Thursday, November 11, 2010

Fragments and Run-Ons

Take a look at these three sentences and then answer the poll questions along the side of the blog.

1) Swofford describes watching films about the Vietnam War with his fellow marines before leaving for Iraq during the first Gulf War for them these films were not antiwar in fact they made them more eager to have the opportunity to go and fight.

2) In his speech "Beyond Vietnam," King critiques not only U.S. policy in that war, but also the ideologies of materialism and militarism that he says will put the U.S. "on the wrong side of a world revolution."

3) As Appy shows, even though the U.S. army during the Iraq War are all volunteers, with many different ideologies and with many different reasons for joining the army.

Then fix the sentences that need fixing in the comments.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

November 11th In-Class Work and Announcements

Here's an outline of what we'll do in-class, and then some important announcements about what's coming up:

In-Class:

1) Work with fragments and run-ons: look at the post below and answer the poll questions. We'll take some time to discuss the results and talk about how to fix this common problems.

2) Both post and print out your essay #2 draft. Take a few minutes to read over your work. I'll be responding to the posts, and your partner will respond to the written version.

3) Mark your partner's essay with check marks for something that made you think, question marks for something that was confusing, general, or not supported by the evidence. Also mark fragments and run-ons.

4) Use your partner's comments and mine to make corrections or additions to your draft. Ask them or me questions about their marks to help you with this.

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Announcements!

- Monday we have another guest speaker. I'm very excited that award-winning journalist Tracie McMillan will speak to us about her work on food issues, including undercover investigations. She'll touch on many of the issues you've discussed in Professor Johnson's class. We'll be joined by students from an Ethics of Food cluster and we'll be in room C431D at our regular time. You can learn more about Tracie and her work at her website.

- For next week, read President Obama's speech about Afghanistan from your course packs. Think about the ideology you think it puts forward and how you think it compares to that of the neocons we read about in Engler?

- Next week we'll also talk about how to expand your Power Analysis II assignment into your full research essay. To give you time to do a great job on these, we're pushing back the deadline until Wednesday, December 1st, the week after Thanksgiving. However, if you haven't yet turned in the Power Analysis II assignment, you need to turn it in as soon as possible. Talk to me, Professor Lindskoog and/or go to the writing with your questions about this. You are of course welcome to post part or all of your draft before the deadline for feedback.

- We'll also talk next week about the presentations of your research topic you'll be doing after the break, and a little about the exit exam in 101. For now, just be aware that the exit exam will deal with the readings from the third part of the class ("From Vietnam to Iraq") and that it will be an in-class, open-book exam.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Leave 'em in the comments!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

November 4: Peer Reviewing


Today, you'll have about 45 minutes to work on one of your essays. You can work on essay 2 for ENG 101, about Vietnam, or you can work on your power analysis assignments, which lead into your longer research assignments. If you have part of a draft in your notes or a word file, begin by posting that on your blog.

After about 45 minutes, you'll pick a partner and respond to their draft. Leave a comment that responds to the following questions:

1) Does the writing make sense? Note any places where you as the reader are confused.
2) What is the writer's argument? (If she/he doesn't have one, tell her/him!)
3) Does the evidence given (direct or indirect citations; specific facts from sources) support the argument?
4) Are sources for the evidence introduced and cited correctly?
5) What else do you notice? What more do you want to know?

You'll have about 30 minutes to read your colleague's draft and respond. Then you'll have another 45 minutes or so to work on your drafts, using the comments you received.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Working with Sources: Quotes within Quotes

We get evidence from sources. Those sources get evidence from other sources. This can lead to confusion: look at this sentence, responding to Mark Engler's "Visions of Dominance"

According to Engler the real reason for the war in Iraq was that neoconservatives wanted to have wars to make the country stronger. He says that war "creates a pool of leaders for the nation." (68).

Says who? The sentence makes it sound like Engler believes this. But he's actually quoting neoconservative thinker Michael Ledeen. So, this sentence is quotes Engler quoting Michael Ledeen.
So What we have here is . . . .

A quote within a quote. When you have a quote within a quote, you want to show the says who and also the how do you know. We want to show the reader that Ledeen said it, and that we know this because we read Engler:
According to Engler, the real reason for the war in Iraq was that neoconservatives wanted to have wars to make the country stronger. Engler quotes neoconservative thinker Michael Ledeen, who wrote that war "creates a pool of leaders for the nation." (68).