Peer review groups, 3.1
If you don't have your peers' email addresses already, shoot me an email and I'll let you know.

1. Brie, Mark, Nikki
2. Ashley, Katie, Nicole
3. Dan, Kelly, Reza
4. Laura, Ronak, Yessenia
5. Leslie, Pasha, Tenzin
6. Adam D., Adam H., Chetan, Megan

- posted by Mike @ 5:31 PM

 
Peering into the future, and other obligatory puns
Our final bit of peer review begins on Monday, and by this point you should have a very strong sense of with whom you work best. Shoot me an email letting me know what sort of peer review group you would like (three people? four?) and whom you would like to work with particularly.
- posted by Mike @ 8:35 PM

 
Paper 3 Conference Schedule
All conferences meet in the Open Book Cafe. Please bring a hard copy of your most recent work, including all my and your peer reviewers' comments.

Friday 4/22
1:00 pm - Laura
1:30 - Brie
2:00 - Adam D.
2:30 - Yessenia
3:00 - Chetan

Monday 4/25
3:30 pm - Katie
4:00 - Megan
4:30 - Pasha
5:00 -

Tuesday 4/26
9:30 am - Ronak
10:00 - Reza

Wednesday 4/27
11:00 am - Adam H.
3:30 pm - Nikki
4:00 - Dan
4:30 - Leslie

Friday 4/29
11:00 am - Chetan
1:00 pm - Kelly
1:30 - Nicole
2:00 - Mark
2:30 - Ashley
3:00 - Tenzin

Tuesday 5/3
12:45 pm - Brie
1:15 - Laura
1:45 - Dan

Wednesday 5/4
1:45 pm - Pasha
3:30 - Nikki
4:00 -
4:30 - Chetan

Friday 5/6
3:30 pm - Adam H.
4:00 - Reza
4:30 - Tenzin

Monday 5/9
9:30 am - Chetan
10:00 - Megan
10:30 - Adam D.
11:00 - Kelly
3:30 pm - Nikki

Tuesday 5/10
10:00 am - Ronak
10:30 - Ashley
11:00 - Katie

Wednesday 5/11
10:00 am - Yessenia
10:30 - Nicole
11:00 - Mark

Thursday 5/12
11:00 am - Pasha

I am extremely flexible during finals week; email me if you would like to schedule an appointment for a time you don't see listed here.
- posted by Mike @ 8:30 PM

 
Les dernieres semaines
Updated 4/27!

Monday 4/18

• Annotated bibliography due.
• Dreadfully boring class "discussion": essay archetypes

Wednesday 4/20

• Read Ken Macrorie's super-short "What is good writing?" (you don't need to print it out, 'though you can
• Bring a short (about a page) sample of your favorite text. This can be a page from a book, a poem, lyrics to a song, a list of inspirational quotations: just some knock-your-socks-off good writing.
• Class discussion: style!

Friday 4/22

• Class cancelled for conferences!
• Hebdomadal due, as usual

Monday 4/25

• Essay 3.1 due to your peer review partners

Wednesday 4/27

• Peer review 3.1: complete the usual peer review worksheet, etc.

Friday 4/29

• Class cancelled for conferences!
• Hebdomadal due (man, won't you miss these things in a couple weeks?)

Monday 5/2

• Paper 3.2 due to your peer review partners
• Reading: Hale, "Music," available via e-reserve (it's kind of long, so start early)
• Class discussion: developing your mature academic style
• Also: how do we grade papers? Learn about the grading dartboard.

Wednesday 5/4

• Assignment: Peer review worksheet; comment on your peers' drafts as per usual
• Class time: peer review

Friday 5/6

• Your last hebdomadal!
• Saluditory remarks
• Class evaluations

- posted by Mike @ 4:03 PM

 
Wednesday's reading
Ken Macrorie - "What is good writing?"
- posted by Mike @ 2:12 PM

 
Hebdomadeus Unbound
The rules have changed! Your last four hebdomadals - beginning Friday - need only fit the following criterion:

• 300 to 500 words (or so) of clear, interesting prose.

You can write about anything you want: you can keep arguing and analyzing (and the topics listed in the course calendar are just as available as ever), or you can branch off in entirely new directions. Narrate a scene from you life; sketch the character of your roommate; give your reader a hint of what you've been thinking about. Write inventively! Be funny!

"So, Mike," you ask, "how do you plan on grading such an open-ended assignment?"

Great question! It's simple: great work earns a check plus; good work a check; fair or worse work a check minus. (If you think I can't tell great work from good work from poor work then you've missed the fact that I read for a living. Well, for a "living.") Your prose should be polished, mature (not necessarily too mature), and engaging. Especially creative ideas and writing will push your grade up; banal or cliched utterances will push it down.

Questions? Shoot me an email!
- posted by Mike @ 3:52 PM

 
Wednesday's readings
Thank you for your work today! I distictly remember the day I discovered journal databases, and on that day my life and scholarship changed forever. Seriously, it's mind-blowing stuff for old fogies like me, fogies who were raised with card catalogs and outdated puffy books on irrelevant subjects.

Anyway, here are our wonderful findings:

1. Arnold, Paul Daniel, et al."Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder With and Without Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviours: Clinical Characteristics, Cognitive Assessment, and Risk Factors." Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 50.1 (Jan 2005) 59-66. (ProQuest link.)
2. Franklin, Martin, et al. "Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy for Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder." Journal of Clinical Child Psychology 30.1 (Feb 2001) 8-19. (Academic Search Elite link.)
3. National Women's Health Resource Center. "Anxiety Disorders and Women's Health." National Women's Health Report Washington 2.5 (Oct 1998) 5. (GenderWatch link.)
4. President and Fellows of Harvard College. "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder--Part II." Harvard Mental Health Letter 15.5 (Nov 1998) 1-5. (Academic Search Elite link.)
5. Raphael, F. J., et al. "Religion, Ethnicity, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder." The International Journal of Social Psychiatry 42 (Spring 1996) 38-44. (Social Sciences Full Text link.)

We'll be breaking down the reading load as follows:

Text #1 (Arnold et al.): Laura, Megan, Kelly, and Adam H.
Text #2 (Franklin et al.): Yessenia, Chetan, Dan, and Leslie
Text #3 (NWHRC): Nikki, Katie, Brie, and Tenzin
Text #4 (Harvard): Adam D., Mark, Pasha, and Reza
Text #5 (Raphael et al.): Ashley, Nicole, and Ronak

Remember to bring a hard copy of your text!!

These readings are mostly no longer than six pages (sorry group #2), so do read them somewhat carefully: you need to come to class with a sense of your author's main claim and the evidence he martials to support that claim. Spend about 5 minutes jotting down notes for the kinds of arguments this text could support.

Class Wednesday will break down as follows:

• 10 minutes: negotiating our thesis
• 10 minutes: outlining our main claims
• 20 minutes: writing our essay in small groups (one group per paragraph)
• 10 minutes: speed-reading the finished product

If you have trouble accessing any of the articles linked above just shoot me an email and I'll hook you up.

Thanks!
- posted by Mike @ 4:34 PM

 
Liberal bias and the classroom
In the last twelve months or so, arguments and legislation reacting to the the "liberal dictatorship" of American colleges and universities have become increasingly common. In one fairly developed case, the Florida state legislature is currently considering a bill that seeks to enforce political neutrality on the classroom. Even more recently, conservatives have pointed to surveys of professors' political affiliations (proving the extraordinary majority of the American professoriate to be left-leaning) as proof of systemic hiring prejudice. (Krugman's rebuttal provides a nice synopsis of both arguments.)

As you think about hebdomadal topics for this Friday, you might meditate on the political force of the classroom. Is it a site of indoctrination? What can teachers do to protect students from political bias, or is it the teacher's role to challenge students' received political beliefs?
- posted by Mike @ 2:53 PM