Thursday, September 30, 2004
Draft Workshops
One of the nice things about conducting our draft workshops online is that these exchanges become public documents that everyone can benefit from. So, I thought I would note a few posts by members of your class that you should look at as model draft workshop forms.
Richard and Tom had a particularly good exchange with their feeder one assignments. Look at this post and note Richard's example to the second question. While he might have just given the one-word answer "yes" (which wouldn't have scored him any points on the third bullet point of the unit one grading rubric), instead he explained the reasoning behind his opinion that Tom's paper does, indeed, have an unbiased tone. Remember, it's often just as important to specifically point out what a paper does well as it is to criticize it.
You'll also want to note this post, in particular Tom's answer to question three. Note how Tom has actually pulled phrases from the paper that he believes contribute to the inappropriate level of bias. Now Richard can go back to his paper and evaluate these specific phrases rather than having to guess about which parts Tom thought were biased.
In addition, I encourage you to use your blogs' comment features. If you want some clarification on any of your workshop partner's posts or if you disagree with some of his or her opinions then post a comment. As those of you who have visited the Writing Center and come in to my office for appointments probably realize, a dialogue is almost always more constructive and fruitful than a monologue.
One of the nice things about conducting our draft workshops online is that these exchanges become public documents that everyone can benefit from. So, I thought I would note a few posts by members of your class that you should look at as model draft workshop forms.
Richard and Tom had a particularly good exchange with their feeder one assignments. Look at this post and note Richard's example to the second question. While he might have just given the one-word answer "yes" (which wouldn't have scored him any points on the third bullet point of the unit one grading rubric), instead he explained the reasoning behind his opinion that Tom's paper does, indeed, have an unbiased tone. Remember, it's often just as important to specifically point out what a paper does well as it is to criticize it.
You'll also want to note this post, in particular Tom's answer to question three. Note how Tom has actually pulled phrases from the paper that he believes contribute to the inappropriate level of bias. Now Richard can go back to his paper and evaluate these specific phrases rather than having to guess about which parts Tom thought were biased.
In addition, I encourage you to use your blogs' comment features. If you want some clarification on any of your workshop partner's posts or if you disagree with some of his or her opinions then post a comment. As those of you who have visited the Writing Center and come in to my office for appointments probably realize, a dialogue is almost always more constructive and fruitful than a monologue.
