Unit 5 Agenda

Unit 5 Revision and Reflection (1 Week)

Weeks 19: Revision work, workshopping, practice reading work out loud

Objectives: Students will

  • Attempt one major revision of a piece of creative nonfiction previously written for this course. They’ll engage in intensive revision work that will involve providing substantial feedback to their peers as well as receiving feedback.
  • Compose a reflective essay on their revision work for this unit and their overall work for the course.
  • Compile a final portfolio of their creative work.
  • Participate in an end-of-semester class reading, and will practice reading their work out loud for an audience.

Unit 5 Assignments: Final Portfolio: Comprehensive revision of one creative nonfiction piece, minor revisions to all other portfolio pieces, student readings, and reflective essay. Due 1/23/2017

 Fri. 1/13   Review Portfolio Assignment

Assignment: Final Portfolio

Your final project for WRT 114, due 1/23/2017, should contain 20-25 pp. of your best/revised writing for this course, including at least one global revision piece, and an introduction.  Please arrange the contents of your portfolio as follows:

  • Title page
  • Table of contents
  • Introduction
  • Polished work in the order of your choice (please mark revision piece accordingly)
  • Previous version of revision piece with my comments

Your final portfolio is worth 15% of your overall grade for the course.  However, if I note a substantial improvement in the total quality of your work across the body of the portfolio, I will credit your overall course grade accordingly.

If you received an A on a previous essay, I strongly encourage you to include it in the final portfolio, but I still expect you to revise the writing as needed, even in subtle ways, to develop the piece to its fullest potential.  There are no length restrictions on individual essays in this final portfolio.  If you wish, you may include a new essay, but I do not expect you to do so.

Global Revision

Your portfolio should include at least 1 substantially revised essay, which we’ll workshop in class during the last two weeks of the course.  I’d like you to provide both the original with my comments, and the revised version (the original does not count as part of your 20 pp).  I want to emphasize that a “substantial revision” means substantial.  I don’t just want to see minor “tweaks” at the sentence level, although I am interested in sentence-level revision work.  But don’t stop there!  Select key passages that need to be reworked.  Consider how you can reshape your essay to make it stronger.  Figure out which parts need to be clipped, added, and rearranged.  Add in new writing and concrete details where needed.  Work to fill in the gaps and draw out important meanings and narrative strands.  Write new scenes.  Figure out how to begin the essay and how to end it.  Consider your purpose in writing this essay and locate ways of strengthening your pact with the reader.  Make your sentences pretty, poetic, and concise.  Eliminate unnecessary words, and replace words that aren’t very interesting or precise with words that have more power and precision.  Your final revision piece may be any length you wish.

Introduction

It’ll be up to you to decide how long your introduction needs to be.  You may use the tools of creative nonfiction—or be as creative as you wish—in beginning.  I would like your introduction to include a serious analytical reflection on the work you’ve done so far in this course, discuss the progress you’ve made as a CNF writer, what you’ve discovered about your interests as a writer, what you find yourself focusing on as you compile the final portfolio, the ethical standards you’ve sought to establish and uphold in this collection of writing, and any other relevant connections or insights (thematic, imagistic, etc.).  Your introduction should also engage with at least one craft or content reading assigned this semester.  Discuss how this reading sheds light on your creative work.

Cover page, title, and table of contents

Although not required, feel free to design a cover for your portfolio.  Be as creative as you wish!  I would like you to include a table of contents, and order your work as you wish.  Try giving your portfolio a title that reflects or introduces the work in some way.  Titles are challenging.  You might consider searching your essays for language that could be excerpted to serve as the title, or consider images or ideas that weave their way through your portfolio.  Alternatively, you could use one of your essay titles as the portfolio title.

Homework: Review “The Writing Process and Revision,” (Tell It Slant, Ch. 14  181-192 )

Mon. 1/16  No School, Martin Luther King Holiday

 Tue.  1/17

Large and small group workshopping

Workshop on adding concrete detail to the essay/ Workshop on verb tense and strengthening use of verbs

Collaging exercises / Conversations on titling and framing

Wed.  1/18

Review prompts from previous units that aimed at adding narrative and reflection, filling in the gaps, building transitions, and cutting unnecessary prose

Prepare for small group presentation

 Thur.  1/19

Objectives: Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of a specific writing craft through presentation

Agenda

  • Presentation 1: Horizontal Movement vs. Vertical movement
  • presentation 2: use of present tense and strong verbs

Reflection on the  presentations.

Homework:

  • Review “The Writing Process and Revision,” (Tell It Slant, Ch. 14  181-192 ) and bring in one idea to share with the class
  • Work on the craft presented today in class.
  • Share one major revision you have made for your essays.
  • Experimenting with different starting points for the essay/Punctuation workshop/

 Fri.  1/20 Rubric for the Final Portfolio

Objectives: Students will be able to continue their revision process by focusing on ” framing” and ” using concrete details”.

Aim: How to make your writer’s voice stand out more?

Do Now: Share  one idea  from“The Writing Process and Revision,” (Tell It Slant, Ch. 14  181-192 ).

Activities:

Mini Lesson with Guided Practice

  • Presentation on using concrete details  and a brief discussion
  • Presentation on framing and a brief discussion
  • Review the rubric.

Reflect on the presentations. Jot down one or two ideas you may consider using tonight for your own revision. Share in class.

Independent Practices

In pairs, share one major revision you have done. Describe what you did and explain why.

Mark-up exercises with printed drafts-in-progress

Reading peer drafts and providing in-depth feedback.

Share the experiences in class.

Rubric

  • Aggressive approach to the revision process, including a fearless willingness to reframe the focus of the essay, cut out portions of prior versions that weren’t doing as much work and rewrite other portions as needed.
  • Thoughtful approach to the final reflective essay, including explicit references to course readings, as stipulated.
  • Mature and dexterous use of the tools of CNF in crafting coherent, interesting, detailed, lyrical essays.
  • Strong development of the writer’s speaking voice and pact with the reader, as established through precise choice of language and tone, use of context to ground the reader, ethical treatment of subject matter, ethical representation of subjects, and a mature, in-depth, well-researched, carefully composed approach to CNF.
  • Efforts to raise important questions about one’s subjects and to forge discoveries through moments of reflection and analysis.
  • Thorough proof-reading that demonstrates the writer’s complete control over sentence structure, word choice, use of verb tenses, point of view, and use of punctuation to make the reader “hear it” the way the writer imagines the essay sounding.

 Homework: Critical Reflection

  • How did the portfolio come together for you?
  • Describe the choices you made in reworking the essay you substantially revised.
  • Discuss your choice to title the portfolio as you did, and describe any themes or interests you see emerging in your writing throughout the portfolio. How does this portfolio speak to your overarching concerns as a writer?
  • What ethical dilemmas did you face throughout the composition and revision process, and how did you consciously work to create a strong ethos in your writing?
  • What have you learned about the craft of creative nonfiction writing?
  • Please draw on quotes or key passages from 2-3 course readings to help support and enrich your thinking about your work.
  • Describe any important discoveries or intellectual breakthroughs that you’ve had during this final unit of the course.
  • What aspects of the final portfolio are you most proud of?
  • What are you still struggling with?

Mon.  1/23 

Round Robin reading of selective work; gallery walk. Portfolio and Final Reflection Due

Portfolio Rubric

Criteria\Grade A B C D F
Cover/Title page: reflects or introduces the work in some way. Creative and insightful reflective basic vague irrelevant
Table of contents: complete and easy to follow Clear and directive directive partial confusing none
Introduction: include a serious analytical reflection on the work you’ve done ; discuss the progress you’ve made as a CNF writer, what you’ve discovered about your interests as a writer, what you find yourself focusing on as you compile the final portfolio, the ethical standards you’ve sought to establish and uphold in this collection of writing, and any other relevant connections or insights; engage with at least one craft or content reading assigned this semester; discuss how this reading sheds light on your creative work. Analytical, insightful, making relevant connections to the reading Analytical, reflective and making some connections to the reading Reflective and making some connections to the reading Somewhat reflective, making vague connections to the reading none
Polished work in the order of your choice (please mark revision piece accordingly) thorough some minimum vague none
Previous version of revision piece with the teacher comments( circled areas in the rubric) All included Majority of work included Some included Minimum included none
Global Revision: reshape your essay to make it stronger; figure out which parts need to be clipped, added, and rearranged; add in new writing and concrete details where needed; work to fill in the gaps and draw out important meanings and narrative strands; write new scenes; figure out how to begin the essay and how to end it; consider your purpose in writing this essay and locate ways of strengthening your pact with the reader. Thorough, original and aggressive; show huge improvement Thorough, show clear improvement Make partial revision, Make minor revision No revision