Time flies–it’s already Week 6! Here are the usual weekly reminders, the agenda for our live session on Tuesday, and a suggested workflow for your week.

Week 5 Reminders

Last week you needed to submit:

  • Essay 1 Phase 2
  • Essay 1 Phase 2 Peer Review forms
  • Unit 1 Reflection to Slack #general

You also had prewriting exercises (for yourself, not due to me) to begin setting up for the Rhetorical Analysis essay, namely making a shortlist of visual artifacts or cultural objects you could examine in your essay. You were supposed to use the Fruitfulness Flowchart posted to D2L to check whether your selections are viable. If you have any doubts about your artifacts, I highly recommend checking in with me. You can also post your selections to your #workshop channel on Slack for informal feedback from your peers.

Week 6 Schedule of Work

As always, the agenda is in the course calendar and materials are posted to the weekly module on D2L Classes. The “Review” work that should be completed before Tuesday includes:

  • Watch: Field Notes Introduction
  • Review Field Notes instructions in Assignment Guidelines (under Unit 3)
  • Read: Turkle, “What Makes Objects Evocative?”
  • Read: Cayley, “Reverse Outlining” for organizational tips

After class, you’ll be expected to:

  • Complete the Rhetorical Situation worksheet as a prewriting exercise, to make your final selection of 1-2 cultural artifacts. You’ll notice that the Rhetorical Situation Worksheet is an extension of the work you were asked to do on the Fruitfulness Flowchart, so in theory you’ll just be extending, with more detail and specificity, what you already jotted down. (You do not need to submit this to me.)

In our live session on Tuesday 3/2, we’ll do the following:

  • Discuss any questions you have about the Essay 1 General Feedback, or how to use it as you revise for the Final Portfolio
  • Discuss any questions you have about Unit 2
  • Discuss any questions you have about rhetorical analysis and the expanded rhetorical situation
  • Look ahead to Unit 3 by going over questions you have about the field notes assignment
  • Address any questions you have about the viability of particular artifacts for rhetorical analysis in Essay 2
  • Discuss Turkle’s essay “What Makes Objects Evocative?,” with an eye to identifying the collective cultural and emotional significance of visual/physical artifacts

Material that’s due to me includes:

  • HW 3: Using the Rhetorical Situation worksheet, introduce your cultural artifacts and identify for each the 3 rhetorical features most important to understanding how they function in/for the community. Spend about a paragraph on each and post your responses to Slack #homework as a reply to the HW prompt I’ll post Tuesday evening. (If you write too much to fit in the Slack text box, please post your response as a Google Doc link with sharing permissions enabled.)

Looking Ahead…

After reviewing your Essay 1 Phase 2 drafts, I’ll post your scores on D2L and will publish a “General Feedback” post to this blog, which I will pin to the top of the blog and link to the Week 6 module on D2L. You can expect this to go live on Sunday or Monday.

General Feedback posts include revision suggestions that apply to 90% of my students across all 3 sections I teach (meaning at least 50 students are having the same issue). I encourage you to go bullet point by bullet point through the list and try to identify if the issue is occurring in your work, and if it is, begin to address it on your own. Then, it’s a good idea to meet with me to make sure that you’ve identified all the items that apply and figured out how to best address those issues for yourself.

If and only if your Phase 2 draft contains a unique or egregious issue, I’ll leave a personal comment for you on D2L Grades, in the space for feedback to students. If you don’t receive a comment on D2L, it doesn’t mean anything—as always, pay attention to the symbol you receive. The symbols and what they indicate are listed in the Grading Contract if you forget what they are.

We do not have a live session scheduled for Week 7 (Tuesday 3/9) or Week 8 (Tuesday 3/16). Instead, you’ll be drafting towards Essay 2 Phase 1, conducting workshop, beginning “fieldwork” if you haven’t done so already, and meeting with me for your Essay 2 Phase 1 feedback conferences. Check the Calendar for deadlines and expected work, and as always, feel free to schedule appointments with me as needed using the link in the Syllabus.