The critical essay will give you the chance to “talk back” to an author from Bad Ideas About Writing and either agree or disagree with their argument. You’ll use one or two other sources that you locate to support your position.
Using one essay from Bad Ideas About Writing, you’ll make an argument that develops your stance in relationship to the author’s stance. Then, you’ll support your argument using evidence (i.e. this could be scholarly writing, or it could be writing in other forms). Finally, you’ll say what else you want to know.
☑️ Requirements for this essay:
- 1,600 – 1,800 words
- MLA, APA, or Chicago format (12 pt. font; Arial or Times New Roman; title; page numbers; name at the top; Works Cited or References list for the citations; etc.)
- Discusses one chapter (not multiple chapters) from Bad Ideas About Writing
- Incorporates (and cites) at least one additional source (cannot be from Bad Ideas About Writing)
- Contains some ideas about what you want to know next (research questions)
- Submitted to the student’s personal Slack channel (i.e. mine would be #lindseyalbracht) with a Writer’s Letter attached. You can upload a file or send it as a Google doc link. Your Writer’s Letter can be part of the file or submitted as a separate file.
✅ Step one: Choose your chapter.
Choose one chapter title from Bad Ideas About Writing that was particularly intriguing to you (i.e. “There Is One Correct Way of Writing And Speaking,” or “Teaching Grammar Improves Writing”). You do not have to agree with the idea for it to be “intriguing.”You can choose any idea from the whole book. It can be a chapter that we’ve already read, one that we’re going to read, or one that isn’t on the syllabus at all.
In class on October 6th, we’ll spend some time developing your ideas in relation to the idea that you’ve chosen. Are you convinced by the author’s argument? If so, why? If not, what more would you need to know?
🗣️ Step two: Summarize the “bad idea” from the chapter.
Before you can agree or disagree with the “bad” idea in the chapter, first, you need to know what it actually says. For this step, summarize the author’s bad idea about writing. This summary should be in your own words: avoid direct quoting, please. You should attempt to characterize all of the author’s major claims. Say why the author claims that the idea is bad.
📚 Step three: Develop your stance and keywords for research.
Before you begin to look for outside sources, you will probably want to form a preliminary opinion about the chapter. You might want to do this by reviewing Hypothes.is annotations, thinking about our class discussions (or reviewing the recap video from the day that we held that discussion), reviewing any notes you’ve taken, and considering questions like (1) What did the author leave out? (2) What arguments does this author not support very well? (3) What do other people in the world have to say about this argument? (4) What else do you want to know?
This might help you to generate some keywords (see the video above for more information on this). These keywords should help you to find some source(s) that might help you to support the argument you are making for or against this chapter (or for AND against certain components of this chapter) .
You want to make sure that your source(s) pass the CRAAP test: that they are current, relevant, authoritative, accurate, and purposeful (we’ll talk about this in class). We’ll also be talking about how to locate, summarize, and incorporate sources in the weeks leading up to this assignment due date.
📚 Step four: Use sources to further develop your stance.
In class, and in the video above, we’ll be discussing Mark Gaipa’s “8 Strategies for Critically Examining Sources.” Use this list to choose a way that you want to develop an argument about this chapter.
To develop your stance (i.e. picking a fight, ass-kissing, leapfrogging, piggybacking, etc.), you’ll need to do a little extra research. What do other people have to say about this? Are there scholars, professional writers, teachers, or other people out there who really disagree or agree with your author? Or is there other kinds of evidence that you think might really help to better support the BIAW author’s point that they omitted in the chapter?
It might be that the Bad Ideas About Writing author has convinced you that a particular idea is bad, and you want to find other people who agree (and ass-kiss or piggyback with them).
It might be that you agree with some parts of what the chapter says, but there’s part of the argument that you don’t agree with, and you want to look to other sources to help you make the case about why this author is wrong (so that you can leapfrog).
It might be that you totally disagree with the chapter, and you want to show us why the author’s got it all wrong (here, you would pick a fight).
Whatever stance you choose, I suggest writing these paragraphs using the Claim-Evidence-Warrant or PEAS format that we’ll practice in class. So, this will mean that you have to make a claim about what you think, you’ll use the sources as evidence to support your argument, and then you’ll explain what the evidence means.
This part of the essay will probably be the most extensive. There’s no paragraph “requirement” — use as many paragraphs as you need to make your argument. But this section, generally speaking, should be longer than the summary.
🤔 Step five: Remaining questions
This is an important part of this assignment, because it will help you with the next assignment that we do in this class.
You should develop between 3-4 research questions that you have that are related to this topic, but that are not just a restatement of the topic. If the bad idea about writing is “Plagiarism should be punished,” the research questions could be:
- How do schools in other countries discuss plagiarism?
- Are there differences between plagiarism policies in schools that are wealthier or poorer?
- What are some alternatives to punishing plagiarism?
In a paragraph, list these questions and give a couple of sentences of explanation of why these interest you.
📝 Step six: Submit your first draft. Do a peer review. Submit your final draft with a writer’s letter.
The submission process for the Critical Essay should happen in three steps:
First draft due: Tuesday, October 20th
Today, you’ll submit the first draft of your Critical Essay to your personal submission channel on Slack and to your peer partner over DM. This should happen by 11:59pm.
In class, we will discuss the peer review process and assign partners.
Conferences: Thursday, October 22nd – Wednesday, October 28th:
During this time, I’l be holding 30-minute (maximum) one-on-one conferences with all students instead of classes. We’ll discuss your draft. I can give you some verbal feedback (or we can chat about it on Slack if WiFi is an issue for you). We’ll also take this moment to discuss your general progress in the class, where you’re at in the grading agreement, and what you need to do to either stay on track or get on track for the rest of the semester.
Peer review submission window: Wednesday, October 21st – Tuesday, October 27th:
This is the window to submit your peer review form to the website. The form will close at 11:59pm on Tuesday, October 27th. When your peer reviewer submits their form for your essay, I will send it to you.
Final draft and writers’ letter submission window: anytime after your conference – Sunday, November 1
You may submit your final draft of the Critical Essay any time after your conference and up until 11:59pm on Sunday, November 1st. Please note that in order to meet requirements, the draft must contain a Writer’s Letter: a reflection that gives me feedback instructions and tells me about your revision process.
If your draft meets requirements, just like with the personal journal reflections, I’ll still give you feedback on whatever you request. If it doesn’t meet requirements but you turned it in within the submission window, I’ll let you know what needs to change, and you’ll have unlimited opportunities to resubmit it.
Need an extension? Just ask. Please try to let me know by Friday, October 30th and let me know when I can expect to receive the final draft. This helps me with my own planning.
