Argument Abounds

 Scheduled Mechanical Outage at UTA’s Computing Center

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) and Physical Plant have scheduled a mechanical outage to make major infrastructure improvements at the UT Arlington Computing Center (UTACC), starting on Saturday, April 28th at 5:00pm until Sunday, April 29th at noon. This date/time was chosen to have the least impact on campus needs. During this outage, the main UTA Campus will not be able to access any applications housed at UTACC. Examples include Email, CICS, MyMav, WebCT, personal and departmental network folders, student servers, and more.  The primary UTA website will be temporarily replaced with a web page describing the outage and its scheduled hours.  DEFINE and the general internet will continue to be available.

For instructional purposes, academic teaching personnel and students should be aware that student computing labs will be affected by the outage and will not be functioning at normal capacity.  Notices will be posted in the labs.

If you have any questions about this scheduled outage or its effect on your unit, please contact the HelpDesk (helpdesk@uta.edu or 817-272-2208).  

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Although we don’t have a final exam in English 1302, several students have asked questions about where to locate final exam schedule information. This info can be found at: http://www3.uta.edu/registrar/FinalSpring2007.asp 

Final course grades will be posted May 18th, according to the UT Arlington Academic Calendar: http://www.uta.edu/uta/acadcal/

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English Major Perks:

On Monday 7^th and Tuesday 8^th May from 10.00-11.30am in the lobby of Preston Hall, coffee, donuts and English major pencils will be available to current and perspective English  majors in hopes of improving  performance and alleviating final exam stress!

 The syllabus has been revised ONE FINAL TIME: oral presentations have been removed from the final week; oral peer reviews will take the place of these presentations. This change will allow us enough time to clearly establish plans for final revision and to complete oral peer reviews on each paper without being rushed. Please check the syllabus page for clarification.

Most grades are now in for the semester. The only grades still remaining are the daily grades which will be earned for oral peer review days. ATTENDANCE, PREPARATION AND FULL PARTICIPATION ON THESE FOUR DAYS IS VITAL!!!! Accordingly, you will receive three grades on each of these days. Please be in class, be prepared, and be helpful to your peers.

WHAT YOU SHOLD DO NOW:

1. Review peer comments and instructor comments on your draft.
2. Compare these comments and your own observations with the things you learned in class on Wednesday and Friday about how to structure logical arguments.
3. Make changes to the structure and support of your argument as necessary based upon these observations.

WHAT WE WILL DO MONDAY 4/23:

1. Further discuss plans for revision: strategies-for-revision.ppt
2. Assign groups for Oral Peer Reviews: Oral Peer Review Groups
3. Complete another review of a sample student paper; this time we will be looking for more details: format, integrating sources, quotes, etc.
4. Monday night: you will change your draft based on things you learned in this session.

FOR WEDNESDAY 4/25 - WEDNESDAY 5/2:

1. Come to class prepared with a full-length draft that incorporates what you have learned in class this semester, the changes you have learned to make through our in-class peer review activities, and your own research.
2. We will begin the oral peer review process. In this process, groups of four students will take turns reading their drafts to one another, giving and receiving feedback, asking questions, etc. BRING FOUR COPIES OF YOUR DRAFT WHEN IT IS YOUR TURN TO READ!!
3. I will assign each student to a group of four; you can decide on your own who will read on which day.

FOR FRIDAY 5/4:

1. We will meet to turn in final papers.
2. We will complete course evaluations, if we have not done so before this time.
3. We will most likely only meet for a partial class period on this day. DON’T BE LATE, because you could find us gone! If I do not receive your final paper, you cannot pass the course.

strategies-for-revision.ppt

Oral Peer Review Groups

As discussed in class, the Reading Log assignments on “The Lottery” have been cancelled. We killed far too many trees last week making copies of all our peer review forms and the sample papers we examined. As a result, I did not make copies of the story for you.

Instead of these reading logs, we will complete in-class writing assignments on Monday and Wednesday. The assignments will be related to the research paper process.

In addition, one class is still working on finishing Peer Reviews.

We will also discuss some common problems which seem to be occurring in the drafts I have examined so far.

It has come to my attention that a few students misunderstood the assignment change I made in class on Monday!

THE RESEARCHED POSITION PAPER DRAFT LENGTH REQUIREMENT IS SEVEN PAGES!!! THIS HAS NOT CHANGED!!!

The change I made was to the Reading Log. For this Reading Log, you will write your own version of a Peer Review to be used on the Researched Position Paper. The number of questions required is now only THREE.

The lowering of questions required on the Reading Log does NOT AFFECT the number of pages required on the drafts.

Here are the questions to help you really examine the Sample Researched Position Paper:

RPP Analysis Worksheet 

You do NOT need to answer EVERY single question in minute detail, but DO consider each question as you are reading. Allow your analysis of this sample paper to serve as a guide for you as you outline your own paper.

I realize that you have already read this sample paper and have answered the sample questions found in the textbook (for Reading Log 10). These are new questions, and they do not have the same focus as those in the textbook; however, if you feel that some of them are redundant, then focus your written responses on other parts of the questions.

The primary goal of this activity is to help you envision an approach that might work for your own paper. Please approach it with this goal in mind.

To bring on Monday:

1. Your written response to these analysis questions (I will collect these).
2. Your working outline, which should include a general idea of which sources apply to which parts of your paper.
3. The quotes you have selected as possible choices to use from each source. You should have a good idea of how these quotes will fit into the outline of your paper (i.e. which points the quotes support or refute, etc).

Here is the PowerPoint we will use in class on Monday (let’s hope the computer works!):

using-quotations.ppt

 Have a safe holiday!

The Writing Center has just announced several exciting new developments:

1. Weekend hours: Saturday and Sunday from 2:00 - 6:00 pm!
2. Availability of a Writing Center tutor in the Paper’s Due Drop-In (Basement room 20 M-Th 4:00 - 6:00 pm, so that this service can provide you with BOTH writing AND research assistance!
3. Of course, regular Writing Center hours still apply: M-Th 9:00 am - 7:00 pm and Friday 9:00 am - 4:00 pm.

These new services reflect a response to requests which have frequently been made by students, and it is VERY exciting to see them implemented! I hope you will take advantage of these opportunities so the services will continue to be offered in future semesters.

 Don’t forget to bring a draft of the  

THESIS STATEMENT

you will be using for your final research paper. We will be workshopping these statements to make them stronger and more effective. 

We will use the following form for peer review of thesis statements.

We will also use this PowerPoint presentation: your-thesis-statement.ppt.

As a result of reading student drafts, I now have some advice of problems to watch for:

In the RESTATEMENT of OPPONENT’S POSITION, remember that the opponent states his/her position in the form of claim and support (Which sounds like “This thing is true because…”). If you state it in the form of “You say this… and then you claim that…” the result is that the tone seems to be accusatory. Instead, try something like “I was really interested in the part of your article that explains…. because…” or “I know that you believe …..because….. and I wanted to explore this idea further.”

In the section that requires you to express the circumstances under which you AGREE with your OPPONENT’S POSITION, be sure to be specific about why, when, and how you might agree. Don’t just say, “I can see your point,” or “that could be true in some ways.” Also remember that by saying “I agree …. is true when …. happens,” you are ALREADY implying that you believe the thing is NOT TRUE when the thing does NOT happen. You should not say this here in a Rogerian Argument. Your goal is to make your opponent listen to you, to build a relationship with him/her. Watch out for words like “BUT…HOWEVER…ALTHOUGH…” in this section. Don’t let these slip in!

Your TRANSITION should directly address your opponent and invite him/her to consider a new way of thinking. Don’t just launch in to the argument that supports the second position and call it transition. Transition needs to gently help the reader move along into the next part of the argument.

Remember to bring the draft of your Rogerian Assignment on Friday, 3/30.

As we discussed in class today, please be curteous to your peer reviewers by typing your draft (double-spaced), and by bracketing and labeling (in pencil or pen) the following major parts of your paper in the margin:

1. Restatement of Opposing Position (this is the position held by the author to whom you are writing the letter)
2. Agreement with Opposing Position
3. Transition to 2nd Position (this is most likely the position that you hold, but remember that you don’t HAVE to claim it as your own… you can keep the “some people believe” stance if you like)
4. Statement of 2nd Position
5. Agreement with 2nd Position
6. Resolution

Remember that the peer review and self-assessment are part of the process grade, so to avoid losing points, you need to be in class prepared with a draft. If unavoidable circumstances prevent your attendance, you may print the review forms and have the peer review done in the writing center instead. If you choose to do this, however, you will still miss the grade from Friday’s daily activity.

Having said this, here are the forms:

Rogerian Peer Review and Rogerian Self-Assessment 

Remember that revisions of the Annotated Bibliography are due

Monday, 4/2/07.

Revisions must be submitted in a folder containing the following:

1. Original Annotated Bibliography (graded)
2. Grade sheet for original Annotated Bibliography
3. Revised Annotated Bibliography

IN ADDITION, you must HIGHLIGHT the revised copy to indicate any CHANGES MADE from the original.

GRADES for the revision will be AVERAGED with the original grade to arrive at a final grade for the assignment. This grade is 15% of your course grade.

Since submission of revision requires that you have received your graded original back, the LAST DAY to submit LATE papers (at 40 points off) is WEDNESDAY, 3/28/07. If you have not submitted an original by this date, your revision will be averaged with an original grade of zero.

WHO SHOULD REVISE? In order to raise an averaged grade by one letter grade, your revised grade must be at least two letter grades higher than the original. This means that students with grades of C or lower are the best candidates for revision.