[Jhumpa Lahiri in her writing space.]
These are the short assignments I'll ask you to complete over the semester. I am not going to be grading these assignments as if they are final writing products. You are welcome to use the editing techniques we discuss to improve them, but I am reading these all as drafts. I will be reading them for content, and for the information you're conveying to me.
Week 2
In this first week of class, I would like to get a sense of your writing process, what works, what you would like to change or improve, and your general goals for our semester together.
Please write as much as you would like about the following three questions:
1) What is your typical writing process? What works? What feels good? What doesn’t work or doesn’t feel so good? If you have to write a paper, how do you go about doing it?
2) What motivates you to write? Why are you doing the writing you’re doing? Why did you decide to take a course on writing? How could you remind yourself of this larger goal as motivation to write?
3) What specifically do you want to learn or practice in this course? Do you have any particular goals or intentions?
Week 5
This week, I’m asking you to think through a writing plan for your final paper in this course. What is the schedule you will create for yourself? Please look at the final paper assignment and construct a writing plan.
Be sure to:
1) break the paper writing process into discrete steps;
2) make reasonable deadlines for each of those steps;
3) be aware that you need to turn in two rough drafts to me (you can pick the dates);
4) be aware that you need to turn in one rough draft to your peer editors (you can pick the dates).
What you turn in must absolutely include concrete dates. These are the deadlines that you will follow for the rest of the semester.
We will create peer editing groups once paper topics are settled so that people might work with others in the same / similar disciplines.
Week 6
This week, I’m asking you to describe and reflect on writing norms with your academic discipline(s). Please write a short answer that answers the following questions:
What are the writing conventions in your discipline(s)?
What do readers want and what do they take for granted?
What tone or tones are most commonly used? Are other tones acceptable?
What writing options are totally unacceptable in your estimation?
What are examples of really good and really bad writing in your discipline? (Here I mean specific works / titles.) What makes these works particularly good or bad?
If you work within or between multiple disciplines, please answer these questions but also explicitly compare and contrast the disciplines with each other. Are some writing options acceptable in one but not the other?
Week 7
This week, there is no writing due. Instead, please use this time to invite one of your mentors to have a conversation with you about how they understand the writing conventions in your (shared) discipline.
In this conversation, please take very careful notes and ask them questions very similar to those you reflected on last week, including:
What are the writing conventions in your discipline(s)?
What do readers want and what do they take for granted?
What tone or tones are most commonly used? Are other tones acceptable?
What writing options are totally unacceptable in your estimation?
What are examples of really good and really bad writing in your discipline? (Here I mean specific works / titles.) What makes these works particularly good or bad?
If you work within or between multiple disciplines, please explicitly compare and contrast the disciplines with each other. Are some writing options acceptable in one but not the other?
Remember that it can be very hard to describe (unmarked) norms, and be sure to express your appreciation to your mentor for their time and energy.
You will use your notes about and reactions to this conversation to write the short answer due next week.
Week 8
This week, I’m asking you to write a reflection engaging your own sense of disciplinary writing norms and those of your mentor. Please respond to the following questions in your reflection:
How does your sense of your discipline’s writing norms compare to your mentor’s sense?
In what ways do your perceptions overlap? In what ways do they diverge?
Did your mentor say anything that surprised you?
What, if anything, did you learn from the conversation?
Week 9 - CANCELLED (we talked about this together, instead)
This week, we’re a little more than halfway through the semester. Use this week’s short writing to reflect on your daily writing practice so far.
What is working?
What isn’t working?
Have you had any surprises?
Have you tried anything new?
What patterns or practices help you commit to daily writing, i.e. make it automatic? What patterns or practice impede your daily writing, i.e. make it harder to accomplish?
Weeks 10-15
We will not have any other group writing assignments. You are welcome to use these weeks as moments in which to set your own writing goals for your final paper. Here are the stages you must include in your schedule:
1) two rough drafts to me
2) one rough draft to your peer writing group
3) a final paper due on or before April 30.
You are welcome to build additional steps into your schedule, for instance: rough outline, thesis draft, drafts of particular sections, completing the reading needed, etc. Please feel free to make an appointment to talk in office hours if you think that would be helpful.