Learning target:
· We can name areas to focus on for our college essay revision
Again, most of today is going to be devoted to your college essay.
We'll start, however, with you getting into your issue groups. Your homework this weekend (in addition to finishing your college essay) is to read a news article about your issue from the last five years. Use Google News and type in key words to do a search. Communicate with other members of your group so you don't read the same article. I'm going to give you an exercise to do on Tuesday where you are going to pool what you found out and so the more diverse articles you can find the better. You specifically are looking understand who are the "stakeholders"--the people who have something "at stake" in the government taking action on a particular issue. There will likely be several sides to the issue. We'll need your group to explain those sides to us on Tuesday.
After this, we'll move into peer review of your essay. I'll first pass out a list of questions (page three of this document). You'll want to choose three of these questions to ask your reviewer(s) or come up with your own. If you still have a ways to go, think about asking your reviewer for a summary of what you're saying thus far or a moment-by-moment description of what they're thinking as they read your essay.
Once you've chosen the questions, find one or two people to exchange essays with. Use the first two pages of the handout to guide your annotations on their essay. Record your thoughts on how they can strengthen their work in each area. Put an arrow next to the most important points.
Once you are both (or all) done, take turns. First the author asks the reviewers their questions. The reviewers respond. The author can then ask for additional feedback and the reviewers can add anything valuable off their worksheet. When you get to this last phase, reviewers make sure the author knows what's working in each area. We want to identify strong areas so the author can build on them.
This process will likely take us to break. After break you will use this feedback to start revising your essay. I'll also get a conference calendar going for next week.
Homework due Tuesday, September 8th
Read a news article from the last five years related to your issue group
Finish your college essay
· We can name areas to focus on for our college essay revision
Again, most of today is going to be devoted to your college essay.
We'll start, however, with you getting into your issue groups. Your homework this weekend (in addition to finishing your college essay) is to read a news article about your issue from the last five years. Use Google News and type in key words to do a search. Communicate with other members of your group so you don't read the same article. I'm going to give you an exercise to do on Tuesday where you are going to pool what you found out and so the more diverse articles you can find the better. You specifically are looking understand who are the "stakeholders"--the people who have something "at stake" in the government taking action on a particular issue. There will likely be several sides to the issue. We'll need your group to explain those sides to us on Tuesday.
After this, we'll move into peer review of your essay. I'll first pass out a list of questions (page three of this document). You'll want to choose three of these questions to ask your reviewer(s) or come up with your own. If you still have a ways to go, think about asking your reviewer for a summary of what you're saying thus far or a moment-by-moment description of what they're thinking as they read your essay.
Once you've chosen the questions, find one or two people to exchange essays with. Use the first two pages of the handout to guide your annotations on their essay. Record your thoughts on how they can strengthen their work in each area. Put an arrow next to the most important points.
Once you are both (or all) done, take turns. First the author asks the reviewers their questions. The reviewers respond. The author can then ask for additional feedback and the reviewers can add anything valuable off their worksheet. When you get to this last phase, reviewers make sure the author knows what's working in each area. We want to identify strong areas so the author can build on them.
This process will likely take us to break. After break you will use this feedback to start revising your essay. I'll also get a conference calendar going for next week.
Homework due Tuesday, September 8th
Read a news article from the last five years related to your issue group
Finish your college essay