The Basics
Your goal in this assignment is to revise 3-5 of your graded reviews for publication on our course website and write a reflection on the process. The hard work of drafting your reviews is done; now it is time to focus in on the audiences you intend to reach and the strategies best suited to those audiences. Here are the steps:
- Make decisions about the 3-5 reviews you want on our course website and create (and publish!) a post for each one. You do not need to make any major revisions to each review before publishing it, but you certainly can if you already have ideas. Get all reviews published by November 23rd.
- Participate in workshops during class for guidance on further revising your reviews. This will include revising for clarity and refining your note on audience (we will decide together where the note on audience should appear on each review). It might also include adding media that was not in your original post and tags to help with site organization.
- Complete all revisions by December 4th
- Submit a draft of your final reflection by December 7th
- Prepare for and participate in our final exam activity on December 9th
- Submit revised reflection by 11:59pm on December 9th
Optional: Find your Audience with Categories and Tags
You were asked to compose notes on audience for almost all of the reviews you wrote in this course. We discussed possibly including an altered version of this note in your revised reviews, but we have decided instead to allow your target audience to find you by using categories and tags. When you view your post in the list of posts or when you have it open to edit, you can assign it to categories by selecting from the options there (arts, books, games, movies, music, technology, tv). I suggest you unselect “uncategorized.” You can also add as many tags as you would like to each of your reviews. We have brainstormed some common tags during class in our note-taking document. As you long as you all spell and capitalize these identically, they will draw together reviews that share features. Use these tools as you would like and think specifically about how these strategies for drawing attention to your work impact who finds and reads your reviews. You can discuss your choices on this front in the “Audience” section of the final reflection.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I get feedback on my work?
You can get feedback on your work at any stage in the process in a variety of ways:
- In class: My absolute favorite way to provide feedback on drafts is by discussing a student’s draft together as a class. To do this, make sure you have the most up-to-date draft in your word online document or in Kaizena so I can pull it up easily from my computer during class.
- Revision Workshops: I will form 5 revision groups (3-4 students each) that we will use frequently during the semester. I hope that these group will provide a space to discuss work in progress and get feedback on your ideas and drafts.
- One-on-one: Drop by my office hours (in the syllabus; always reserved for students), make an appointment using my online scheduler (calendly.com/maryisbell), or talk to me before or after class.
- Online: Join our course group at Kaizena and share your document (or just post a message about your ideas) in a conversation with me or the whole class. I’ll demonstrate how Kaizena works in class.
- At the Writing Center: Tutors at the writing center will encourage you to talk through your ideas and read whatever you’ve got written aloud. These 45-minute appointments are a fantastic way to improve your work. You can sign up for an appointment using the online schedule.
Publication
We have spent the semester imagining audiences for our reviews, but the publication process makes audiences real. My hope is that all of you will publish your revised reviews on our course website. You can communicate to me via e-mail if there are any reviews that you do not want included in the website navigation. If I don’t include your post in that navigation, it will still be accessible via the URL assigned to your post, but no one visiting our course website will be able to click to find it. Please let me know if you have any concerns about making your work public. Leaving your reviews out of the website navigation will not impact your grade in any way.
If you have followed the instructions to publish at least three reviews on our course website by the deadline and taken advantage of in-class workshops during class to revise those reviews, you will automatically get 50 points. The second half of the grade comes from the reflection.
Reflection
Pulling on specific examples from your experiences in this class and the written work you have produced, please prepare a detailed reflection on your work as a critic. You may organize your reflection as you see fit, but it should address the following things:
Revision: A strong reflection on revision will include specific details from rough drafts, graded drafts, feedback (from instructor and peers), and published reviews to describe specific decisions made during the various stages of revision in this course. The reflection should demonstrate how you have processed feedback to make your published reviews as strong as possible.
Citation: A strong reflection on citation will include specific details from graded drafts and published reviews to describe specific decisions you have made about citing the work of other writers and creators. This could mean that you have incorporated citations that were not present in the graded review. It might also mean that you have changed the format of citations for publication.
Audience: A strong reflection on audience will include specific details from graded drafts and published reviews to describe specific decisions you have made to best reach your intended audience. Instead of making versions of your notes on audience public, we have decided to use categories and tags to help your target audience find your review. This reflection is the place to describe how you made decisions about categories and tags and how decisions about audience prompted changes to your reviews.
Favorite mode of expression: Our course has been organized according to what we might call modes of expression. We have zeroed in on specific features of cultural products to practice describing things like sound, text, etc. A strong reflection will offer specific details from class workshops (accessible through our Word Online document), draft reviews, and published reviews to consider the challenges and pleasures of reviewing the wide range of cultural products we have explored during the semester. What was most challenging or enjoyable to review and…importantly…why?