English 357
Peer Response
Rough Sketch of Project #1

Critiquer ______

Essayist ______

The “sketches” or very short and rough drafts you posted to Bb recently of course need development if they are to become full-fledged essays. Assist your classmates by responding to the questions below.

  1. Immediate Best Response

So far, what strikes you as the BEST thing about this short piece of writing?

  1. Essay Basics
  2. Does the piece have a good, clear, and through introduction which prepares the reader for what is to come? Do we understand the essay’s context, and are we introduced adequately to Todd Gitlin and his navigational types? What mostly needs work there?
  3. What is the essay’s thesis? This writer is MAINLY claiming that______. Complete this sentence. If you have trouble doing so, explain to the writer:
  4. Is there adequate support for the thesis? plenty of specific examples to illustrate and prove the essay’s assertions? Point out the primary trouble spots and make suggestions throughout.
  5. How well-crafted are the essay’s paragraphs? Is each focused on one clear claim, supported by plenty of specifics? Or is the writer piling multiple claims into single paragraphs without fully developing any one of them?
  6. What else do you want to know about the writer’s topic or thesis? What questions can you ask?
  7. Imagining the Visual Component
    Keeping in mind that, to some extent, this class is about exploring what CAN or MIGHT be done in the creation of verbal-visual writing, help the writer come up with possibilities. I.e., be an explorer, an inventor.
  8. Where in the essay do you feel the NEED for something visual, and why?
  9. Identify one sentence or passage in the essay which you believe can be translated entirely into visual language. Explain to the writer how the information might better (or at least alternately) be conveyed with images, and speak a bit about what images you have in mind. How would YOU translate any given passage into purely visual language? Feel free to be crazily imaginative here.
  10. Are you familiar with any image sources which would help this essay to become a verbal-visual hybrid piece?
  11. Re-read the work. How would you describe its TONE and MOOD? Its ethos? What color (or colors) does this essay feel like, and why?
  12. If some part of this essay actually MOVED, what part would that be, and why? Where would animation actually help the writer to make his/her claims or support his/her claims? Again, feel free to be imaginative.
  13. Provide the writer now with a VISUAL response. That is, go through the essay and actually draw, copy-paste, or otherwise convert some of your reactions and ideas to images. You should in some way include at least two images.

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