English 2783
The Art of Fact: Contemporary Literary Journalism
Prompt # 16
4 November 2013

Looking back, looking forward (past November 11)

Feedback

There is now a page on the Web site which includes all the responses I received to the feedback survey. I discovered after it had been up a day or so that something had happened on the server and some emails may have been lost; if you responded to the survey but your responses aren't reproduced, that's what happened. I'm putting the link to the survey back up, just in case your comments didn't make it and you want to try again (or comment now when you didn't before). It's on the main course page; I'll leave it up for a couple of days. In the meantime, please have a look at the responses and my comments -- and if you want to add to the discussion, feel free to add comments via the survey.

Evaluation

As I've said, I'm interested in helping people become better evaluators of their own work. Of course, it never happens that your own self-evaluation is the final word, and often we're wrong (as with most things, we get better as we get experienced). If you've engaged in the reflection and evaluation process, you should have come to a fairly clear idea of how your work compares to others, and to my criteria as I've tried to explain them. If you'd like me to offer my evaluation of your midterm learning reflection, here's what you need to do: email me with a short analysis of what you think are the strongest pieces of evidence of learning in your reflection, and a grade, or range of grades, that you think it would be worth. I'll respond with my own reading and evaluation.

Tonight in class

We had, as of this morning, seven reports on people's exploration of books on literary journalism. There have been some comments and questions in response to them on the forum, as well. I've printed out copies of the individual reports (not including comments and questions, because I'd have had to wait till class time to do it). What I propose we do tonight is take a bit of time to reread each in turn, and then discuss each, in light of the forum discussion, which I'll put up on the screen.

For next time

Amazingly, again, there is no "next time"; it's going to be Remembrance Day. So, again, I'm structuring a series of assignments that will, with some luck, keep everyone focused.

First, go back to your selected book about literary journalism (OR, if you think your book won't help with this, decide on another from the list and claim it via email, as we did before), and identify two kinds of information in it:
Post these lists on your Working Bibliography wiki page (click Edit to add things to your page). Put the new listings at the top, if there are already items listed there (I put a series of === signs on the left to separate the sections). Identify them by dividing them into two sections (have a look at my page for an example). If possible, add a supporting quotation from your source to any of the listings where you can find one.

Do this before the end of this week. Next week, look at the lists put up by other people and note duplicates or patterns. We'll be using the bibliographies when we meet next.

Second, go back to your report, and copy the text into a "Reply" window, heading it "revised report." Do what you need to do to make your report more responsive to the questions people have raised and to the issues you may have seen with it, especially in comparison with others.  Do that this week, as well. ("This week," by the way, means before Saturday night -- earlier, if possible.)

Finally, watch for an email saying there's a Prompt #17 available with an assignment for the week following Remembrance Day. I'll have it up by Wednesday. It will involve spending an hour or so in the basement of the library, so plan for this level of excitement.

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