in NAC 5/108
  • T, Oct 26: Posts for Session 1 (Laymon p 1-62 / Diaz p. 1-62 / Talusan 1-82)
  • H, Oct 28: Replies due; discussion We will meet in NAC 5/108
  • T, Nov 2: Posts for Session 2 (Laymon 63-116 / Diaz 63-142 / Talusan 83-149)
  • H, Nov 4: Replies due; discussion We will meet in NAC 5/108
  • T, Nov 9: Posts for Session 3 (Laymon 117-162 / Diaz 142-247 / Talusan 150-229)
  • H, Nov 11: Replies due; discussion We will meet in NAC 5/108
  • T, Nov 16: Posts for Session 4 (Laymon 142-end / Diaz 248-end / Talusan 230-end)
  • H, Nov 18: Replies due; discussion We will meet in NAC 5/108
  • T, Nov 23: Essay 3 Peer Editing [Google Docs]
  • H, Nov 25: NO CLASS — Thanksgiving
  • T, Nov 30: Essay 3 due by 9:30am to Forms

Class 11: Lists and Paragraphs

Note: I drafted this but neglected to post it Thursday–oops. I’ve updated it with the work we actually did in class, so it’s more or less what’s on the “Chalkboard” Doc.

We’ll start class today with a freewrite. What advice has the reading you’ve been doing about book clubs offered you as you think about how to run your own?

Once you’ve finished select some or all of your best advice and paste it here. There are a lot of great comments in Hypothes.is for both peer-reviewed readings. Hopefully we’ll get to look at it.

*

One place our conversation in class led us was to thinking about the list as a possible form for our Essay 2s. This led to a quick, impromptu lesson on form and structure. Much of what ended up on the board is captured here. If I missed anything add it in the reply section:

  • Paragraphs have topics and evidence (“whats”) as well as analysis and opinions (“so whats?”)
  • Structurally, paragraphs often express their topic in the first sentence, often a claim
  • Structurally, paragraphs ‘set up’ evidence with summary and cite it
  • Structurally, paragraphs analyze and discuss evidence –> This is NOT a paraphrase
  • Analysis is a series of arguments about the parts of the evidence (ie: words)
  • Analysis all should tie back to the claim in the topic sentence, & to the thesis 

Lists do the same thing as paragraphs (express analysis & opinions supported by evidence) — but differ in their form, phrasing, and visual presentation as we’ll see Tuesday.

In addition to all this, we also did a Essay 1 Paragraph revision activity.

Class 09: Cultural Artifacts and Us

Welcome to class! Today we have an in-class activity centered around the cultural artifacts you brought in. It will involve some writing, some discussion, snd some sharing of “accessible selfies”  to a set of Slides posted on the “Chalkboard” Doc. 

This task will help us do two things, one old, one new: first, this activity will allow us to abstract and concrete language (which we last discussed in the “expectations” posts). Second, this activity will also help us introduce a key concept of social scope writing (especially ethnography): the position of the narrator. 

We see that in the Pollack and Epstein piece you read for today. We also see it on the Alvarez-Alvarez source you will read for next Thursday . 

Not much is due today except the reading, which we’ll talk about. Please make sure you set up a Commons site of your own and send me the url. (The form for that is, you guessed it, on the “Chalkboard”). You will use this site to compile work for Essay 4 (your self-assessment) and to house the “artifacts” in your end of semester portfolio.

One way we’ll work with the reading is to post reactions and questions to it as replies to this post. So — reactions/questions? Go for it.

(This is one of two digital alternate modes for this class; the other is the Accessible Selfies activity.)

Class 08

Today your first formal essay is due. Please turn it in using the Google Form at the very top of today’s entry on our “Chalkboard” Doc.

We’ll take a few minutes at the start of class to review all the content we’ve covered since the start of the semester. Since August 26, we have been busy…

  • editing the work of peers
  • summarizing assigned readings and other texts of our choosing 
  • composing responses to assigned readings, including each other’s work 
  • conducting research using library databases and learning about APA citation
  • continuing that research with internet sources
  • learning to evaluate both types of sources as reliable and/or relevant
  • annotating (alone and with others) independent readings
  • posing different kinds of questions and defining our own purposes as readers
  • discussing readings, activities, and our own writing in the context of our experiences
  • drafting and sharing exploratory writing verbally, in the chat, and on the course blog
  • completing both informal and formal staged writing tasks

There is, of course, a lot of semester left. This first Module prepared us to choose a book for Module 3’s book groups. Module 4 is reflecting on our progress on many of the above skills and concepts.

So what is Module 2 about?

To borrow the phrase from Rebecca Renner, a journalist whose work we’ll read today: “How to start a book club that doesn’t suck.”

The essays you’ll write will draw on another wide swatch of experience and sources to imagine the kind of experience you want in Module 3. As a class, we’ll read open internet sources and peer-reviewed social science articles about the social phenomenon of reading with other people. What makes it work? How does it change when it happens at school? And what (yes) expectations do you bring to this experiment from your own history as a reader, writer, and student? These are starter questions; we’ll refine them as a group next Tuesday, October 5.

The turnaround for this essay is going to be quite a bit faster: a draft will be due October 12, and the graded revision will be due October 19.

You can write a traditional essay, or you can use a different form: collaborative writing, a powerpoint presentation, a video of a reasonable length, multimodal writing, a story map or some other kind of digital project. Again, more on that this coming Tuesday.

Today, we’ll start class with a freewrite about reading alone and with others. You’ll expand this, eventually, to a blog post. Here’s the prompt — broad, with lots of questions, designed to keep you writing. Go where it takes you and use all 10 mins:

Prompt: What do you enjoy about reading on your own? What’s hard? Is anything different when you read for school? What drives you to share something you’ve read with another person? What was the last thing you read and shared (verbally or otherwise)? What else comes to mind when you think of reading? Of reading for school? Of reading in groups?

Class 07: Scrolls

We’re doing a fun in-class activity today. It’s about essay organization!

Things we learned while cutting paper bags and editing in crayon:

  • The paragraph is “the basic unit of composition” (so says the author of Charlotte’s Web)
  • Whether digital or analog, “tags” help us categorize and then organize work
  • Categorizing is about “this thought”; organization connects it to “other thoughts”
  • Without categorization organization of things you’re reading or writing gets very hard
  • Paragraphs help us identify, focus, revise, or understand and engage with the thesis

See the chalkboard for more!

Class 04: Face to Face!

Welcome to our first in-person class. We’ve got a lot on our “Chalkboard,” more than I expect us to get to on this strange, happy, rainy day.

Thanks to those of you who have already turned in your library assignments, and who have been participating in the Hypothes.is conversation on “La Otra” and “Quick Feet.” We’ll try to build on that a bit in class today and between now and Tuesday (on Zoom.) 

The main focus of this post will be the expectations blog posts and replies. Remember that in contract grading, your work is assessed as “complete” or “not-yet-complete.” To be marked complete, you needed both a post that followed instructions for content and format AND a reply to at least one peer who had not received at least two comments. 

Examples of posts that are complete include: 

  • Kevin (Weiting, Ashley) — “Hope for something different”
  • Yingrong (Zoe, Kevin) — “ENG 210- New Beginning”
  • Fatou (Rachel, Luis) — “Indicative Expectations”
  • Demetri (Fatou, Panagiotis) — “My Expectations”

There may be some others that have gone up or been completed since I checked this morning. 

Examples of work that needs an additional commenter: 

  • Zoe (Rachel) — “Hopeful Expectations”
  • Panagiotis (Yingrong) — “New Year, New Goals”
  • Weiting (Zoe) — “The Promises for ENGL 21002”
  • Spencer (Kevin) — “Pressed for Time –  My Course Expectations”
  • Yaminah (Demetri) — “Expectation Letter”
  • Ashley (Yaminah) — “Main Expectations”

And some work went up very close to the start of class, so has no comment trail yet, such as:

  • Luis (no comments) — “Expectations”
  • Rachel (no comments) — “Expectations for ENG 210”
  • Ashanti (no comments) — “My expectations in Learning”
  • Diana E. (no comments, published privately)

If you’ve posted and commented, then your work is done. If you have not done this yet, you can complete it within the next 24 hours. For now, there’s not a penalty. In general, this is the sort of thing that would lead the work to be marked ‘late’. We’re all still learning how to do things in this class so I want to be fair until we all get oriented. 

***

The class wrote a number of blog posts describing their expectations for the semester from their instructor, from each other, and from themselves. Many students commented on how stressful and unsatisfying emergency remote instruction has been. Quite a few expressed nervousness about being able to improve their writing. Most were excited to return to campus in person; no one expressed nervousness about that (though I wonder if some people are nervous). A few students set particular goals related to their field of study or to academic habits. Less than half the class completed the task on time. [This is an example of summary. Why?]

I was “moved” (to borrow the phrase from one student’s comment) by the honesty of these notes. At moments, students examined themselves (one called their work habits ‘lazy’), and at others they critiqued the attidues and approaches of their instructors. Most have high hopes to connect with their peers and with the material. I’m hopeful (to use another frequently deployed word) that our work will be fruitful as more voices join the conversation. [This is an example of response. Why?]

Two other great quotes that we’ll talk about over the next few class meetings:

  • “That is why I chose to have a class that is a hybrid because I am a very visual learner and I need in-person time to keep my head in the game.” This is an example of metacognition AND positioning.
  • “aspects of writing such as preparation, organization, and time management.” This is an example of concrete language
  • “I think all of us as writers have amazing ideas, but we don’t flesh them out.” This is an example of a claim. We’ll talk about that on Tuesday.

Class 03 (Sept 2): It’s always something isn’t it?

Good morning, all. I hope the big storm that has closed campus today has not affected you, your homes, or your loved ones in any major way. We had a big leak in our apartment but nothing a baking sheet and a garbage can couldn’t handle.

Anyway … today’s class continues where we left off Tuesday. That day, we introduced a reading practice (previewing) and a technology we’ll use to perform that practice (Hypothes.is). I asked you to broaden the evidence you’ll draw on to make your “Pick a Book” arguments in a few weeks by reading and annotating “The Cover of My Face” by Meredith Talusan. For Sept 9, you’ll read two other pieces, “La Otra” by Jaquira Diaz and “Quick Feet” by Kiese Laymon. These “group reads” give us a shared context to explain our individual arguments. More on this over the next few classes.

Campus is closed today due to the storm but we also have some scheduled days off coming up. There is no class due to holidays on Sept 7 and Sept 16. In campus-being-open news, though, our first in-person class meeting is scheduled for September 9, next Thursday, in NAC 5/108. Hopefully the city won’t experience a plague of locusts, a meteor strike, or a visit from the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man between then and now…

I look forward to hearing your reactions to Talusan, and to reading the blog posts you’ve included for today. You’ll respond to each other between now and the 9th.

If you’re not on our course site, please email me ([email protected]) from your Citymail account so I can invite you. If you’re not on Hypothes.is, please follow these instructions (https://web.hypothes.is/quick-start-guide-for-students/) and join our group (https://hypothes.is/groups/qwY42A5B/engl210-fall-2021).

As always, I’m around on Zoom before and after class, and on email whenever possible (replies within 24 hours, but faster at this time of semester). See you soon!

Class 02: Some last logistics and some first looks at our books

Good morning. We’ll spend today wrapping up the introduction to our course — going over the rest of our syllabus and schedule, signing up for grading contracts, and doing a test run of Hypothes.is and the Commons blog before using them in earnest.

The big details, as always, are on the “Chalkboard” Doc. Readings and the like are making their way into the Commons Group library. And all the other details are under course information, the landing page of our Commons site.

See you in a few