Final Projects-

What goes in my portfolio? 

Narrative, Descriptive, Compare/Contrast, and Argument essays.

Drafts of those essays. 

Notes from in class. 

Work from class. 

Research. 

Journals.

Handouts.

Anything related to our class goes in your portfolio, and your best essay goes on your blog, with your final project.

What’s my Final Project?

Ready?  Your project is to prove you know what you should know based on the W.P.A. Guidelines and using your own work from class as evidence.

Rhetorical Knowledge

• Focus on a purpose

Define: 

Focusing on a purpose means to stay on track and continue to pay attention to the reason I am writing my essay.

Explain:

In my narrative essay, my purpose was to entertain and make people laugh at my expense.  I tried to be funny when I wrote that I, “fell off my bike head first and landed flat on my nose in front of the cheerleaders.”  Later in my essay I wrote that I was so embarrassed that “even though I had to ride a mile out of my way, I never passed that spot again on my bike.”  In my last paragraph, I wrote, “I learned a valuable lesson.  Never try to show off on your bike in front of cheerleaders, especially if you are 20 years old.”  My purpose was to entertain, or be funny, and from the quotes above, it is clear that I tried to do that throughout my essay.

• Write in several genres

Define:  To write in several genres means to be able to write different types of essays. 

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

• Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources

Define:  This means that writing isn’t just one thing.  It’s lots of things like looking for sources and deciding which to include in my writing.

Processes

• Be aware that it usually takes multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text

Define:  Writing takes a lot of tries to be successful.

• Develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading

Define:  This means I have many ways to think of ideas, fix essays, and find mistakes.

• Understand writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work

Define:  This means I can go back and rethink to fix what I don’t like.

Knowledge of Conventions

• Practice appropriate means of documenting their work

Define: This means I can keep track of where I got information so others can check it.

• Control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Define: This means I can write mistake free.