Weekly Write Up #13

By Cho and Mariam

Class lecture and discussion
Announcement By Dr. Crowther
I have an event at GSU downtown tomorrow, so my office hours will be 9-11 instead of the usual 10-1.

 

Tuesday in-class:
As usual, we started the class with the daily grade #17, where Dr. Crowther asked these following questions: What did you learn about yourself as a writer and your writing process from essay 3? What went well, and what was challenging? This daily grade was particularly to reflect about each student’s writing process, and the challenges faced during the process. 

After the daily grade discussion, we discussed about “Project 4”, “Engage for Change” referring to the injustice issues written in Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. She explained in detail the component of project 4, gave us tips on how to successfully meet the goal of the project, and the criteria as well. Additionally, for choosing the diverse groups our teacher, Dr. Crowther ask us our preferences. She allowed us to write a name of two students that we would enjoy working with in order of us to complete our project on a piece of paper.

Groups for Engage Change Project:
Group 1: Omarr, Mariam, Joli, Cho, Unati
Group 2: Joel, Mohan, Peter, Thien
Group 3: Sirjana, Katie, Tyler, Isabell
Group 4: Noela, Ariana, Erin, Devante
Group 5: Kelsey, Lena, Aaron, Kaesen

 

Afterwards, we discussed about the project proposal and the deadline for submission. Our teacher suggested us to send the proposal before Thursday for her approval, so we can have more time to work on it. Then, 30 minutes before the end of the class, we regrouped ourselves in our respective group for brainstorming, making suggestions for the “Engage in Change” project.          

Thursday in-class:

INFORMAL class, no daily grade. Our teacher asked us on Tuesday to decide if we wanted to come to class to work on the project, go to the library or to the actual place to engage, because we were not going to do anything except working on the project. Most groups left the class on Thursday 11/16 to work on their project, while Dr. Crowther was grading Essays 3 (research paper).

Reading for 11/14 & 11/16

         Chapter 5 Challenging Writing (designing Visual Texts)
In this chapter, the author discusses about the visual design of texts. “the tradition prints novels, look very simple from a visual standpoint: page after page of paragraph after paragraph, broken only by occasional headings for new chapters. Visual designing makes the reader to have construct ideas. Mostly the designs are made for the people to entertain and make then interest to the materials they trying to approach. One crucial concept of gestalt theory is the importance of the space between objects; negative space or white space. Negative space is the “background” of an image, which is often white but might be any color. The human tendency makes proximity. The spatial relationships among groups of objects an important design consideration

.       Our eyes continually scan image, reacting to what we are seeing, moving from one individual element to the to the next. In the absence of other strong influences, similarity will even cause viewers to cognitively group objects across large spaces. When we focus on an object on a page or a screen, other aspects of what we see fade into the background. The part that we focus on is called the figure, and the part that fades away is the ground. There are numerous ways to structure or lay out text and graphics on a page or screen, but to simplify things let’s cover one common method. In the grid system, you create a set of vertical and horizontal lines on a blank page and use these lines to guide the placement and alignment of content on the page. When we talk about paying Attention which is one of the difficulties of paying attention to typography is out first instinct to value transparency.
      Although there are many ways to categorize type, one simple method splits typefaces into two categories. Those with serifs and those without. In general, typefaces with serifs tend to look more modern. When we talk about matching the type to Audience, Context, and Purpose the three typefaces above all look somewhat similar. They are all sans serif faces. But if you ok at them closely, you’ll begin to see subtle but important differences. Most striking is the differing amounts of space taken up by each. As a part of your thinking about design deciding what media you can Handle. You’ll want to consider carefully whether you have the expertise in the medium you’ve chosen. Crating complex visual designs or multimedia texts on a computer seems extraordinarily easy especially if you’ve seen the process only in software commercials.

 

 

THANKSGIVING BREAK, NO CLASS!!!!!!!!

 

10/31-11/02

Tuesday’s Class: Happy Halloween!!

Daily Grade #15:

Where are you in the research process?

  • What is your topic? Working thesis?
  • What research have you done?
  • What is your next step?
  • What problems are you having?

In Class:

On our Halloween class for English we discussed how to move on from the early ideas/stages of the paper. We talked about writing an outline and how to develop a working thesis for the paper as well as integrating  research throughout the essay.

  • Our mini class discussion was split amongst our neighbors and the people around us. We talked about what we wrote for the daily grade and elaborated on the questions that we answered. This took about 10 minutes and then we went on to discuss plans and approaches for the paper.

Approaches for figuring out topics:

  • Find broad topic/statement- research topic in the databases and begin to think about subtopics.
  • Remember, research can lead you to answer questions or to find questions!
  • The next step would be to find one main topic. Find a research question, turn it into a thesis- statement or argument.
  • A statement will give you an informative paper and an argument will give you a position or stance.
  • Develop a working thesis- a rough thesis that may be changed throughout the process.(Example of finding a topic using broader topic approach above^)

Friendly Reminders during your research/essay writing:

  • Take lots of notes!!! Be detailed, highlight, write down page numbers!
  • Prepare for the outline using detailed notes and quotes with correct citations.
  • Remember the paraphrase and summary rules-give credit to the author when it’s due!
  • “Writing is not always a straight line, you may have to go forward and backward” (Dr.C).

Our class ended with everyone doing independent work and working on their paper, asking Dr. C questions.

Homework:

  • Be thinking about what time slot you’re going to sign up for conferences with Dr. C
  • Begin writing an outline and taking notes on research!

Now it’s time to get spooky!!!! Enjoy.

 

Thursday’s Class:

  • Daily Grade #16:
    • Write an example of an *abstract that could be used for your Social Justice Research Paper. Share with a neighbor.

* An abstract is an introductory paragraph displayed before your paper to give the reader an overview of the topics to be covered, opinions to be shared, or statement to be proven through research and evidence.

  • In Class:
    • Sign-up for Conference with Dr. Crowther
      • Dr. Crowther will be holding 15-minute conferences on Tuesday, November 7th, to talk about your research papers and your overall progression in the class. If you missed scheduling or attending your conference, email Dr. Crowther to set up a time to meet. This conference is MANDATORY.
    • Reading Sample Essay #1 in Groups of Three & Discussion
      • Dr. Crowther divided the class into groups of three and we answered the questions in the image to figure out the correct ways to build our essays.
      • We mainly reviewed the questions in numbers 1 and 2 but completing the other questions could help you in developing your own essay.
      • We came together as a class at the end to discuss these questions and critique the Sample Essay #1.

 

  • Homework:
    • Prepare 1-2 Body Paragraphs for your Social Justice Research Paper to be reviewed by Dr. Crowther in your 15-Minute conference next week.

 

Weekly Readings:

CW: Chapter 7-Getting Information and Writing from Research, pp 180-198

Review CW Chapter 4!

Chapters 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8 in the SCC.

Weekly Write-Up 10/17 & 10/19

By: Tyler Booth

Tuesday 10/17

In class:
At the beginning of class we did our daily journals on Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and connected it to anything related to modern society. Later Dr. Crowther assigned us into groups and we did a class project on “Juveniles in the Justice System”, where we had to raise awareness about the corruption of adolescent people in the justice system. In the assignment we had to make a PACT chart- Purpose, Audience, Context, and Text, which can be seen in “Changing Writing” pages (11-20). We also had to look up background information to add facts to our proposal. We didn’t get to present our presentations today, but Thursday we are going to present.

Homework:

Just Mercy:
Chapter 6: In this chapter the readers are introduced to a young Caucasian boy named Charlie who was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Charlie was arrested for murdering his abusive s

Chapter 8: In this chapter the readers are introduced to more cases involving young children serving life in prison, which all of them having horrible backgrounds. In the first case, a fourteen year old girl named Trina and her friends broke into someone’s house. Trina lit up a match and accidently set the house on fire, killing the trapped boys. Soon, Trina was arrested for the murder of the boys and she was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Trina became a victim of sexual assault while in prison. She became both mentally and physically ill.
In the second case, a thirteen year old boy named Ian and his friends robbed a couple at gunpoint, which ended with the lady being shot in the jaw. Ian was soon arrested and given life in prison without parole. Ian was put into solitary confinement, which was little to no human contact, since he was at risk of rape. In the justice system judges don’t even consider to look at the history of the convicted people.

Chapter 10: In this chapter the readers are introduced to a mental disable man named Avery Jenkins. Avery was on death row for killing an elderly man. We soon find out that Avery was abused sexually and physically when he was younger. In court Stevenson defends Jenkins and manage to get him off of death row and into a mental health facility.