Longer Essay & Colloquium: Expansion
Colloquia 5 & 7 April; Essays due Tuesday, 19 April, in class
Longer Essay: Expansion
If you have been struggling with the constraints of the shorter essays, here’s what you’ve been waiting for: your first Longer Essay, the Expansion. There are so many ways to write more. You might add a fine point or complication or shift in your argument, additional evidence or example or support, a counterargument or challenge. These possibilities are useful in keeping your subject alive while stretching it.
And this is the task for your Longer Essay: Expansion. Take any one of your first five shorter essays (your 5thisn’t eligible if you took the long option), and revise it into a more complex and thus lengthier piece. Ultimately, this essay must be at minimum three (3) times the length of the Shorter Essay you turned in (so, 4½ -6 pages minimum,, depending upon the length of the original, which must be turned in again). Find necessary ways to expand your essay. The new length should be essential to your subject, approach, and material. Keep your subject alive, and your essay tight – this is not a time to let structure and organization and grammar slacken. Essays really can mimic elastic, which is longest when it’s at its weakest and deadest and most useless. To that end, while students are helping each other expand, your instructor will be identifying common types of filler, or those dead and weak and useless kinds of writing sometimes used to fatten up anemic essays.
Requirements: A vital version of one of the first five shorter essays expanded by at least three (3) times its original lengthwith material critical to the thesis. Integrate any new material into the style, organization, and logic of your essay. Turn in your original shorter essay packet (with instructor feedback) with your final essay.
Cautions: You must stick with your original idea / thesis / subject. You may expand the scope of the original idea / thesis / subject, or, for that matter, you may limit it further. You must retain the original approach, evidence, and basis for argument; you may expand or limit any of these.
Permissions: You need not limit yourself to just one means of expansion. Use whatever techniques you deem necessary to your material, provided they are reflective of good writing.
Notices: Grading for Longer Essays is more holistic and less standardized than grading for shorter essays. Please revisit the Academic Writing Standards and see the link for “Grades for Longer Essays” on the course webpage for more information.
► Reflection: Discuss the tasks by which you expanded your essay, and the necessity of the additional length. How was the new material necessary to your thesis? How did you develop and then thoughtfully integrate that new material? Compare this version to the original Shorter Essay upon which it’s based. Don’t forget to address one of the five standards and the writing exercise colloquium! How was your experience leading the class in a writing exercise? How did you and your partner work together? Did you try anything unusual in your essay or exercise that you’d like to explain? Any parting thoughts?
Expansion / Revision Colloquia: 5 & 7 April
Remember that you will be in charge of class for about 15 minutes. How you use this time is up to you, provided you accomplish the following tasks:
- Lead the class in an activity designed to aid some aspect of revision and / or expansion (this includes giving instructions, allowing adequate time for students to accomplish enough of the exercise to understand it, and taking questions and comments as needed)
- Show how your exercise is, if not directly applicable to expanding an essay, clearly useful for other kinds of revision.
You may find it useful to demonstrate with your own work (either from a past essay or example you create for this purpose); some exercises might demand that students provide their own work. You may ask for any reasonable preparation from your classmates (emailing you examples in advance, for instance, or bringing to class a revised introductory paragraph, but not completing an entirely new essay). How you structure your classmates’ time (lecture, class discussion, paired or individual work) is your choice. I would be glad to make copies of a handout for you if you get it to my office or email by 9 am on the day you’re up. Please be sure it’s ready to print and copy without adjustment.
Scheduling Reminders
Due Monday, 4 April
Refresh Anderson’s “The Taliban’s Opium War”, New Yorker, 9 July 2007(Jonathan and Jeremiah)
* Email to your instructor by 9 am at least one detailed paragraph identifying which shorter essay you might expand, describing the additional material, and justifying the “need” for that material.
Due Tuesday, 5 April
Chris & Ethan, “Quote Sandwich”. Please bring to class a sample of your own writing and some quotes from a source that could be incorporated.
Jeremiah & Jonathan, “Ballooning Your Ideas”. You will receive some homework via email – please look for it in your inbox!
Due Thursday, 7 April
Dakota & Kyle, “Oral Writing Exercises”.
Philip & Elliott: “Peer Editing”. Bring a printed copy of the essay you intend to expand.
SienaAndrew: TBA
Due Monday, 11 April
Bring to class adetailed plan for your essay, updating it from last Monday’s assignment, and using any techniques introduced by last week’s exercises to begin expanding.
Read up through the end of the 34th paragraph (the one that begins “Yet it’s far from obvious. . . .”) of Gawande’s “The Checklist”, New Yorker, 10 December 2007
Tuesday, 12 April: Classes cancelled for Whitman Undergraduate Conference
Due Thursday, 14 April
Read Pollan’s “Unhappy Meals”, New York Times Magazine, 28 January 2007(Philip Elliott)
Bring to class atremendously rough draft of your Expansion Essay, including an introduction that you’re prepared to read aloud and at least several body paragraphs.
► 13-17 April, The Walls, HJT
► Kazim Alireading, 14 April at 7, Kimball
Due Monday, 18 April
Bring to class a full and mostly polished printed / read-aloud version of your Expansion Essay.
* Email to your instructor by 9 am two things: first, a one-paragraph discussion of the essay you intend to revise for the 6th Shorter Essay (Revision), including any initial plans, questions, or concerns about revising it; and two, a sentence you wrote that exemplifies your best writing(this may be from any essay you’ve written for any class, but please make sure the sentence’s qualities are intrinsic, and not wholly dependent on context).
Due Tuesday, 19 April
The Longer Essay (Expansion) is due at the start of class; please turn in all process work (original essay packet with feedback plus additional exercises, drafts, and reflection) with your final essay.
Due Thursday, 21 April
Bring to classan abbreviated* and unmarked PRINTED copy of a troubled shorter essay. *Print out only the strong consecutive portions of your essay, whether they fall at the beginning or end of your essay or somewhere in the middle. PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS in advance if you aren’t sure what to bring – you will not be able to participate in class if you don’t follow the above instruction exactly. Note: this need not be the essay you intend to revise for a new grade, but wouldn’t it be useful to start working on it?
Coming up . . .
For your 6th (and final) Shorter Essay (Revision), you may choose any of your first five essays (unless you took the long option with the Field Research Essay) to revise. Return to the original prompt for specific requirements, but also begin thinking about which essay you will best be able to revise in the time allotted (by late April). If your revision earns a higher grade than the essay upon which it’s based, your revision grade will count twice and the original grade will be dropped entirely. If the revision grade is the same or lower, it will count only once and the original grade will remain. You will need to know which essay you’ll revise and bring a portion of it to class the week of 18 April.
Grading for Long Essays
Long Essays are graded a bit differently from Shorter Essays. Largely because your approaches to the assignment will be more diverse, and neither long essay will be revised for this class, grading is more holistic and less standardized. Global comments will be more extensive. There will be some commonality: specifically, what the grades mean. On your shorter essays, your grades begin at A-, from which various, defined, and assignment-specific successes and errors are added and subtracted. Long Essays do not begin with any particular class grade, and rather than a sum of specific triumphs and breakdowns, the grades for Long Essays are (like the assignments) holistic but allow for individual differences. The following table should help explain:
Descriptions of Grades A-F for Longer Essays
A / An “A” essay is highly distinguished. It is marked by clear writing and orderly reasoning through complex ideas. There is indisputable evidence of superior language control and high-level thinking. The essay is virtually free of errors in mechanics, usage, and structure. The essay surpasses all requirements of the assignment.B / A “B” essay exceeds assignment requirements, but is not as thorough or carefully reasoned as an “A” essay. The essay articulates a single and coherent main idea and relevant subordinate ideas. These ideas may be somewhat trite, but they are clearly articulated and supported by specific detail. There may be minor errors, but they do not detract from the essay’s logic or readability, nor do they negate the writer’s ability to organize and explain information in a unified, progressive, and coherent manner.
C / A “C” essay meets the essential requirements of the assignment. While there is a clear main idea and no serious flaws in logic or connection to subordinate ideas, these ideas may not be fully developed. Errors in mechanics, usage, and structure occasionally distract the reader from the essay’s content, but the errors do not call into question the writer’s command of Standard English. This essay is only barely acceptable.
D / A “D” essay has serious difficulty addressing the assignment topic OR meeting basic requirements. There is a main idea, but its relevance to the topic or overall logic is visibly weak due to: faulty logic and development; OR a dearth of pertinent supporting ideas; OR imprecise explanation; OR distinct weakness in paragraphing and organization; OR errors in mechanics, usage, and structure that seriously interfere with readability. The writer’s control of language is uncertain, and the essay does not necessarily demonstrate college level writing.
F / An “F” essay shows a combination of the following problems: serious faults in logic or reasoning, little or no progression or transition between ideas, little or no development of ideas, frequent errors in mechanics, usage, and structure that prevent readability. The essay shows work that is clearly unacceptable at the college level.
Overlaps and discrepancies between categories will be reflected in final grades. For instance, an essay that demonstrates most characteristics of an “A” essay but has errors that occasionally distract the reader from the essay’s content (“C” level) would likely earn a B. An essay generally in the “C” category but written with clear, graceful sentences and superior structure and language would likely also earn a “B”. Because the grading for this essay presents a departure from our typical system, I encourage you to see me if the grade you ultimately earn doesn’t make sense according to the above table and comments accompanying your essay.