Week 1 Reading & Discussion
Purpose:
Critical reading and analysis are valuable skills for university classes that can help you comprehend, retain, and review information. This first reading & discussion assignment will help you begin your journey of reading rhetorically and taking notes to prepare for writing your first essay in Week 3. University writing requires close reading and rhetorical analysis, that is, analyzing how a piece of writing works and what the writer is doing to communicate. This assignment will require you to take double-entry notes [link] that you’ll be able to draw from to help you remember and use in your initial post and may use later for your first essay and will be helpful also later in this course when we begin writing argumentative essays and searching for researched support.
For this assignment, you will be reading and discussing the Rebecca Solnitt essay from Unit 3 of our primary textbook linked below (Text also located in Canvas Modules).
NOTE: There are two parts to complete for ALL class discussions (Initial: Wednesdays & 3 Responses: Fridays).
Reading Assigned UNIT 3- Ecology of Place (EOP)
Rebecca Solnitt: “If You Win the Popular Imagination, You Change the Game: Why We Need New Stories on Climate ”[link]
Part One: Initial Post, due Wednesday of Week 1 by 11:59pm
For your initial post this week you will be completing the following tasks.
INSTRUCTIONS
As you read the essay, be looking for connections and topics that may come up in the readings related not only to the course themes, but also to university disciplines like sociology, politics, earth science, psychology, business, biology, economics, etc.
1. Jot down what you take to be the article’s thesis/focus and list questions the writer seems to be asking and/or any questions that came up for you as you read. Refer to your notes.
For your initial post to the “Discussion” assignment, in complete sentences in 2 paragraphs of 7-8 sentences each.
1. For your first paragraph, analyze the author’s use of research to support their claim and show factual accuracy. Note: In some nonacademic types of writing, like this essay, authors don’t use conventional methods to cite their sources in-text. Instead, they supply their editors with their researched sources to be fact-checked before publishing. What two pieces of evidence could you presume to have come from research that is being used to “convince” the audience? How effective were they?
2. Supplying evidence and using logical reasoning are important parts of a reasoned argument. For your second paragraph, state your opinion, backed by evidence from the text and your own experience, about one of these quotations:
a. “…if we can’t win everything, then we lose everything. There are so many doom-soaked stories out there – about how civilisation, humanity, and even life itself, are scheduled to die out. This apocalyptic thinking is due to another narrative failure: the inability to imagine a world different than the one we currently inhabit.”
b. “A lot of people tend to measure climate action in terms of huge national or international news events, but the change that matters is often happening at local and regional and other levels.”
Style Notes for Discussing Literature
Use the author’s surname/last name when you discuss them: “MacGillis says…” NOT “Julie says…”.
Usually we discuss texts in the present tense, so you’d say “he says” or “he argues” or “he uses X evidence to support that claim” rather than saying “in this essay Hodges said…”. Since these are all quite recent, this is the tense you should be using. (Think you’ve found an exception? That’s possible, so message me or visit my office hours to discuss.)
If you want to cite a specific part of an online text, one easy-ish way to do so is to count paragraphs. You’d then cite it in parentheses like this (Hodges para 6).
We are using MLA in our class, but if you are in a field that primarily uses another citation style and you would like to practice that instead, let me know so we can work that out for you.
Part 2 by Friday at 11:59 p.m.:
Since this is your first discussion assignment I want to share with you the type of productive responses that I expect for your Peer Responses for discussion assignments.
For your peer responses, read up to 6 peers’ initial posts and respond to 3 of them. Write a paragraph of at least 6-8 sentences responding to your peers’ answers to either quotation. Discuss your response and whether or not you agree with your peer’s opinion and why. Respond productively to your peers by using these techniques: How to Productively Respond to Classmates.
Part 1-Initial Reading & Discussion assignments are due Wednesday by 11:59 p.m.
Part 2- The Post Three Discussion Peer Replies are due Friday by 11:59 pm
Each Reading Response and Discussion assignment will be based on an assigned reading or other materials, so be sure to check the instructions in advance each week so you have time to complete the preparatory work before starting your assignment. Additional course materials may be provided as well to supplement these assignments.
Homework assignments will help you practice skills directly related to the Essay assignments and the course and program learning outcomes.
Task instructions and Grading guidelines will be provided with each assignment so you know what is required to have it marked as Complete.
Grading Comments will be provided to give feedback (when needed) and let you know if an assignment is Incomplete or Late and whether it may be revised and resubmitted.
Weekly Discussion Reminders:
Part one of each Discussion assignment – your initial post – is due by Wednesday night at 11:59 pm.
Part two of each Discussion assignment – replies to three of your classmates – is due by Friday night at 11:59 pm. Canvas will alert you with a TO Do about these peer replies
Instructions and Grading guidelines for this Discussion are provided below so you know what is required to have it be marked as Complete.
Grading Comments will be provided to give feedback (when needed) and let you know if an assignment is Incomplete or Late and whether it may be revised and resubmitted.
Grading Criteria
To earn a grade of Complete on this assignment you will meet the following criteria:
Part 1:
Post a doc or PDF, following the above instructions
All work is your own and not plagiarized.
All questions are complete and meet the minimum length and content requirements.
Part 2:
All three peer replies are complete, respectful, and meet the minimum length requirements. Replies refer to specific examples from the original post so I can tell you’ve read your peer’s post.
Parts 1 and 2 are both submitted on time, Part 1 by Wednesday; Part 2 by Friday.
*PLEASE NOTE: This week is unusual as you’ll have 2 discussion posts and 2 sets of peer replies to complete: “Autobiographical Writing” and “Reading Discussion & Note-taking Activity” There is a 48-hour grace period for turning in these assignments. They may show up on Canvas as late, but if you complete both the Initial Post and the Peer Replies within the 48-hour grace period, they will not be counted as missing or late.
Learning outcomes
Apply rhetorical concepts to achieve writing goals within a given discourse community.
Locate, critically evaluate, synthesize, and integrate multiple perspectives from a variety of sources.
Engage in research and writing as recursive and inquiry-based processes, participating in the communal and conversational nature of academic discourses.
Develop strategies for generating, drafting, revising, and editing texts based on feedback and reflection.
Reflect on knowledge and skills developed in this and other courses and potential transfer to future contexts.
