Assignment 1.1 (a paragraph of 6-7 lines)

Read: Scripture Psalm 19:14

Words matter. Communication skills are critical, at home, at work, and in our social lives, too, and they can make or break situations. When used carefully, words can diffuse tension, bring encouragement, motivate a change in attitude or behavior, or usher in emotional healing. No doubt we have all been the receiver of words used carelessly, and we have likely been the one speaking careless words at some point as well.

The good news? No matter how we feel about our present communication skills, they can always be improved. As we begin our journey through Composition I, no matter what the assignment, remember the communication skills you are building can help you in all aspects of your life. Improving writing for college courses is a worthy goal, and as you invest time and energy, these skills will improve, but skillful communication outside of the classroom can also bring tremendous benefits to those around you.

Think about a time when someone used words to encourage you and share a few sentences about the difference the words made in your thinking, attitude, or behavior. Be as specific or general as you’re comfortable, and as you read your colleagues’ posts, be thinking of ways you can encourage someone else with your words today.

Assignment 1.3

Introduction and Alignment

Since effective written communication is critical to academic success, it is important to know what it is you expect to accomplish in this course.

Upon completion of this assignment, you should be able to:

                •             Reflect on your academic writing strategies, habits, strengths, and weaknesses.

Assignment Instructions

                •             For your initial discussion post, include in the subject line your name and a few words or a phrase to describe yourself, e.g. "Sara Brown - world traveler" or "John Smith - stay-at-home piano player."

                •             There are two parts to your initial post in this discussion:

                ◦             Tell us anything you would like for us to know about you. Include general information about yourself, your family, school, hobbies, special interests, etc. This is just to help us get to know you.

                ◦             Review your results from the Grammar Pre-Test and share with us a few of your strengths and opportunities for improvement in the area of grammar and mechanics.

                ◦             Share and discuss 3-4 of your personal objectives for the course. Also include your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, where and how you use your writing skills, and how you hope to have increased your skills by the end of the course.

                ◦             Your initial post should be a minimum of 150 typed words (approximately half a page.) It should be written following the Policy for Use of Edited Standard Written English (ESWE).

                •             Once you have posted your introduction and personal objectives, read through the posts of your classmates.

                •             Respond to a minimum of three of your classmates.

                ◦             Ask questions; get to know one another.

                ◦             Your responses should be 75-100 words in length and follow the Policy for Use of Edited Standard Written English (ESWE).  

                ◦             Do more than make a simple comment. Think about what your classmates are sharing and respond in a thoughtful manner.

Assignment 1.4

Introduction and Alignment

To be able to write an effective essay, we must first be able to identify some key features of essays: how they present information and how they inform, teach, or persuade. As a result, we can better understand how to recognize and create such elements in our own writing.

Upon completion of this assignment, you should be able to:

                •             Identify key elements of an essay.

Resources

                •             Read: Chapter 57, “Lost and Found” graphic essay by Lynda Barry in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage (found near the middle of Chapter 57).

Assignment Instructions

Even though this essay is presented in graphic form, it also addresses literacy, directly discussing the author’s early reading experiences.

                •             After reading the essay, please answer each of the questions below, and support each of your answers with at least one quote from the essay, cited APA style:

“Include the quote from the essay in this format,” (Barry, 2019).

The total length for the answers to each of these questions is 250-300 words.

                1             What is the main idea of the essay? Carefully review the essay and then identify and discuss the main idea.

                2             Unlike many other graphic authors, Barry provides descriptions for some of her pictures. Why do you think she does this, and how do these descriptions contribute to the essay?

                3             If Barry had presented her story without images, do you think your response would be different? Give a detailed explanation of why.

                4             Who is the target audience (who is this comic intended for)?

                5             As a Literacy Narrative, what does “Lost and Found” teach us about the author’s approach to reading and writing?

                6             This essay comes from the book One! Hundred! Demons! The concept for the book comes from an ancient Japanese painting exercise in which artists painted about things that worried or challenged them. As she began painting and writing about her own demons, Barry explains that “at first the demons freaked me, but then I started to love watching them come out of my paintbrush.” Try drawing or writing about memories from your own past as a student. What have you struggled with? In writing about these memories, have you also come to better understand them?

                •             Reply to two classmates discussing at least one similarity and one difference between your ideas on the thesis, bias, tone, interpretation, or audience. If you feel comfortable, you can also discuss similarities and differences in your struggles with writing. What helped you overcome them? Replies should be posted by the due date your instructor assigns.

Assignment 1.5

Introduction and Alignment

In her popular book about writing called Bird by Bird, writer Anne Lamott (1997) said,

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start

somewhere. Start by getting something -- anything -- down on paper. A friend of

mine says that the first draft is the down draft -- you just get it down. The second

draft is the up draft -- you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more

accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to

see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy” (p. 25).

The following prewriting exercises are designed to help you take an active step in the writing process, so you can overcome the most common barrier to writing: how to get started.

Upon completion of this assignment, you should be able to:

                •             Recall the basics of paragraphing, organization, thesis, voice, and audience.

Resources

                •             Read and Watch Videos: The Writing Process

                •             Watch: Prewriting Strategies for College Students (9:41)

                •             Read: Chapter 5, “Claiming a Topic, Imagining Your Audience, and Gathering Materials” sections in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage.

                •             Read: Chapter 24, “Shaping a Thesis” section in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage.

                •             Read: Chapter 30, “Overcoming Writer’s Block” section in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage.

Assignment Instructions

                •             Review the resources listed above and watch Prewriting Strategies for College Students (9:41) for specifics on how to start writing an essay with pre-writing.

                •             Next, review the 1.6 | Literacy Narrative Essay assignment. Using Chapter 24, “Shaping a Thesis” section in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage, write a working thesis statement for this essay assignment. Keep in mind that this is a thesis statement to get you started; it may change later, but it is important to have a frame for your essay.

                •             After you’ve constructed a thesis statement, choose one pre-writing strategy from the Prewriting Strategies for College Students (9:41) to develop ideas for your 1.6 | Literacy Narrative Essay. As you prepare to write this essay, think about what experience you want to share. When recounting your experience, reflect and analyze it to discover what it means and why it is significant to you. If you need help generating a topic, the following questions may provide a starting point. You do not need to answer these questions in this assignment; they are solely to start the thinking process as you prewrite:

                ◦             Why do I remember the experience(s) I narrate? Why does it stick with me, even perhaps years later?

                ◦             Why does the experience(s) seem important and influential to me now? How did the experience shape or influence the kind of reader, writer, thinker, worker, speaker, and/or listener I am today?  

                ◦             What role has encounters with language and literacy (reading, writing, speaking, listening) played in my life, in creating who I am and how I think today?

                ◦             What is my essay narrative saying about how/why developing literacy (reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking) has, or has not, been important in my life up to now? And do I consider this an advantage or disadvantage: that is, have the narrative experience(s) helped or hurt me, or both?

                ◦             Think of your major, and the kind of “literacy” expectations you have in your current career/work, if pursuing a new field, what vocabulary is specific to your career, such as, what vocabulary is specific to your future career, what is the writing expectation in that field, will you have to write a lot? What kind? If not writing, what other “literacy” or knowledge will you need in that field? How can your education help you be more effective in your present role, and/or how might it prepare you for a new career?

                ◦             What have I learned from the experience(s)--about myself, others, the world? By the way, failures and/or successes can be addressed (for we sometimes learn as much, if not more, from our failures).

                •             In the discussion below, post:

                ◦             your thesis statement.

                ◦             the prewriting strategy (from the video) that you chose for this essay.

                ▪             Explain why you chose this strategy and how it helped generate ideas for this paper.

                ▪             Take a picture of your prewriting results and include the picture as part of your post.

                •             Reply to at least two classmates discussing what they did well in their pre-writing, and identify the most compelling idea that was presented by the student writer.

Assignment 1.6

Introduction and Alignment

The Literacy Narrative essay begins the course with a personal, reflective, essay in which you will describe an experience that shaped your overall viewpoint of reading/writing/working literacy. Literacy Narratives tell a non-fiction story to make a point (thesis). It is often beneficial to begin with what you know, and search your memories for a particular experience.

Remember even though this is a story about yourself, your essay must make a point:

                •             Why tell us this story?

                •             To show WHAT point?

                •             What have you learned about yourself from this story/experience?

                •             How can it help you in the future in your personal life and with your present or future work?

Before you start writing this essay, you may want to decide exactly what is meant by literacy, and spend some time thinking about what literacy means to you. Discuss it with your family and friends. Find definitions on Google or look in the dictionary.

Upon completion of this assignment, you should be able to:

                •             Demonstrate the basics of paragraphing, organization, thesis, audience, and basic APA formatting of a title page and body pages.

Resources

                •             Read: Chapter 5, “Literacy Narrative: Reading the Genre” section in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage. (See sample by Laura Grisham.)

                •             Read: Chapter 52, “APA” section in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage..

Writing Resources

                •             Review: APA Style and Formatting Guide

                •             Watch: APA Formatting Cover Page - Student Paper 7th Edition (6:18)

Assignment Instructions

Step 1: make sure you have completed 1.5 | Pre-Writing Discussion to get you started.

Step 2: Write at least 5 full paragraphs (an appropriate paragraph size is 10-13 lines per paragraph. Lines are not the same as sentences. “Lines” refers to the number of lines if you count down the side of the margins).

                ◦             Introduction paragraph: set up your story, what does your audience need to know to understand your story? Where do you want to start?

                ◦             3 Body paragraphs (see the prewriting exercise questions to guide you. You do not need to answer every single question, so in your Pre-Writing, think of which questions you want for your focus).

                ◦             Conclusion paragraph: (describe, or summarize, what you’ve learned, your future, how what you’ve learned will help you in your present or future career roles, etc).

                •             Use Times New Roman font, size 12, with 1.0 margins.  

                •             Include a Title Page in APA format using the step-by-step instructions offered in APA Formatting Cover Page - Student Paper 7th Edition (6:18)

                •             No sources or quoted material is required.