A Reminder — For March 26th and Beyond
Next week, March 24th is a holiday (Easter Monday) so we will not be meeting for class. On March 26th, we will spend our classtime doing the following:
- Critiquing Sul Hee’s essay, which we didn’t get to last time. Make sure you have read it more than once, marked up the page with editorial marks, and thought about what you’re going to say during your 90 seconds.
- Discussing the classblog, which will be set up in time for you to start using next week. I’ll put a link here in the next day or two, and you can try register early, too. Maybe we can save time in class if everyone figures out how to use it individually?
What we won’t be doing in class next week is discussing the progress on your essays. However, you should consider the fact that next week is Week 4. This means that we’re halfway to midterm exams. I’m probably going to want your essays at the beginning or end of Midterm Exam Week, meaning that you haven’t got much time left.
The most important things to be doing outside of class are:
- researching
- thinking about your thesis and main points you want to make
- considering how you can use research to support your position
In the coming weeks (ie. until midterm exams), we’ll be discussing the following:
- outlining,
- paraphrasing and summarizing another writer’s words or ideas,
- how to write a good introduction and conclusion, and
- citing your sources using MLA format or footnotes
As for the long-range plan, I think you’ll be working on a single essay all semester — meaning that my feedback will be important, and that you will be rewriting the essay you’re working on now several times. This means research won’t stop for a long time. So keep considering what you should read or look at next! Keep using the Mind Map exercise to pick out interesting connections between the issues or topics surrounding your thesis, and keep thinking about your topic, freewriting about it, and taking notes whenever you get a good idea.