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ASSIGNMENT IV

A Final, Polished Revision with Final Reflection

Writing Skills:

  • Revising, Editing, and Proofreading a Final Version of Your Work
  • Reflecting on your thinking and course work this semester

Paper:5-page minimum, double-spaced, 12 pt. font

Due:Monday, May 9th—NO LATE PAPERS ACCEPTED!

Writers spend considerable time revising and editing their work – often returning to the same piece years later to keep working on it. This retrospective activity is a vital part of a writer’s education. In this class it provides a chance for you to put into action what you’ve learned over the course of the entire semester by reworking one of your essays.

Here’s what you’ll need to do for this last assignment:

  1. Go back to your first assignment from this class.
  2. It’s been almost three months since we last read, discussed, or thought aboutSteven Pinker and the Good Writing Assignment. Think of this revision as a way to show how much your critical reading, thinking and writing has strengthened and improved over the course of the semester. This could be the paper in which you make the most substantial and powerful revision.
  1. Usingyour peer’s suggestions and my comments – and the writerly skills you’ve learned throughout the semester – revise the essay one more time.
  2. By now, you should know what revising means: re-seeing, rethinking, reworking and rewriting your original thoughts and ideas.
  3. Some of the ways you can revise your essay include changing or refining your ideas about good writing, using new examples/quotations from Pinker or from any of the student stories we wrote, restructuring and reorganizing your essay, and refocusing your analysis by showing additional connections between your thinking and Pinker’s.
  4. Bold(or highlight) all of the revisions you make
  5. Make small-scale proofreading and editing adjustments according to the focus areas we’ve been covering.
  6. Underlineall of these particular changes.
  7. Name the type of editing technique (orienting the reader, introducing sources, formatting MLA in-text citations, etc.) you’ve used next to each modification. You can handwrite this in the margins of the final version.
  8. Spend the last pagewritinga final reflection on the ways in which your thinking (about good writing) has developed or changed over the course of the semester
  9. Refer back to the mini-lessons that students taught over the last two months. Which ones were most effective or memorable and why?
  10. Which lesson(s), in-class activity, reading, homework assignment, or peer responseinfluenced your thinking about good writing?
  11. Explain if, how, or why your thinking about good writing has changed.
  1. On the last day of class, please make sure you attach your draft and first revision to the new copy when you turn it in.
  2. The new version will be graded. This grade does not replace the grade on the first revision (see syllabus). This essay will be worth 10% of your grade.

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To do well on this assignment, you need to do the following:

  • Reread the original revision instructions to make sure you understand the assignment requirements
  • Revise your workin light of my comments (on your draft and revision), peer response feedback, and what this course has taught you
  • Write a final reflection on good writing and how your thinking has developed or changed over the course of the semester

Anticipate your reader’s needs by introducing, orienting, and summarizing any text you bring into the conversation.

  • Edit your workthoughtfully by paying attention to specific wording and sentence structuring
  • Proofread your workcarefully, using online resources or a writing handbook to correct mechanics

Note:

If you hand in an essay that is identical or almost identical to your earlier submission, it will receive an ‘F’ for this particular assignment. You need to revise (rework, rethink, re-see, reorder, rewrite, and reword) your essay – even if you did well on the earlier version of it.