Hi, folks. 

Okay. 

So, what follows here is a quick recap of our most recent class and a discussion and directions for your first peer review assignment. 

Now, one of the reasons why I do these puzzles in class is because I think when you have to pull apart someone’s writing and put it back together, you start to realize your weaknesses and your understanding of the analytical paragraph structure.  And you also start to see where the weaknesses lie in someone else’s writing.  Perhaps, the claim is unclear.  Perhaps, their evidence is insufficient.  Perhaps, you can’t figure out how the evidence they have provided is relevant to the claim they’re making.  And, of course, sometimes the claim drifts across the course of the paragraph.  When I polled all of you on where you got stuck in writing the first draft of your essay, or where you were most challenged, many of you agreed that one of the challenges was: a) finding your claim/ identifying your claim, and then b) sticking to the claim, making sure that you were constantly offering evidence for that particular claim, and not drifting off topic. 

When we worked on the Brooks Puzzle, the “words are the fuel of courtship and procreation” puzzle, we discovered that, really, Brooks’ claim, while concise, didn’t necessarily account for all the various ideas that he covered over the course of the actual paragraph.  And so, we worked on revising that claim up there on the board, first in groups, and then putting them on the board.  And I think the revised claims that we came up with collectively, all of our brains smushed together ( I guess that’s an unfortunate image there) but I think the claims that we came up with collectively were far more nuanced and more satisfying in that they spoke to the evidence that Geoffrey Miller provided, and really did a better job at articulating the main idea of the Brooks essay. 

We did it better than Brooks did in that quick moment 🙂

So, now, when you go into your peer review assignment here, I want you to think about this as a letter to your classmate.  You’re going to read their essay.  And then, you’re going to sit down, take some notes, gather those thoughts together, and then type them out.

Here are the things that I want you to think about.  I’m going to enumerate them here.  These are in no particular order, but these are the things that I want you to address as you are reviewing their essay. 

So, I want you to think about whether they have accurately articulated the claim Brooks makes about the interaction between the conscious, and the unconscious.  One of the challenges in working with these templates, and working with the ideas of others is simply restating, credibly, their position.  Oftentimes, when I read these essays the first time around, I go back to the book, and I think, hmm, the claim this student is offering, I think is well stated and concise.  I understand it.  But I don’t think they’ve actually captured the argument that Brooks is making.  I don’t think they have accurately articulated that argument.  So, that’s the first thing that I want you to think about.  Does the writer of the essay you’re reviewing accurately capture Brooks’ position?

Now, jumping down to the second paragraph, I want you to ask yourself whether or not their claim is concise.  Is it to the point, or does it wander about?  And then, number two, does it make sense?  Do you understand their position vis-à-vis David Brooks?  Do you understand the claim that they’re making?  So, ask yourself those two things.  Is it concise?  And does it make sense?  Do you get it?  If it makes sense, but it seems to ramble, offer them a revision of that claim.  Do some editing on it.  Write it down in your letter to them, and suggest an alternative.  See if you can’t help them reach clarity. 

The other thing that I want you to think about is the quality of their evidence.  So, the second paragraph calls for them to offer evidence to support their claim about the conscious and the unconscious.  And this is always the biggest challenge of these first few essays — providing sufficient evidence, providing enough evidence, and then making sure that we’re providing evidence that is relevant.  Evidence always needs to be relevant, credible, and sufficient. Sometimes I like to see if people are paying attention. If you are, click here. Now, I know this evidence is going to be credible because it’s coming from you.  But the question is whether or not it’s relevant and sufficient.  So, ask yourself: is there enough evidence to prove the claim the author is making in the second paragraph?  And, also, is the evidence relevant?  Does it actually illustrate the claim that they are making?

And then, the final thing that I want you to look for is whether or not there’s “drift: in the paragraph.  And I’m going to talk about this in future lectures.  But we also talked about this in our most recent class, this idea of drift, the drifting from the idea stated in the claim as the writer moves through the paragraph.  They start out making one argument, and by the end when we’ve arrived at their closing, they’ve drifted over to a slightly different argument, or maybe a completely different argument.  So, take a look at their claim, read it out loud to yourself, and then dip down to the bottom of that second paragraph and read their closing.  Those two statements should be very close versions of each other because, of course, we know in the analytical paragraph structure that we don’t introduce new ideas in the final paragraph.  We’re simply restating the claim that we’ve made. 

All right. 

So, this is a very short list of things that I want you to pay attention to.  But I’d really like you to drill down on this list, give adequate feedback, make sure that you’re talking about the quality of the evidence, and it’s sufficiency, and so on and so forth.  And spend your time focusing on these few things, give them all enough time.  Write out your comments in a brief letter to the classmate.  It can be casual if you like, or fairly informal.  “Dear Michael, here are my thoughts on your first essay…”  And then, simply write your thoughts down.  They should be typed and then print them up and bring two copies to our next class. 

As usual, you can ask me any questions via email and I will create a discussion forum in D2L related to this peer review assignment.  

Have a nice day!

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