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Sequential Smarts
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
 
Research Narrative
The assignment, for those of you who have (ahem) misplaced your class syllabus (slightly updated):
Research Narrative

Research for non-required assignments often begins with a question, curiosity, a tickling in the back of your throat, an itch you can’t quite reach. These curiosities often send us on our quests to find something out – most likely, many of you know this from experiences searching the Internet. How many of us “Google” people, places and things in order to find the answer to a question we may or may not even have formed in our heads?

But there’s so much more to research than the World Wide Web. The kind of research you will need to while in college will often mean tracking things down without “Asking Jeeves” or “Googling” anything at all. This exercise is to help you prepare for the research you will need to do in upcoming essays, whether they are in this class or in your content-specific courses.

There can be a lot of joy in research – many times one can begin to find the same kinds of connections that most of you have experienced by “surfing” the web, following the endless chains of links you can find on-line. Sometimes you stumble upon things along the way that peak your interest in another direction than you first imagined and in this way you can follow threads, which, like links, open other windows and pose questions of their own. It is this kind of exploration that I’d like you to do for this first “research” assignment, writing up an account of that exploration when you are done.
  1. First start by looking for
    1. Something else written by Amy Kiste Nyberg
    2. or something else written by Noel Carroll
    3. or something else written by Scott McCloud
    4. or (for a challenge) something written about Chris Ware
    5. or any one of the citations in Nyberg or McCloud’s or Carroll's essays.
  2. Then, skim what you find to see if this seems like it would be interesting to you. Explain why or why not.
  3. If it does interest you, research any of the citations in that piece or look for another piece written by the same author.
  4. Repeat step two.

After you have done all four steps, write a minimum of 500 words narrating and explaining what you went looking for, what you did to find it, what you thought of the piece after skimming it (interesting? not interesting? why?), what you decided to look for next and why, what you did to find it, and what you thought of that piece after skimming it.

Think of the written part of this assignment as describing a journey, including what you did and what you thought about as you did it. Feel free to discuss anything you thought of as you did. (“As I climbed up the stairs to the third floor in the library, I thought, why the hell is Mike making us do this?” “When I first looked at the cover, I thought, there’s no way anyone could make me read this pretentious crap, but then, I read the inside flap and it made me think of the beat-up lockers we all had in the seventh grade.” Make this research narrative the story of your research. It should be as detailed as possible – I should be able to retrace your steps and find the same material – but it should also be about you, your experience including how you felt as you did it.

Sunday, March 27, 2005
 
State of the Classroom
I am spending today trying to catch up with where I need to be in my grading and commenting on your hebdomadals, essays, etc. However, due to the limits of my time and attention span it is inevitable that I won't catch up completely, particularly with your second drafts.

Because of the structure of my week, whatever I can't manage to get done today won't really be doable until Friday; this means that several of you won't receive written comments on your essays until just a few days before your final draft is due. This doesn't strike me as especially fair, so I am willing to push your final draft deadline back even farther to the Wednesday of the second week back from break.

My only concern is that this deadline could begin to seriously interfere with your attention to the second unit and in particular to our close readings of Jimmy Corrigan; however, you are adults and I am happy to let you choose when you turn your essay in.

In other belated news, I received only two applications to give extra credit presentations for the second week back. If you are interested in making a group to give the third presentation just shoot me an application by early next week.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
 
Are you a focus groupie?
An opportunity to participate in a discussion about campus redesign:
Play an important part in deciding this great university’s future by participating in an informal discussion group regarding the recreation facilities on campus! Users and non-users alike are encouraged to offer their input during a casual one-hour conversation with other UW students; all thoughts are welcomed! Groups will be held on evenings during the week of April 3rd.

If this opportunity interests you or you have any questions, please forward your name, contact information, and preferred date to focus@uwnetnerds.com, no later than April 2nd.

Once again, the upcoming decisions about campus recreation facilities will have a direct financial impact on each and every student for years to come, so don’t miss this opportunity to help keep UW-Madison among the best universities in the world!

Thank you,

Michael Kreemer
Sarah Marks
Cameron Bottolfson

Friday, March 18, 2005
 
An apology that is also an accusation
I'm about a week behind on grading hebdomadals and returning comments on second drafts; over the next four or five days I hope to take care of all of these yet-to-be-returned texts.

The only excuse I have is that this delay is almost certainly your fault: I've been fighting off a cold for the last ten days or so, and just haven't had the energy to do a competent job. Where could this cold have come from, I wonder?

In the middle of last semester, I was in a similar situation: exhausted from fighting off some endless cold, slightly overworked by all my classes, etc., and I found myself writing about my favorite sea bird (the tern) in my comments in one of my students' essays. As much as I love the tern - an important symbol in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series - I'm trying to avoid similarly delirous comments this time around.

If you have any questions about my comments, or questions about new problems that come up in the writing of your next draft, I'm around to answer your questions in as cogent a manner as my brain can manage.
Monday, March 14, 2005
 
Unit 3: Optional Presentations
Today's Powerpoint presentation (PPT).

If you're interested in giving one of these presentations, here's what I need from you by classtime Friday:If too many groups offer strong arguments - and I'm not even sure more than (or as many as) three groups will apply - I will make other presentations available later in the semester for the surplus groups. This is to say that if you make a strong application then you are guaranteed the opportunity to earn the extra points.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
 
Class Monday 3/14
We will be meeting in the Writing Center computer classroom on Monday, per your request! I really just want to make sure that everybody manages to transfer their essays to their peer review partners, but I will also be exploiting the projector to give a Powerpoint review of the post-spring break schedule - including important schedule changes!
Monday, March 07, 2005
 
Paper 2 Conference Schedule
Rules:
  1. Bring a hard copy of your essay;
  2. Bring your peer reviewers' comments;
  3. Prepare two or three substantive questions about your essay: you'll be leading our discussion, not me.


Conferences meet in the Open Book Cafe.

Monday March 7th
3:30 pm -
3:50 -
4:10 -

Wednesday March 9th
3:30 pm - Pasha
3:50 - Katie Yessenia
4:10 - Tenzin
4:30 - Yessenia

Friday March 11th
10:00 am - Laura
10:20 -
10:40 - Kelly
11:00 - Chetan
11:20 - Dan
11:40 - Adam H.
12:30 pm - Mark

Monday March 14th
3:30 pm - Ashley
3:50 - Nikki
4:10 - Brie


Tuesday March 15th
9:30 am - Ronak
9:50 - Nicole
10:10 -
12:15 pm - Katie

Wednesday March 16th
3:30 - Leslie
3:50 - Reza
4:10 - Kelly

Friday March 18th
10:00 am - Megan
10:20 - Adam H.
10:40 - Adam D.
 
The Peer Review Worksheet
Word | Rich Text | OpenOffice
Sunday, March 06, 2005
 
Mobius essays
(Questions to answer if you want to see your essay grade.)

I've finally commented on and return all of your essays. If you did not get yours back that means the return message got stuck in the system somewhere: shoot me an email and we'll fix you up post-haste.

I'm extremely pleased with the general quality of these essays - I'll discuss some specifics about what made me happy during class tomorrow - and I'm genuinely looking forward to what you can do with your second essays. As much as I love teaching, it's not often that I can say that I am looking forward to reading another 19 essays.

However, my pleasure on this score will be a little bit deferred: due to other obligations, it will be impossible for me to read and comment on everybody's first draft. I will, therefore, respond in full to the second drafts next week.

Tomorrow, I will give you specific instructions on how to use peer review to help your fellow students get over the unpleasant reality that revision means thoroughly reframing and rewriting the entirety of an early draft.

I will be passing around the conference sign-up sheet tomorrow during class (starting with unfortunate, neglected Leslie). On it you will notice that I am happy to meet with you at the end of this week, even though I won't have read your paper. Don't imagine that this gets you off easy: as my Writing Center experience has shown, it is at least as effective to have a student run a conference as it is for me to do so.

Finally, I am a little disappointed that none of you availed yourselves of the English 100 Tutorial Program (www.wisc.edu/english/100tutorial). Although I am absolutely delighted to be a primary resource for your writing in English 100, I noticed issues prevalent in several essays that could have been easily addressed with the extra attention and peer review that the co-directors of the English 100 Tutorial program provide.

It's probably not too late to sign up for an English 100 Tutorial appointment for your second essay! Matthew and Aaron are expert English 100 instructors, and can help you at any stage of the writing process. You might sign up to visit them between your first and second drafts so you can talk through ways of refining, focusing, or deepening your thesis; or you might see them between the second and third drafts to talk through issues of clarity and organization.

I can't promise that seeing the English 100 Tutorial instructors will help your grade, but I can guarantee you that the experience won't hurt it!
Friday, March 04, 2005
 
Elevating you to the peerage
Shoot me an email letting me know with whom you would like to peer review next week.

Historically, peer review groups that stay together all semester do a strong job until the peers grow used to one another and start putting in less effort. Consequently, there is some benefit to keeping you in the same group all semester and there is some benefit to switching groups every paper cycle.

Let me know what your preference is - how you think you will work best - and I'll arrange things to suit your needs.

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