(NOTE: This is repost of a message from Sept. 29)
Good Day,
Everything related to Module 1 and Module 2 has been graded and returned to you. It will take me until Monday or so to get your essay exams graded and returned.
In the meantime, you all have Module 4 to work on. Remember that you should be exchanging drafts for peer review no later than Friday. Peer review groups are set up at the discussion board for this module now. I've done some minor shuffling of teams to balance things out.
If your team is ahead of schedule and wants to exchange less finished drafts earlier in the week feel free to do so. This is precisely the kind of creative assignment where you might find it more helpful to bounce around ideas and get feedback earlier in the process.
Some general comments on work so far
First, I expect your projects to be quality, error-free documents. I was a bit disappointed at the number of typos and simple grammar errors that I saw. These don't appear at this time to be "problems" with anyone's writing, but, rather a bit of laziness. At this level, I expect you to be able to find these errors and expect that you will if you take a few extra minutes to edit before you submit. If this continues to be a problem in the future, I will point them out and begin to deduct points.
Second, this is a document design class. You've been reading about different ways to construct documents from a visual perspective. To me, this means that you should apply these principles to ALL of your documents, even academic essays. So I expect you to follow at least the basic principles of document construction. No section should be only one paragraph long. If it's complex enough to be a section, then it should offer multiple ideas within the section.
In this respect, construct shorter paragraphs that center on one idea, provide a topic sentence, offer support/evidence to back up the claim made by your topic sentence, and use formatting devices to highlight important information. In other words, guide your readers through your texts more effectively so that they understand your points more completely.
Third, understanding section/paragraph development is a way to help you be more concise. On the other hand, remember that being concise does not mean just fewer words. You need to offer sufficient detail so that your reader believes you, so that your reader understands the points that you want to make. You have to understand your reader and the context of the situation fully to know the difference between too much and too little information.
Fourth, I want you all to be more analytical. The single biggest weakness I saw in the Mod 1 Analytic memo was the Context section. Most people simply offered up their individual general understanding of the “purpose” of each memo without really addressing the very sophisticated and comprehensive view of context and rhetorical situation detailed in the readings. If I ask a question or provide a prompt that uses language from the text, that’s a pretty good sign that I’m looking for you to respond in kind.
I also saw (in all of the reflective documents) a lot of description of "what" you did, but I saw little description of "why" you did it, "how" you did it, and the ways that those were influenced by your understanding of the rhetorical situation. For example, many people made passing references to establishing a certain type of “ethos” without defining the term, explaining why it was important, or providing a detailed description of how exactly they established a professional ethos.
I expect you to use the language from the textbook, not because it's fancy-schmancy, but because it more precisely captures the ways to talk about the analysis and production of professional writing, as well as the ways for understanding the complexity of professional writing situations. Anyone can analyze a document, but a professional analyzes a document in a way that applies criteria in a more sophisticated and complex way. This class is designed to introduce you to a more professional approach to document design, both as user and producer.
Now, having said this, I see real potential in this class. I sometimes get caught up in what is lacking, but I truly did see some interesting ideas, interesting turns of phrase, and interesting insights. In some ways I was probably both too hard and too easy in grading these documents. I'm not sure if they balance out, but if you have any questions or wish to discuss my comments or your documents in greater detail, just let me know.
Likewise, don't be afraid to ask questions as you construct your documents in the future. I'll be happy to do what I can to help guide you through the process. It will be both a more fun and a more challenging process as we shift more into production mode.
I can’t encourage you enough to really share your creative processes with one another. Don’t be afraid to bounce ideas off your partners, or off the class as a whole at the discussion board. If you find great resources that are worth sharing, please share.
Go forth and conquer!
Julie
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