Portfolio Writing Workshop Monday-Tuesday at COA

We will meet in A-232 Monday, July 30, 2012, 9 a.m. to 12 noon and 1:30 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 31, 2012, I will be around again about 10 a.m. until about 1 p.m.

Portfolios are due by Tuesday at 10 a.m. If you need help assembling it and cannot make it Monday, let me know.

I am reading essays now. The grades are final on the essays. If you want to revise an essay with a final grade of C-, you will have to write a correction essay.

A correction essay takes each error and in great details discusses the error and how the writer can correct it, citing Hacker and/or Graff & Birkenstein as the resource. Note the handout we completed in class on confused words to see a sample of a template.

The correction essay also needs an introduction and a conclusion where you discuss how the writer (yourself) can improve her grade on the failed essay. In the conclusion you can include a quote or a witty comment.

This essay proceeds the failed essay in the portfolio. You can revise as many of the essays you received failing grades on you like. If the correction essay is not a passing essay, I will not read the revised essay it is referencing. Make sure you include a works cited page with reference to the essay and Hacker.

Taken from July 3 post:

If you chose to revise the first essay, for students who got C-, include a narrative indicating what changed between the drafts. Use Hacker for the rules that might govern the change. Have a works cited or reference page as well. Quote the error and write what the revised passage looks like now.

For example:

In Wanda Sabir's first essay, "Tough Love for Leymah," she makes many errors, so many she fails the assignment. Lucky for her, she was not alone in the deep blue sea of errors (smile). She decides to take advantage of the opportunity to revise her essay and decides to tackle it one paragraph at a time with the hopes of getting a passing grade this time around.

Her first error is dropped quotes, the authors in They Say, I Say, call them "hit and runs." She kills a lot of readers in this short yet deadly composition. There are at least eight accidents--I don't know how she is still operating in the English language. Her license should have been revoked.

The first error is in paragraph 3. She writes: "XYZ" (1). We don't know who is speaking. There are many rules pertaining to incorporating text into one's discourse. In this case, she should set the context in the signal phrase, so the reader while see how the citations follows from what is said prior: "Leymah Gbowee says while initiating a new policy at the ABC council meeting of the region (page number and author re: reference).

Wanda makes similar errors on this page elsewhere. She writes: "VNM." Once again there is no signal phrase, but this time, we know who is talking, so "She says, 'VNM'" would work here.

Not only does the writer play hit and run games with citations, she doesn't seem to know how to use MLA when citing in-text, whether that is at the end of a block quote or a shorter citation. She has a lot of trouble with quotes within quotes. Take for instance, the error in paragraph 10. Wanda writes, "OPL." (4).

And so on.