Below, you’ll find all of the options for work that you can complete on a weekly basis. Weekly work is supposed to help you keep up with the reading, develop and refine your analysis skills, contribute to our class community in a way that helps your peers, and / or refine your writing and editing skills. 

I want this work to feel flexible and useful to you, so you can decide which assignments to do, how many to do, and when in the semester to do them based on the grade that you are working toward. You can check the Grading Agreement here to find out how many weekly tasks you need to complete, but here’s a basic rundown: 

• If you’re working toward an A: 8 weekly work assignments in total; 4 before March 22; must do 2 Rhetorical Situation Reflections
• If you’re working toward a B: 6 weekly work assignments in total, 3 before March 22, must do at least 1 Rhetorical Situation Reflection
• If you’re working toward a C: 4 weekly work assignments in total; must do at least 1 Rhetorical Situation reflection
• If you’re working toward a D: you must either turn in a final draft of two of the essays (Review Essay and Personal Essay) as well as the Final Reflection OR you must complete 6 weekly work tasks, and at least three of them must be Rhetorical Situation Reflections.

The due date for all weekly work will always be 11:59pm on the Monday before Wednesday classes unless otherwise noted. 

Write a Rhetorical Situation Reflection: 

In these 500-word reflections, you should do the following: (1) briefly summarize the essay that we’ll discuss in next Wednesday’s class or that we discussed in the previous class, (2) indicate who the writer is and why this matters to the context of the essay, (3) discuss the intended audience and how you know from the word choices, the choice of modality (i.e is this a Twitter thread? A podcast? A print essay in a publication?), how much explanation the author gives, etc., (4) discuss the purpose of this essay — why did the author write it? Is this for entertainment? Is there a call to action? Are they trying to entertain the audience? Are they raising awareness? Is there some other reason? Are there multiple purposes? (5) discuss the exigence: why write this essay at the time that they did? (6) discuss the historical, social, political, and / or institutional context for this essay. To meet requirements, discuss each of these elements giving relevant examples from the text, and write at least 500 words. Post the reflection to your personal channel by Monday at 11:59pm with a feedback request paragraph. Depending on the grade that you’re working toward, you need one or two of these at some point during the semester. You may repeat this assignment more than once. It is fine to write a Rhetorical Situation Reflection for a text that we’ve already discussed in class.

**edit** If you would like to write a Rhetorical Situation Reflection to analyze a piece of writing that will help you to develop your ideas for your Essay Portfolio 1 or Essay Portfolio 2, please feel free to do this! For example, if you’re writing a personal statement for Essay Portfolio 1 (Personal Essay), you might do an RSR on a real personal statement sample essay that you find instead of on a reading for class.

Write a Self-Assessment:

In this 500-word reflection, you should (1) choose two or three things about your writing that you think are already strong and explain, with evidence, why you think that they’re working well for you. This could be things like your organization, your incorporation of evidence, your sentence variation, your understanding of audience and rhetorical situation, your curiosity, your persistence, your research ability, your linguistic resources (i.e. maybe you’re multilingual and able to reach more than one audience, or maybe you have a lot of practice in writing for a particular type of audience) or anything else that you’re noticing (or have noticed) about your own work. Give examples of feedback that you’ve received or other ways that you know that these things are going well for you. You should also evaluate (2) two things about your writing that you think could use some work. Explain, with evidence, why you think this is the case. If you’re working toward an A or a B, you might plan to write one of these reflections near the beginning of the semester and one near the end to evaluate your progress. To meet requirements, discuss at least 2 strengths and at least 2 weaknesses, with evidence, and write at least 500 words. Post the reflection to your personal channel by Monday at 11:59pm with a feedback request paragraph. You may repeat this assignment up to two times.

Write a recap: Please note that writing recaps is no longer an option this semester, because we have finished reading new texts.

As a recapper, you should post a summary of about 350 words of an essay (or multimodal artifact) that we’re reading / watching / listening to for next Wednesday’s class. Please do not post recaps for essays we’ve already read, as this defeats the purpose (which is to help out your classmates if they didn’t do the reading and need to quickly catch up.) Tell us what the essay says, who wrote it, why you think they wrote it, who this is intended for, and whether or not you think this qualifies as an essay (why or why not?). To meet requirements, put this 350 word summary on the #recaps channel by Monday night at 11:59pm. You may not repeat this assignment more than once. Please don’t write a recap for a text that we have already discussed in class, as this defeats the purpose (which is to give your classmates some help if they can’t fully commit to reading everything for the week)

Write discussion questions: Please note that writing discussion questions is not longer an option this semester, because we have finished reading new texts.

General at least three substantive discussion questions on Slack in the #class-discussions channel by Monday night at 11:59pm. Check out this post on what makes for a good discussion question. To meet requirements, put at least three substantive discussion questions that no one else has asked on the #class-discussions channel by Monday night at 11:59pm. You may not repeat this assignment more than once. Please don’t put discussion questions in the channel for texts we’ve already discussed, as this defeats the purpose.

**Edit**: While you can write discussion questions about the content of the essays that we read, watch, and listen to, please do focus at least one or two of your questions on helping us to analyze the piece of writing as a rhetorical object. So, for example, while you could ask something like “Why do you think Roxane’s parents were against her going to college in New York City?” for “Strange Lands,” it might ultimately be more helpful to ask something like “Who do you think the audience was for “Strange Lands”? Was it New Yorkers? If so, which ones? What in the text makes you think this?”

Share a draft: 

Share an early draft of something that you’re working on in the #feedback channel along with a 150-200 word statement of what you would like to know about it (you can use the feedback request menu), the stage of writing that you’re in, and what kind of feedback you’re looking for. It can be a draft of something for this class, or something for another class. Check out this post on requesting feedback if you’re not sure what to ask. To meet requirements, put your draft in the #feedback channel by Monday at 11:59pm with a feedback request paragraph of about 150-200 words, and make sure that we can access it (i.e. if you’re using Google Docs, make sure we have access permission.) You may repeat this assignment up to two times.

**Edit** As of 2/24, you are able to share a draft to the #feedback channel more than twice, but after the second time that you do it, you have to make the changes to your piece and resubmit in order to receive credit a third time along with a 150-200 word explanation of what you changed and why. So, in other words, the first two times, all you have to do is share your draft. After that, you need to make changes, resubmit the changes, and tell us about them before you receive credit. Please make it clear to all of us that this is a resubmission.

Give written feedback on a draft in the #feedback channel: 

Choose a draft in the #feedback channel. Click here to fill out a feedback form for the draft. I will paste it in the channel and tag both the person who wrote the piece and you. To meet requirements, all fields of the form must be completed. You may repeat this assignment up to two times.

Go to the Writing Center: 

Take a piece of writing that you do for this class to the Writing Center. This task involves three steps (1) make an appointment at the Writing Center, (2) read “How To Prepare For Your Writing Center Consultation” and generate a list of at least 3-4 questions that you have for your Writing Center consultant. Post them to your personal channel. Then, (3) once you’ve finished your appointment, briefly summarize what happened, what you learned, and what next step you’ll take in your draft in a short (200-300 word) post on a threaded post on your personal channel (you can reply directly to your initial list of questions with your reflection so that everything shows up in the same place, or paste a link to a doc or MS word doc there.)  To meet requirements, complete all three steps, and post them in a thread on your personal channel. You may repeat this assignment up to two times.

Do a Tool Spotlight Presentation or Make a Tool Spotlight Resource 

Because some of us will want to compose in modalities other than printed text (like video, audio, etc.), we might need to use a tech tool. I assume that some of you already use digital tools to make videos, record sound, or communicate with audiences in other ways (i.e. animation? graphic design? building a (free) website? something else that I’m not imagining?). I’d like for all of us to share our skills and knowledge with the class so that we can all learn from each other’s technical expertise. Enter: the tool spotlight. 

There are two ways you can meet requirements for this (you do not need to do both — just one or the other). The first way is to (1) Say that you would like to lead a tool spotlight presentation in class on the #tools channel by Monday at 11:59pm. Link to the tool you’re going to show us, briefly describe what it does, and write a few words about what you’re going to say about it. Then, come to class, and in a 5 (or so) minute presentation. PLEASE DO NOT take us through a step-by-step tutorial about how to use it. Instead, show some examples of things that you or other people have made that use it, tell us if it costs money, tell us about how easy or hard it is to learn, and tell us why this might be a helpful tool for composing essays. To meet requirements, “reserve” your presentation slot by 11:59pm on Monday night in the #tools channel, come to class, and give your presentation. You may not repeat this assignment more than once.

The other way you can meet requirements for this (if you don’t want to do a presentation, or that isn’t available to you for whatever reason) is to make and post a guide in the #tools channel for classmates to access. This guide can be about 1-2 pages long and should answer the following questions: (1) What is this tool called, and what does it do? (2) Where can we find the tool (i.e. link to the app store or the website or wherever we can access it)? (3) Does it cost any money to use it? Or is there a “freemium” option where you can pay, for example, to remove the watermark? (4) Link to some examples of people using the tool: bonus points if they’re using it to compose an essay, but this isn’t necessary, (5) How hard or easy is it to learn this tool? (6) Write a few sentences about how you or others in the class might use this to compose an essay that we’re working on this semester. To meet requirements, answer all six questions, and post your guide to the #tools channel by 11:59pm.  You may not repeat this assignment more than once.

Miss no more than 2 classes: 

You are not required to attend synchronous class sessions. But if you miss no more than 2 classes this semester, this can positively count toward your final grade. I will tag folks who missed class in the recording that I post to Slack so you know that it’s there, so to meet requirements, don’t miss more than 2 synchronous classes (i.e. don’t get tagged in the video more than twice.)

**New Option**: Attend (and reflect on) an event by a writer

We have some exciting professional writers who will be virtually visiting QC this semester. I will periodically make you aware of when these visits will occur (as soon as I hear about them), and you can also let me know if I missed one. To meet requirements for this: (1) Attend a virtual event, (2) Write a brief (about 500 words) reflection on what happened at the talk and what you learned and, if applicable, how you think that what you learned might apply to this class (3) Post the reflection to your personal channel by Monday at 11:59pm with a feedback request paragraph. You may not repeat this assignment more than once.

Please note that you need to register here in advance for Claudia Rankine’s event.