Nowotny-Young/Unit 3 Assignments/1

Unit 3 Writing Assignments

In the previous two units, you generated lots of new writing and practiced the skills of rhetorical analysis, research, and argument. In this unit, you will explore the principles of reflection on your writing, rewriting, and revision.

Too often, rewriting is seen as “punishment” for writing badly the first time, and revision is considered “fixing” a piece of writing, cleaning up the “mistakes.” In fact, rewriting is a common practice among writers, even (and especially) the most accomplished and talented writers. One of the hardest lessons to learn for all writers is to let go of a piece of writing that isn’t working or is no longer appropriate because the rhetorical situation has changed, and to write it again in a new form. But once that lesson is learned, the practice of rewriting becomes one of the most helpful tools in the writer’s toolbox.

Revision is about “re-seeing” a piece of writing. Not as extensive as rewriting, revision still involves making large changes in the development, organization, and style of a piece of writing. What most beginning writers think of as revision is really “editing”—correcting sentence structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and so forth. While editing is an important part of writing, it comes only at the end stage of the process, long after rewriting and revision have taken place.

In this unit, we’ll concentrate on rewriting and revision. To do this well, we’ll also do a fair amount of reflection. Here’s how it will work:

First, you’ll write a Self-Assessment Memo (required). This will be a general assessment of your writing abilities. Thinking back to the strengths and weaknesses of your writing this semester, you’ll write on these and on your hopes of improving your writing. This is a very short assignment, a paragraph or two. You’ll write a draft in class on Thursday, October 30, and then revise it to turn in on Thursday, November 6.

Then you’ll start rewriting and revising two pieces of writing to include in your Portfolio (250 points). These pieces should be either

One of the essays you wrote this semester (either the Rhetorical Analysis Essay or the Documented Argument Essay) and an essay from one of your General Education classes, or
Both of the essays you wrote this semester.

Use the points you raise in your Self-Assessment Memo to help you make significant changes in your essays. You will also change the rhetorical situation of the essay to allow you to try new approaches. For example, if you rewrite/revise the Rhetorical Analysis Essay, write it as a letter to the author of the essay to either show him/her why you think the essay is effective or explain why you think the essay needs work. If you rewrite/revise the Documented Argument Essay, change your audience. If you rewrite/revise an essay from one of your Gen. Ed. classes, I will ask you to provide the assignment sheet and then change some aspect of the assignment—such as giving a new audience or purpose to the essay. You must make some significant change in the rhetorical situation of each of your revisions in order to allow you to make significant changes in the essay. Without such changes, you cannot get full credit for the Portfolio.

To help you in this rewriting/revising task, you will participate in a presentation group. This group will consist of 3 people who will work with each other to cast new rhetorical situations for their essays and find effective ways to revise them. This group will also present to the class on November 13, November 18, or November 20. The presentation will take 25 minutes and will include two parts:

Discussion of the revision choices made by each group member and the rewriting advice the group gave to each member. The group will select one member’s portfolio to discuss in detail.
Discussion of a common writing problem in the group, such as run-on sentences, fragments, commas, pronoun agreement, wordiness, etc. Use RW to find information on this writing problem. Present a definition of the problem, a few examples of the problem drawn from the writing of the group members, and corrections. The group may also wish to give an exercise for the rest of the class to do.

Write a Cover Memo for your Portfolio. This Cover Memo needs to explain how you rewrote and revised each of your essays, including how you conceived of the new rhetorical situation for each essay and all the changes you made. It should also explain how you think each piece has been improved. When you turn in the Portfolio, it should include this Cover Memo, the two rewritten essays, the original graded versions of the essays, and the assignment sheet for any essay not written in this 102 class. This Portfolio is due Tuesday, November 25 (and then you can go off to enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday!).

Write a short Personal Reflection (1 page maximum) on the research you did for your Documented Essay. What did you learn about doing research in an academic environment? What was challenging about doing research? What was confusing, if anything? What questions do you still have about doing research at the UA? Due on Tuesday, November 25.

Write your Personal Reflective Essay (150 points), a narrative/descriptive essay telling the story of your life as a writer. Discuss your relationship to writing, how you grew and developed as a writer over the years, significant problems you’ve grappled with in your writing, types of writing you’ve enjoyed and experimented with, your plans and hopes for future writing. Describe what kind of writer you are. This essay is due the last day of class (Tuesday, December 9).

A Note on Grading: The Portfolio will be graded somewhat differently from the other assignments. In this assignment, I will be looking for your demonstrated ability to re-see your writing, take charge of your revision process, and describe your rewriting and revising process in the Cover Memo. Long after you leave this class, you will need to revise your own writing, often without the aid of a teacher or reader who can help you see your writing problems and errors. The ability to diagnose your own writing problems, find your own errors, and revise accordingly is one of the greatest skills you can have, and it is one of the goals of this class. Because the Portfolio contains finished pieces of writing, I will not be marking the revisions as I have the other writing for this class. I will write only a brief assessment of the revisions.

Although the Personal Reflective Essay is turned in separately from the revisions and Cover Memo, you should consider it a vital part of the Portfolio assignment. It will be evaluated on the quality of its writing and your ability to narrate and describe your own writing history, style, and practices. You will continue to do research in other university classes and possibly in your career after university, so reflecting on what you have learned about doing research and what further questions you have will also help you in the future. This reflection on research is a part of your Portfolio, it will not be graded as such, but it must be included in the Portfolio for it to be complete.

Summary of Assignments and Due Dates:

Self-Assessment Memo (Required)—Due Thursday, November 6
Portfolio, including Cover Memo and Revisions (250 points)—Due Tuesday, November 25
Personal Reflection on Research – Due Tuesday, November 25
Personal Reflective Essay (150 points)—Due Tuesday, December 9
Group Presentation (25 points)—Done November 13, 18, or 20