ENG 121 Week 3 Discussion 1

Prepare: Prior to beginning work on this discussion,

·         Visit the following web pages: Grammar & Punctuation, Introduction to APA, Quoting, Paraphrasing, & Summarizing, Understanding Your Assignment, Writing a Paper, and Writing a Thesis Statement from the Ashford Writing Center.

·         Read Chapter 4: Structuring and Developing a Paper and Chapter 5: Writing Purpose and Style in Essentials of College Writing

·         Read the instructions for the Week 3 Critical Response Essay – Rough Draft

·         View the Sample Critical Response Essay

·         Complete your Critical Response Essay – Rough Draft

Reflect: After reflecting on your work in the course so far, begin writing your draft.

Write: As part of the writing process, you are expected to reflect on your work and revise and edit accordingly. It is also useful to establish a community of learners in which you help edit and proofread each other’s papers. This reciprocal process will help you identify areas of strength and weakness in others’ writing as well as reflect on your own work and perhaps discover similar mistakes. For this week, you will be performing a peer review on your Critical Response Essay – Rough Draft.

 Please view the video Posting to a Discussing Forum for guidance on attaching word documents in your discussion post.

For this discussion

·         Write a two-page, properly formatted draft (or 500 words) of your Critical Response Essay, including introduction, thesis, and support paragraphs.

·         Signify your working thesis by including it in bold type.

·         Upload your rough draft to your post and address the following:

o    Explain the connection between your working thesis and your support paragraphs. Based on the thesis, what should readers expect to be covered in the body paragraphs? Would this connection be clear to someone without your explanation? If so, why? If not, how can you modify your support paragraphs and/or thesis statement to make this connection clearer?

o    Explain how you determined the most important topic in the library essay you selected (place, community, or communication/speaking out). Would the importance of the topic be clear to someone without your explanation? If so, why? If not, what information should you add to make this connection clearer?

o    Explain your critical response to the topic in the library essay you selected (place, community, communication/speaking out). Would this critical response be clear to someone without your explanation?

·         Note any other specific challenges faced or successes experienced when writing your rough draft or completing this discussion post.

Guided Response Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts by Day 7. Please review one draft that has not yet received feedback and evaluate your colleague’s paragraph and/or self‐evaluation. Do you agree with his/her responses to the questions? What else could they do to develop stronger body paragraphs?

Your feedback must be comprehensive, detailed, and constructive. Please do not comment on grammatical issues. Your response must be at least 200 words. 

This discussion will be assessed on a 10-point scale and is worth 6% of your final grade

 Please view the video Downloading a Document for guidance on accessing the “Peer-Review Template.”

 Please view the video Accessing Feedback about the importance of instructor feedback when the post is graded.