Sorry I missed a post yesterday! We spent the day writing over the three short stories we’ve read so far. Today, we discussed my feedback on your rough drafts/outlines and continued working on the drafts.

The goal is to find commonalities (you can simply compare your annotations for a starting point here), then place those within the paragraph section of your outline. Once you’ve done that, take a step back and ask, “What do we learn from this? What is the message?” That’ll be your thesis. Note how each paragraph in your outline contributes to your answer, and those will be your topic sentences. From there it is simply a matter of turning the outline into an essay.

As always:

• Avoid retelling the story (your audience has read them!).
• Use proper MLA citations for each work: (Author page number); (Ellison 7).
• Bring the stories together within each paragraph; don’t devote a paragraph to each story.

Today was the first essay triage of the year. I gave you a few things (below) to look for in your draft; if you found any, you have the option to revise. If you didn’t wrap up your revision in the computer lab today, the completed analysis is due tomorrow (Wednesday the 4th). We’ll be moving into presidential rhetoric then, and it isn’t a good idea to overlap.

Three things to always avoid in a rhetorical analysis:

• A thesis statement that merely summarizes the author’s argument. You should have two parts to your thesis statement (as you do in each of your major points): a statement of his argument and the means by which he makes it appealing.
• The use of “you,” “me,” “our,” etc. This conflates his audience with your audience. They are different.
• An argument in favor of his position that poses as an analysis. If you find statements that mean effectively “and this point makes sense because” or “we’ve all been in a similar position,” you are bolstering, not analyzing, his argument.

If your analysis contained two or more of these, bookmark this page to remind yourself for next time.

…probably enough of the Franken[portmanteaux], yes?

Just a quick overview of our process from start to finish:

1. Read and journal
2. Find patterns and group quotations underneath
3. Make meaning of these patterns
4. Find how these patterns connect with one another
5. Compose thesis
6. Polish outline, ensuring that each point (from thesis to the most basic) is an argument and all arguments are supported with quotations or paraphrasing
7. Begin rough draft

Here’s a diagram of our process showing how each step contributes to the bottom-up creation of your paper:

We’ve set tentative deadlines as follows:

• Outlines should be wrapped by Tuesday/Wednesday of this week
• Final drafts on Monday of next

If you can, please compose your outline and paper in Google Docs, as you can share the live document with me for questions/editing.

We set up Google Documents in class on Monday for the writing process. Keeping the information online rather than on our individual computers will make collaboration and communication more efficient (I think; this is the first time I’ve had an entire class do it this way), and if nothing else, will prevent the mishaps that occur with incompatible files and missing email. If you have not set up a document yet, click through the link above, hit “create an account” if you don’t have a GMail account, and get writing. Please share the document with me at my school email. If you have questions, send me a message or ask in class.

We will keep to the same schedule as the midterm this time around. The days are moved a bit, but you will have the same amount of time. (With that in mind, it would be good to think back to snags you encountered with the midterm and plan this time accordingly.)

Bring this to class	on this day	so you can do this in class	(followed by this for homework).
Proposal	Mon (01)	Type up proposals, discuss, and continue research	If necessary, continue search for connections/evidence and begin organizing
	Tues (02)	Organize connections and evidence	If necessary, continue to organize connections and evidence
Organize evidence (if outside of journal)	Wed (03)	Type outlines in comp lab	If necessary, finish typing outline
Outline	Thurs (04)	Peer review of outlines	Write rough draft from outline
	Fri (05)	Complete outline, finish transitions, double-check and discuss thesis
Rough draft	Mon (08)	Peer/teacher review of rough drafts, revision	If necessary, revise rough draft
Revised rough draft	Tues (09)	Continued peer/teacher review, revision	If necessary, revise rough draft
Revised rough draft, all sources	Wed (10)	Type works cited page in comp lab, final review, final revision	If necessary, final revision
Final drafts	Thurs (11)	Presentation of papers, discussion of process