Course Recap for Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Review and Revision

Today we went over tips for reviewing the works of our classmates and we went over creating a revision plan.  I went over the feedback that you all received from your classmates in ELI and pointed out ways everyone can improve when providing commentary on our classmates's pieces.  Here are the highlights:

• Be specific.  Explain why you feel something does or does not work.  This sort of information gives the writer something to work with.  If you let them know that you like a passage because of the level of detail, they know they need to continue using details throughout their piece.  If you say you don't like a passage because it's lacking detail, they know they need to add detail to the piece.
• Provide constructive criticism even to the pieces you like.  If you're having a hard time finding something they could improve upon, start asking yourself what do I want to see more of.  Maybe they introduced an interesting character and you'd like to see more of him or you'd like to see a specific event.  It's not that the piece is lacking information about these topics.  It's that these topics are the ones you found the most interesting, and therefore, could be places where added detail would enhance the story.
• Cite specific moments and passages as often as you can.  Giving them examples of sentences you found clunky, or diction you found inspiring, or characters that were interesting, or places where there is no conflict are more helpful than general comments.  There's a difference between saying your language is generic and pointing out specific phrases you found cliche.  When you do this you help to make sure that you and the writer are working with the same vocabulary and that you're looking at the same thing.  That's why the highlight function (when available) is so useful in ELI.

Homework

• Complete Revision Plan of One Page Description of Person/Place (due tonight 11:45pm) in ELI
• Extra Credit: Complete Revision Plan of Dialogue (due tonight 11:45pm) in ELI
• First Drafts of both Narratives (due Thursday 9/29 in class) Print 2 copies of each and also submit to instructor via Google Docs.