Part 1

Discussion Topic

Your Unit 6 discussion post will consist of 2 to 3 paragraphs explaining your approach to your revision project. This is more than just a personal narrative. You will need to address at least three specific strategies discussed in the textbook chapters that you will use to reflect on your revision.

Strategy #1: Make your sources speak. “Quote, paraphrase, or summarize in order to analyze—not in place of analyzing. Don’t assume that either the meaning of the source material or your reason for including it is self-evident” (300). Here Rossenwasser and Stephen suggest something called the “sandwich method” for integrating sources. Writers should always “sandwich” a source with a preview statement and, following the reference, with analysis linking the material to the writer’s thesis. This might remind you of the “signal phrase” strategy we explored in Unit Two.

Strategy #2: Use your sources to ask questions, not just to provide answers. “Use your selections from sources as a means of raising issues and questions. Avoid the temptation to plug in such selections as answers that require no further commentary or elaboration” (301). Ideally, the scholarly article you located for this unit’s revision will help you to re-envision your thesis, or to populate your supporting arguments with new voices and perspectives to accomplish a more sophisticated understanding of globalism. Moreover, in relationship to this unit’s reading on the rhetorical appeals, look for ways that your sources can complement your arguments with additional appeals to logos, pathos, or ethos.

Strategy #3: Put your sources in conversation with one another. “Rather than limiting yourself to agreeing or disagreeing with your sources, aim for conversation with and among them” (303). Conversation—the metaphor of our course! Consider signal sentences or phrases that will help you accomplish this conversational effect— for example, “In further analyzing the effects of globalism on the educational context, this source adds another dimension to an issue raised by Appiah and Foer…”

Strategy #4: Find your own role in the conversation. “Even in cases in which you find a source’s position entirely congenial, it is not enough simply to agree with it. In order to converse with a source, you need to find some way of having a distinct voice in that conversation” (306). Personal experience can—and should—bear upon your analysis of perspectives found via research.

Part 2 Revision

The purpose of this assignment is to begin revising one of the two essays that will appear in your Writing Portfolio, due next unit. This assignment should be a substantial revision of Essay #1, 2, 3, or 4.

To complete this assignment, select any of the 4 essays you have written so far in this course. Then, revise that essay, focusing on at at least one of the following higher-order concerns.

• Focus: Is your main claim, thesis, or central message clear? Does every element of your essay consistently support your thesis? Do your minor claims support your major claims? Have you defined the issue at hand? What can you do to further emphasize your focus?
• Development: What evidence does your essay provide to support your focus? Have you included examples, explanations, details, and descriptions that help persuade your readers of your position? Have you anticipated and answered your readers’ objections or counterarguments? Have you considered alternate perspectives?
• Rhetorical Strategies: Have you identified a target audience for your essay? What do you do to appeal to that audience? Does your essay rely primarily on emotional appeals or logical appeals? What do you do in the essay to establish your credibility as a writer?
• Additional Outside Sources: How could adding outside perspectives strengthen your argument? Have other writers, scholars, or researchers addressed the issue at hand? Are your claims backed by a consistent pattern of reliable evidence? Are basic factual claims backed with evidence or sources? How does your essay engage with counterarguments or alternate perspectives on the issue?
• Organization: How does the structure of your essay support its message? Could the essay be re-structured or re-ordered to better support your arguments? Are paragraphs and transitions used to guide readers through your ideas?

Before you turn in this assignment, create a bullet list of the changes and revisions you made. Include this list either as a second file or an additional page.