Writing Plan (

Cohort X1388_16EW1

Assignment 1 Submission: Writing Plan (GRADED)

In Module One, you did a literal reading of your selected article. In Module Two, you learned some active reading strategies on how to dig a little deeper and apply critical analysis to “Turning Off, Dining In.” Finally, you began to think about the intended audience for your critical analysis essay, and you reflected on your goal in analyzing your selected article.

This week, you’ll be given access to an interactive Writing Plan generator that has specific questions to help you actively read and analyze your selected reading from Module One in its entirety. During the assignment, you’ll use analysis strategies learned in Module Two to determine the key significance of your selected reading. In doing so, you will respond to the author’s intended goal of the article in a clear and engaging manner and produce a Writing Plan to inform your creation of your Critical Analysis Essay (which will be due in Module 8).

The assignment below will ask you to consider how the following critical elements relate to your selected reading:

• author’s claim*
• key points*
• audience*
• your goal*
• evidence*
• feedback*
• revision*

Constructing Your Writing Plan

To complete this assignment, first actively re-read your selected article using the analysis techniques mentioned in Module Two. Write new notes (and revise old ones) to help you uncover the deeper meaning of your selected article (do not assume that your initial reading was the correct reading until you compare your notes from Module One with your notes in this Module). After you have finished re-reading the article and writing down new (or revised) notes, you will then build onto your Writing Notes assignment from Module One and determine your strategy for writing your critical analysis essay.

This process will allow you to develop a potential structure for effectively communicating and supporting your claim in the critical analysis essay. Your claim will have three components—1) it will clearly state the author’s goal in his/her article, 2) it will identify your reaction to this goal (e.g., do you agree or disagree); and 3) it will explain why you had that reaction to the article (does the author meet his/her goal with the evidence that is presented, does the author ignore counterarguments to try to make his/her article stronger, etc.). The Writing Plan will also be helpful in keeping your thought process on track when you begin writing and revising your essay.

Keep in mind that you do not need to answer the questions in any specific order. Each response should be one fully developed paragraph in length (5-8 sentences).

As you work on the Writing Plan, remember to refer to the assignment guidelines and rubric (click here) to make sure you’re fulfilling each aspect of the assignment. You can also download/print the rubric.

Your responses will be saved to the Notebook, which can be found under the “Course Tools” menu. You can also download all of your responses to a single Word document by following the directions at the bottom of this page.

The next activity uses a rich text area. You can tab to the editor body. Press ALT-F10 to get to the toolbar. Press ESC to return to the editor body. A save button is available in the top toolbar all the way to the right and will become visible when it receives focus.

1.Re-read your selected article and take careful notes, using analysis techniques described in Module Two as guidance. For a review of these techniques, please click here. Then, revisit your original interpretation of the author’s goal. Has the author’s goal changed with this analytical reading of the text? If so,how? If not, why not?

2. Have you identified new key points that the author uses to try to achieve his or her goal in the selected article? If so, include them here. If not, explain why the key points from your Writing Notes have remained the same, even after conducting an active reading of the article.

3. Consider the audience who will be reading your essay. What potential challenges will you have supporting your argument with this demographic?

4. Your goal is the end result that you wish to achieve in writing the critical analysis essay. What goal do you hope to accomplish with this essay? For example, you may disagree with the author and demonstrate why they are incorrect, or you may agree but want to further substantiate their claim.

5. Evidence is the material that supports your argument. Based on your claim, determine potential places where evidence would be most effective. Defend your choices. For example, if you disagree with an author’s point, you would want to use evidence to support your view.

6. You will be receiving feedback on this writing plan. Feedback is helpful information or criticism that explains what can be done to improve your essay. How can your own writing improve from receiving feedback from an outside party? How can that feedback be integrated in the final project?

7. During the revision process, a writer rereads the essay and makes significant changes in content, organization, etc. to build the argument in a stronger, more logical manner. You will learn more about revision strategies in Module 7, but some of the most common revision techniques are peer evaluation (where you have a classmate review your essay and provide you with feedback), read aloud (where you print out a hard copy of your essay and read it aloud slowly), and read backwards (where you read the essay backwards word by word or paragraph by paragraph). Identify a revision strategy that would be most effective in informing you while writing this essay. Why would this strategy be effective?