English 2010

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Using the paragraphs we’ve just looked at as models, draft a paragraph that supports your thesis:

The paragraph needs a point

Quote, summarize, or paraphrase evidence using attributive tags

Explain how the quote, summary, or paraphrase supports the point

Write at least three non-repetitive sentences about how or why the quotation or summary supports the point and the thesis. Explain the support in detail. Don’t just state that the thesis has been supported. Thoughtfully engage with the quotation and share your thoughts in writing.

Draft an in-text citation and draft the connected work cited page entry

In the process of continuing to work on this paper outside of class, I imagine you’ll repeat this process several times.

English 2010

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Which of the objections to your thesis generated by either you or a peer is most likely to be presented by your audience? Of these, which do you want to refute or concede?

How can you directly refute?

If you are conceding, what is the greater advantage of your thesis you can explicitly mention and support?

Brainstorm a brief plan for replying to each objection you are likely to encounter.

English 2010

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While preparing my annotated bibliography, I learned the following new things about my topic:

While preparing my annotated bibliography, I learned the following new things about researching effectively:

How helpful was peer reviewing the annotated bibliography?

The most difficult part of preparing my annotated bibliography was:

The most pleasant part of preparing my annotated bibliography was:

English 2010

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Contrast writing the last two assignments. How did differences in the assignments change the way you worked on each of them? Which was more difficult? Why? Which of the classroom activities gave you the greatest understanding of the assignment? Was the textbook more or less useful in understanding the assignment than our discussions in class? Why?

English 2510

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  • Describe the process of writing this paper. What worked well? What would you do differently if you could?
  • While the specifics of an assignment are a factor, what generalizations can you make about your writing process? What sorts of things do you do each time you write? Why?
  • In what ways might revising this process be useful? Or, if you are perfectly satisfied with your current practices, offer a defense of them.

Hutchinson and Bradstreet

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Given what you know about Anne Hutchinson from Winthrop’s journal and given what you know about Anne Bradstreet from today’s reading, why did one woman’s atypical behavior lead to praise and the other’s lead to exile?

Bruce Michelson and Marjorie Pryse argue that there are two voices in Bradstreet’s poems: “The poet-voice who speaks as she ought, in full accord with religious doctrine, public duty, and conventional belief” and another who “loves, grieves, fears, feels pride, and experience the full range of emotions and curiosities that the teachings of her faith were supposed to put to rest.” Michelson and Pryse suggest that in the poems, sometimes one side  seems to win and sometimes the other; sometimes a reassuring harmony between voices is reached and sometimes not.

English 2510: Greenblatt and Winthrop

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Pick one of Greenblatt’s questions and answer it with Winthrop’s writing in mind.

  • What kinds of behavior, what models of practice, does this work seem to enforce?
  • Why might readers at a particular time and place find this work compelling?
  • Are there differences between my values and the values implicit in the work I am reading? What accounts for these differences?
  • Upon what social understanding does the work depend?
  • Whose freedom of though or movement might be constrained implicitly by this work?
  • What are the larger social structures with which these particular acts of praise or blame might be connected?

Provide examples from “A Model of Christian Charity” to support any assertions you make about it.

English 2510: Greenblatt and Smith

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Assuming that, as the book suggests, origin stories “posit a general cultural outlook and offer perspectives on what life is and how to understand it” (17), what is the best way to understand life according to John Smith’s narrative of America’s origin? What is life like according to it? What “general cultural outlook[s]” might it imply? Record at least three and include examples.