Position Paper On Students Writing In The Academy

Position Essay on Annotated Bibliography Topic and Research -15%

Assignment
We’ve read Nancy Sommers “Responding to Student Writing” and Donald Daiker “Learning to Praise,” and Lee Ann Carroll “Profiles of Writing Development” in Rehearsing New Roles: How College Students Develop as Writer. We’ve discuss sample instructor comments on a paper in Responding to Students’ Writing Sourcebook and reflected on the comments we’ve received on our writing at Marymount. We’ve read Ann M. Penrose and Cheryl Geisler “Reading and Writing without Authority” and Donald M. Murray “The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Classroom,” and we’ve reflected on the authority and ownership we feel when we write for school.

Write an essay that takes position on the issue you researched in Project III, research likely related to an issue discussed in the readings above. You will use your research as well as your own experience as a college writer and researcher in your discussion of this position. Remember, a "position" doesn't need to offer a solution or take a definitive stance; it may, for example, argue for the two main challenges to students when significantly revising their essays. An argument you can fully support in just four to five pages will be small and nuanced. For example, you wouldn’t argue that students shouldn’t be graded on writing, but that grading student writing can, paradoxically, decrease student investment in this writing.

Requirements:
The successful essay will likely be 4-5 pages in Times New Roman 12 inch Font. It will include 3-5 outside sources, some of which we may have read in class and the majority of which are scholarly. You may also use your own experience as a college writer and researcher. It will need to correctly cite and/or paraphrase passages from the sources in correct MLA form, and it will not misrepresent the ideas of the sources. You will submit the essay in a folder with and two copies of a final draft, an early draft with my comments, and copies of all your sources. Unethical source use in the Essay IV, which includes inadequate paraphrase, missing citations, and/or citing the wrong source will necessitate your retaking the course.

You will submit a copy of this essay to ude.tnuomyram|ssessa#ude.tnuomyram|ssessa for program assessment (assessment is not tied to you or to the class); you can include just your student id# or leave your name on it (student id and name will be removed prior to assessment, but we need the identifying information for sample selection). Program assessment helps us evaluate the composition program and know what changes we need to make to it.

Grading Criteria
Content
• Do you have a thesis, even if it is implicit or delayed, that argues something relevant about an issue you researched in Essay III.
• Does your thesis and argument confront this issue in all its complexity rather than over-simplifying the issue?
• Are the reasons and evidence in support of this theme/thesis credible, relevant, and fully developed?
• Does your essay enter into the “conversation” about this issue that you discovered when researching?
• Have you included at least four sources, 2 of which are secondary scholarly sources?
• In citing these sources, have you represented the author’s point of view without distorting it?
• Have you inserted correct parenthetical citations for your sources? Failure to do so may result in a failing grade.
• Do your paraphrases put the ideas of the text into your own words? Failure to do so may result in a failing grade.
• Are your quotes accurate – do they quote the text word for word?
• Have you smoothly integrated these outside voices into you writing?
• Does your paper adequately address opposing viewpoints, while subordinating/critiquing them?
• Does your paper conclude somewhere near the top of page 5 (or on a subsequent page)?
• Are there substantial differences between the first and second draft?

Organization

• Do you have an introduction that adequately introduces the essay?
• Do you have a conclusion that adequately concludes the essay?
• Is the essay, as a whole, logically organized?
• Do you make its structure clear to the reader through transitions between paragraphs?
• Are paragraphs logically organized internally?
• Is this organization made clear to the reader through transitions?
• Does the essay avoid repetition?

Style
• Is your writing clean stylistically? Do you use strong verbs and active voice? Are sentences concise and clear? Have you combined sentences as needed to create sentence variety?
• Are filler sentences eliminated?
• Are your sentences grammatically correct? Remember not to use “this” or “that” as a pronoun and to use a comma with an introductory phrase. Also remember to use a comma and a conjunction to connect two independent phrases (phrases that can stand alone as sentences).
• Is the paper typed in Times Roman 12 inch font? Is it double spaced with one inch margins?

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