Tuesday, 9/13: College Essay Exhibits and Writing Goals

Today's Goals
Display your college essay work in a beautiful fashion and reflect on yourself as a writer so that you can thus improve as life is reflection, action, growth, repeat.
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Starter

1. Email me your final draft of your college essay (unless you were signed up to conference with me today)
2. Then: Complete the Google Form feedback survey on College Essay Bootcamp

Class Biz

• Homework this week will be to to finish your DP update and send me the link by Friday, BOC  AND finish any in-class work we begin on Govy Basics by the following class period.  See the bottom of each daily blog post for homework reminders.
• Honors: Essay refinements due next Wed. 9/21
• College counseling announcements (see whiteboard)

Today's Conferences

1. If you are signed up to conference with me today, please send me your most recent draft.
2. Once  you conference with me, you'll have the rest of class to work on your refinements.  Your final draft is due TOMORROW and you'll have to catch up on the exhibit and writing reflection on your own time. 

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Exhibit Your Work

1. Design the College Essay Display Board.  See the example hung on my board.
2. When your display board is put together, let me know and then we'll start hanging them out in the hallway. 

 
Writing Reflection

1. Look at the Three Levels of Writing and my Writing Rubric as a resource (honors folks, see the Honors Rubric).
2. Develop three specific writing goals for yourself as a writer based on these documents and my feedback.  You will put them on your DP when you're done.  We're going to be using these goals for the rest of the semester to gauge your growth as a writer, and will use your end of semester writing reflection as a springboard for your senior project paper.  As you feel like you achieve your goals, we'll develop new ones!  This reflection will be worth 20 points. HINT:  This is worth as much as your college essay, so make it good!
3. Write 3 Goal Paragraphs:  For each of those three goals, write a paragraph.  That paragraph should include: 
   • What your goal is 
   • An example from your your college essay, seminar reflection or honors application essay that shows the need for that goal
   • Some ideas about how you can work towards improving this skill for your next piece of writing
   • Example:  Goal 1- Understanding the Text.  I will make sure that I thoroughly understand the text I am using in my writing before I use it as evidence.  In my "Habits of Highly Cynical People" writing, I used a quote that said "..........."  In my essay, I said that this quote meant "....quote from essay....." However, I misunderstood this quote because I didn't put it in the larger context of the argument Solnit was making.  In fact, the quote means (tell real meaning of quote here).  To improve this in future writings, I think I need to summarize the meaning of every paragraph of the reading in my annotations, and I need to ask questions more actively during seminar coaching.  If I'm reading it independently, I need to make sure I completely understand one paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph, rather than just continuing to read on.
   • Example: Goal 2- Logical Flow.  I will  make sure that all my paragraphs logically flow from one idea to the next.  In my seminar reflection, my first paragraph was about how both the presidential campaigns oversimplify what the other one is saying, and my second paragraph was about how naive cynicism is bad.  I didn't connect these two ideas at all, so it was confusing for the reader to make that jump.  In future writing, I could do a number of things to improve this.  Early in my writing process, I could make sure that I have an outline, so that I've clearly thought through the logical flow of my paper.  I can also use transition sentences to show the reader the links between ideas.  Finally, I can references terms and ideas from the previous paragraph in the one after it to show the reader how the ideas from the preceding paragraph connect to the ideas in the next paragraph.
   • Example: Goal 3- Semicolon Usage.  I will make sure that I'm using semicolons correctly in my writing.  In my college essay, I had written this sentence:  "....example of sentence from college essay that uses semi-colons incorrectly..."  In her feedback, Lori pointed out that I was using the semi-colon incorrectly here.  I looked up the rules on semi-colon usage, and found that I should only be using them to join two complete sentences- right now, the piece after the semi-colon is not a complete sentence.  In future writing, to make sure that I am doing this correctly, I can go through and circle every semi-colon I use, and then read the sentences before and after it out loud to make sure they can stand on their own as complete sentences.
4. Write 1 paragraph about your revision in your College Essay.  Talk about one specific way that you grew as a writer between your first and final drafts of your College Essay.  In this paragraph, you should include:
   • How you grew (what skill improved?)
   • What it was like before (give a specific example- you could quote an early draft of your essay here!)
   • What feedback you got that pushed you to revise
   • Evidence of your growth in this area (again, you should quote the final draft of your essay here!)
   • Explanation of what you did to make this growth happen- what was your process?

DP Update
Create a tab for your college essay.  It can be within your Humanities class tab, or can be separate.  Include BOTH the information from your Display Board AND the full text of your college essay. 
 
**Put your writing goals on your regular Humanities page.

HOMEWORK

1. Email me your DP link when it is completely updated with the Writing Goals (see above- 4 paragraphs total) and your College Essay (see above for requirements).  DUE:  Friday 9/16, start of class.