Blogging the Peer Review

If You Missed the Peer Review
Final drafts will be deducted 10% points unless the student attends a session at the Writing Center in B-200 prior to the due date of the final.

Ruth Hall

Be sure the dates are right (not 1890s, but 1850s).

Introductions

Begin with a scene - something attention-grabbing and saucy, or the like. The beginning should avoid  sounding like generic college essays. Move from a "vignette" into your argument. Then explain to your readers what they can expect from your essay.

In any case, the introduction should be the very last paragraph you revise before you turn it in. It will account for 30% of your grade -- that's three sentences anchoring 30%.

Audience

Another element of essays to keep in mind for your draft is "audience." Your audience should be more than just me. To that end, your essay should "make sense" to someone who has not read the novel recently, or in a long time.

To jog their memory, a 2-4 sentence summary of the entire novel Ruth Hall should be present in the introduction, or in small paragraph after the introduction (minimum five sentenecs for that paragraph, though).

Plot Context

When you decide to write about a scene and do a 'close-reading,' you will want to offer your reader a brief summary of the events, moments, and character information relevant to the passage you're exploring. One to three sentences should suffice to refresh your reader about the major and important details necessary for them to comprehend the immediate context of the story around the passage you're exploring.

Thesis statements

Thesis statements are 2-3 sentences. Thesis sentences will not earn you full points. Define your terms, particularly any "key" terms that you hang your essay around - re-read your thesis over and over until sentences 2-3 can define for your reader your key terms.

Where is your thesis? Check every paragraph. Where is your best thesis? Check every paragraph.

Priorities

There's no point really meditating on anything until you're able to pull a thesis from somewhere in the essay. The better thesis -- with the more interesting idea -- really might be in some other paragraph.

Critical Thinking

Does the "analysis" part of paragraphs go significantly further than class discussion?

Topic Sentences

Do your topic sentences push along your argument, or do they follow along with the story of the novel? They should typically do the former (as a rule of thumb). You should be able to create your argument by presenting passages from the novel out of sequence from how they appear in the actual plot).

To achieve excellent topic sentences, write about an "idea" that you hope to "push" in your paragraph. This is the idea (or ideas) that are at the center of the passage you're close-reading.

In a weird way, we don't have to find the "topic" sentence (the one that contains this idea) in your FIRST sentence of the paragraph. That first sentence may do other things: it exlaims, it transitions, it asks a question, who knows. But at some point in the beginning of paragraphs the reader should get a topic sentence - a mini-thesis that allows them to know a bit of what's coming.

It is Mrs. Hall's gluttony that really defines her...

If the paragraph you're writing doesn't introduce a new idea, but merely elaborates on something you've been writing about, find a way to say that in the paragraph.

We can see this [idea] continue in another passage, where...

Academic Source

Is one present? How does it work with - or against - your argument?

You can use Grasso's article "Anger in the House" or find a new one using a library research database.

You can also structure the article into your essay using it as a trampoline for your conclusion.

Writing Process

The purpose of drafts is to discover your best ideas, not stick to the sentences that you wrote just because you wrote them.

Try to hooking ideas from throughout the piece and "reel" them into the revised thesis.

If you feel that you have multiple thesis statements, unwind them a bit at a time in individual paragraphs. Great ideas aren't worth anything if your readers can't follow you.

Templates for Critical Thinking

This shows...
This matter because...
This connects to...[earlier or later moments in text, or other ideas]
This suggests...
Like in the example/paragraph above...
Unlike in the example/paragraph above...