ThoughtMeat

As you decided today in class, you'll be turning in research proposals to me by this Weds. (let's say 5pm) instead of meeting for class that day. In your proposal, please describe the specific question you plan to address and the larger issue you will gesture toward in answering that question. You can also describe why you're thinking about this topic or if you'd like some help from me in guiding you on that topic. The proposal should also include a research plan-of-attack--for instance, which databases you plan to use, what kinds of search terms, call numbers that deal with your subject, websites that describe your subject, etc. You can make this as detailed as you'd like. It will be "graded" on a check-basis, but the more detailed your proposal is, the more relevant and specific my feedback to you can be. Your research proposal should be addressed and emailed to me and I will respond to it sometime this weekend. Let me know if you have questions about the proposal.

Details on other upcoming assignments are forthcoming.

OK, I've finally finished going through all of your blogs and responses. I've really enjoyed reading them and seeing you respond to each other! There are some requests I would like to make though that shouldn't be too much trouble for you, but may help me iron out the kinks in the process for me.
1) If you're going to respond to more than one blog (I encourage this!), then please let me know which one I should respond to and "grade." If you're really active in your responses, I'll probably throw an extra point on your response grade, but I'd like to focus my comments on one of your responses. This will also help you concentrate your critical energies on one response so you can feel free to be more chatty in your extra responses.
2) Once you've gotten your response and point total for the week from me, I'd like for the responsibility to report extra points to be yours. Please doublecheck and let me know if I've overlooked responses to your posts. Also, please let me know if more responses happen before the Weds deadline so I can tally them up. Otherwise, once I've sent out my responses to you, it will be hard for me to make sure I've caught all the responses to your posts.
3) Please make your timestamp on your blog posts say the date, too. Many of you have blog templates that only show the time and this makes my sorting out of your posts and responses more confusing. You can change this under Settings-->Formatting-->Date Header Format. Just choose any of the options with a date.

I think that's it for now. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with one another and me! Let me know if you have ideas on how we can streamline this process, too.
-Annette

Read over your peers’ drafts. Print them out and write a letter on the back, as before.

1. Write ‘editor: your name’ at the tope of your partner’s draft.

2. Read through the draft carefully. In the margins, write (where appropriate) at least one point on which the author could elaborate, one point that wasn’t perfectly clear and one point that made you think. These marginal comments should be honest reactions to the piece you are reading.

3. Then at the end of the paper (on the back, where there is some space, etc.), write a short letter to your partner. This letter should start out with ‘Dear . . .,’ and answer at least three of the following questions:
a) How could the writer make his/her argument stronger?
b) How could the writer make his/her argument clearer, or better articulate the problem or proposal he/she is making about education?
c) What, if any, are the “intelligibility” issues here? Where could the author be clearer about terms s/he uses? Remember, people define “education” and “good” in many different ways. You should, after reading the paper, know how the author defines these terms or others that s/he uses.
d) And at what point did you have even the slightest confusion about what was happening in the paper? Be a generous peer-reviewer and try to figure out what the writer meant and how things could be clarified—perhaps by moving around paragraphs, revising a thesis statement, or clarifying some language. Remember, it’s the writer’s job to communicate, so if you are not getting something in the paper, you should let the writer know!
e) How has the draft improved in this round? What changes did the author make that helped clarify the argument, or do you find the argument less clear in this draft?

4. Sign your name to the letter.

Please send your draft #2 to your peers via email, but please bring the draft packet to me on Friday.

When you post a response to your peers' blogs, make sure not to just say "Hey, I agree" but introduce some new ideas--offer a counterargument, another idea s/he hadn't considered, etc. This will be more fun if we don't all compliment each other for each entry. Just responding to an entry is a compliment implicitly! You can, of course, offer responses to more than one blog (I encourage it!), but make sure one at least is very well thought-out. Remember that just because it's online, it's not exempt from standards of language and provacativeness and grammar.

Also, please remind me of your specific angle on the paper question via email. You can send me your thesis, a short sentence, etc. I'd like to use these to construct groups for Friday (thanks to Katie!).

Congratulations to all the new bloggers on our site! I'm looking forward to the posts arriving and discussion starting. Check out the links on the right.

And if you get stuck thinking of something to write about, apparently a bit of duct tape, a 9V battery and some spare electrodes might help!
Check out this article in Nature magazine.

If you're interested in electronically editing your peers' papers and you have Microsoft Word (or you go to any computer lab on campus), here are the directions for using the "track changes" feature:
1. Go to the Tools menu.
2. Choose Track Changes. For Word XP, you can stop here and just start editing. Changes will show up in marginal notes.
3. For Word 2000, choose "Highlight changes while editing." Your changes will show up as strike-throughs and new text in a different color, actually within the text itself.
4. You must turn off the feature to make it stop--follow the same directions as above.
5. Send an electronic copy to your peer so that s/he can benefit from your work, but print out a copy for Friday.

Congrats to Tony, who is our first blogger and poster from the class. Katie's already joined up, too! Also congrats to Melissa and Keri! See? It wasn't that hard, right? Check out the links to their blogs on the right.

Also, a tip for your postings: As you see from the handout today, I'm still expecting a reasonable threshhold of grammar from your posts. You may want to compose your posts in a word-editing program and then paste them into the posting window on blogger.

Good luck!