Assignment: Annotated Working Draft of Final Project

My students have been drafting components of a larger semester project over the last six weeks or so. Now, it's time to combine and develop these into the final project. To this end, I want each of my students to create an "annotated working draft," as follows:

1. List and link your posts

First, I want each student to create an index to the four component blog posts he or she has written to date. Here is a reminder of those four posts. Students should have a section titled "component assignments" with a numbered list like this one, only they will give the title of their post written for each of these. Be sure to link to your own posts:

Component Assignments:

1. Communication and Persuasion in My Field
2. Storytelling in My Field
3. My field within the history of civilization
4. Institutional Authority and Communication

If you were simply to stick together all four of these posts, it would not be a very good paper (yet). So, we need to find a way to bring the content you've already written together in a meaningful way, and then chart a path to a revision that will fit the requirements for the final project (including length). Read on...

2. Annotate your posts

Next, each student should reread their prior posts and write a short paragraph that summarizes the content of each post. This is a kind of "meta" writing (writing about writing), intended to get you thinking about what you've written, to look for connecting themes, and to look for "hot spots," as I will explain. 

As for format, go back to the list that you have created and insert those four summary paragraphs after each of the post titles in your list. (Put your cursor at the end of the line, then use shift-return, which will put you on the next line without creating a new number in the list. Then write or paste in your summary paragraph. See the model. If the formatting confuses you, don't use the numbered list feature and just hand number things. Just make it clear what are the titles of the posts and what are the summaries of them.)

Component Assignments:

1. Communication and Persuasion in My Field Here is where I would insert the summary of this post in just two or three sentences. Don't make these summaries very long!
2. Storytelling in My Field Here is where I would insert the summary of this post in just two or three sentences. Don't make these summaries very long!
3. My field within the history of civilization Here is where I would insert the summary of this post in just two or three sentences. Don't make these summaries very long!
4. Institutional Authority and Communication Here is where I would insert the summary of this post in just two or three sentences. Don't make these summaries very long!

3. Write a paragraph about the "Hot Spots" I'm defining a "hot spot" as some part of the writing done to date that 1) gets to something really critical in the field; OR 2) raises an issue of strong personal interest to you (these may or may not overlap, and that's okay). Below the annotated list created so far, write a new paragraph (use the heading "Hot Spots") in which you call attention to these two kinds of importance (to your field, to yourself).

So, you should have at least two hotspots that fall under those two categories, though you could include a couple more if you wish. Label these. Here's an example:

Hot Spots

• Hotspot #1 (in the field): Reconfiguring literary study to be based on digital, not paper texts. As I bring up in my story about the teacher who wouldn't allow electronic devices in her classroom, literary studies that don't have a primary digital basis are doomed for extinction.
• Hotspot #2 (personal): The story about me reading Heart of Darkness on my Kindle and encountering hundreds of others' public highlights in my text -- this made me realize electronic books were a whole new creature and we'd better figure them out.
• Hotspot #3 (other - more historical): Anciently it was a priestly class that had control over writing and texts, and progress has come as the elite have had to open that control to more people over time. We can't understand the shifts in literary study today if we don't see the pattern of democratizing texts.

Think of the hot spots as things that -- if people didn't understand -- then this would seriously compromise their understanding of the field's history or how communication functions within it. And from a personal angle, the hot spots are things that -- if people didn't understand -- they would not understand you (your motives and interests for pursuing this field).

You see, I want you to find a way of writing about your field that is partly objective (which you've already researched) and partly subjective (which you've already included to a degree when giving personal stories within the posts).

Another way of thinking about this is to contemplate the fact that you won't be able to include everything you've written for the project so far in the final version. So, what couldn't you do without?

Be sure that hot spots that you choose relate to the two "core" posts you did (the first and third posts, the one about communication and persuasion in your field; and the one about your field within the history of civilization). You MUST include a communication/persuasion and a history element in your final paper. The other two posts (two and four) are more optional. Of course, it is possible for you to identify hot spots that thread through several of the posts, not just the first and third, and I hope that is the case. (Note how I included a third hotspot in my example above, because my first two didn't have a historical angle).

Your whole post will be about six to eight short paragraphs: the summaries of each of the four component posts, and then the two to four hotspots that you list.

4. Read and comment on two other students' annotated working drafts. This time, do not read the posts of students who have been in your groups or fields. And if two students have already commented on a give post, go on to a student's post that has not been commented on as much. 

(By the way, you don't have to click through to the component posts that that student links to, but if you are interested you should.) Your task? To respond to how "hot" those hotspots are that have been identified. Identify the hotspot that seems most interesting to you personally and/or the hotspot that looks most promising to develop. We're trying to give each other feedback here, some social proof on what looks most promising. The comment need not be long. A couple sentences, tops.

5. Come to class Wednesday having read comments on your own post. We'll do further, in-class work to prepare you for the next stage of your developing draft.