All stages of your assignments, drafts, peer reviews, and final revisions will be submitted through My Reviewers.
Paper must be saved as PDFs in order to be uploaded to the site. To save a PDF in Pages, see this screencast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv2_FuAyVBQ To save a PDF in Word, see this screencast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTaO3W7Hm7Q
Our assignments will be described in detail, and possibly amended, as the semester unfolds. Here is an overview:
Essay 1: Writing a Definition (3 pages)
Sherry Turkle emphasizes a variety of keywords that she carefully defines in order to make her argument in Alone Together. How does Turkle ask her readers to reconsider the meaning of words such as “intimacy” or “solitude” in order to provide her own “expert definition”? In this essay, you will analyze how Turkle brings an expert’s definition to a common term through comparison and contrast, description, exemplification, and negation.
Early draft: ungraded
Peer review and revision plan: ungraded
Final draft: graded
Essay 2: Analyzing a Problem (4 pages)
This essay will ask you to isolate and summarize one “problem” related to technology’s impact of human relationships that Sherry Turkle discusses in Alone Together. How does Turkle try to convince her audience that this problem exists and that it is important? Where in the text do you think she does this most successfully?
Early draft: graded
Peer review and revision plan: graded
Final draft: graded (replaces early draft grade)
In-class midterm: Analyzing a Problem, part II
The midterm will ask you to replicate the skills you practiced in essay 2 in a timed session in which your write your own problem analysis essay about a contemporary situation. The reading, which may not be from our primary course text, will be provided the class before the midterm.
Only one draft, composed in class: graded
Essay 3: Developing a Position through Outside Research (5-6 pages, plus an annotated bibliography)
By this third essay, you will have done enough reading and research that you are in a position to express a well-formed opinion. You will evaluate Turkle’s argument and explain whether it has certain limitations or oversights, based on your own observations about technology’s effects on your relationships at present. You will also find research that has been done since Turkle’s book was published in 2011 and use it to explain why her argument should be extended, emphasized, complicated, or reevaluated.
early draft: graded
peer review and revision plan: graded
intermediate draft: graded (replaces early draft grade)
In-class final (during finals week): Timed revision of research paper
The final exam will ask you to create and follow a revision plan and to revise your research essay in a 2-hour in-class session, drawing on skills and strategies you have been acquiring all semester.
final draft: graded (grade will be separate from research essay grade, and will depend on how well you fulfilled approved goals in revision plan)
**Please note that plagiarism is grounds for failing an assignment and, if severe enough, for failing the course. Strategies for working with texts critically and avoiding plagiarism will be discussed over the course of the semester.
English 101 at LaGuardia, Fall I 2014 