Throughout the class, you’ll write informal journal entries of about 500 words (2 double-spaced pages) for any chapter in Bad Ideas About Writing that we read together. You can refer to the grading agreement for information on how many of these responses you should plan to write.

The purpose of these journals is for you to slow down, read closely and carefully, consider the ideas in the chapter in relation to your life experiences, and to consider how you arrived at the conclusions you have made. Where have you gathered the authority and experience that informs your opinions? Are there alternatives to the conclusions you have drawn? Many of the chapters that we read might challenge beliefs that are very obviously true to you. However, while you might have an immediate positive or negative response to a particular chapter, this assignment should help you interrogate your response rather than automatically accepting or rejecting its major claims.

Journals should be turned in on the day that we discuss a particular reading (i.e. if we’re discussing “Plagiarism Should Always Be Punished” on a Thursday, you need to turn in your personal reflection journal about it before class time on Thursday). You’ll turn these in on your personal Slack channel (i.e. I would turn mine in to #lindsey-albracht). You can either upload them using MS Word or just send a link to a Google doc. 

🔖 Step one: Choose your chapters 

You can write personal reflection journal entries over any chapter from Bad Ideas About Writing. A good strategy might be to choose a chapter title that surprises you.

When you finish reading, take a few deep breaths and notice your own reaction to what you just read.

Notice what you feel in your body. Notice your surroundings. Many of us are reading in a place (and a time) where there are a lot of distractions. So notice if anything might be influencing the way that you have understood the argument. Were you able to deeply engage and understand it? Can you explain the argument that you just read to yourself?

📝 Step two: Read and summarize the chapter

The first paragraph of each personal reflection journal entry should summarize the major claims from the chapter, and briefly discuss the evidence that the author uses to make them.

Super important to remember that the author of each chapter has written a title that they believe is a BAD idea about writing. If the title of the chapter is “Teaching Grammar Improves Writing” and your reflection is about how the chapter says that it’s important to teach grammar, I will know that you didn’t read or didn’t understand the chapter. Every chapter is going to argue the OPPOSITE of what the title says.

You might try looking away from the chapter and practice by telling someone else (or an imaginary person!) what the argument said. In your own words, what is the idea about writing that the author is discussing in this chapter? Why is this a “bad” idea?

We all bring biases to everything we write, but do try to characterize the major claims in a way that would be fair and recognizable to the author. The purpose of this part is to slow you down and to make sure that you’re engaging with the substance of the argument in good faith. You can bring in your own opinion in the next section.

🤓 Step three: Respond to the author in a personal way

After you have summarized the major claims, you’ll think about your personal response, and why this might be the case. Think about how the chapter makes you feel, but also why you might feel this way. To do this, you might do ONE of the following things (i.e. not all three!)

• Contradict the author: Is the author saying something that doesn’t square with your personal experiences and beliefs? After you explain their major claim, use an experience from your life to say why you don’t believe the author. Make sure that you not only say that the author is wrong, but that you also consider alternative explanations. Remember: you have only lived your own life! So even if you aren’t convinced, consider what kinds of life experiences, schooling experiences, family experiences, workplace experiences, or experiences in society have helped you to form your conclusions. Is it possible that what the author is saying might be true for someone else or under different circumstances?
  
• Confirm / build on the author’s point. Did you find yourself nodding along a lot while you were reading? Use a personal experience from your life to say why you think the author has the right idea in this chapter. Then, write a paragraph (or so) considering why this idea was surprising to you in the first place. what kinds of life experiences, schooling experiences, family experiences, workplace experiences, or experiences in society led you to initially believe that this was NOT a bad idea about writing?
  
• Leapfrog: Maybe you agree with most (but not all) of what the author says. In this case, you would leapfrog: you would say what you agree with, but then use some kind of personal experience to illustrate one part of the claim that you think that the author got wrong. If you leapfrog, you still want to consider how your life experiences, schooling experiences, family experiences, workplace experiences, or experiences in society led you to initially believe that this was NOT a bad idea about writing. Or, you’ll want to consider how what the author is saying might be true under certain circumstances.

🤔 Step four: Say whether or not you’re convinced

If this isn’t already clear from what you’ve written, this is where you should say whether or not the author has convinced you that this is a bad idea about writing, and why.

Let’s say that you initially disagree with Anjali Pattanayak’s claim that there is not one correct way of speaking and writing in English. All of your life, you may have heard in school, in your home, in your place of work, or elsewhere that mastering a single variety of “correct” or “proper” English is important to succeeding in life.

Reading a chapter that contradicts this claim might strike you initially as untrue. If the author’s claims convinced you to think about your assumptions differently, say so, but also make sure that it’s clear how you arrived to your change of opinion. If the author’s claims haven’t convinced you yet, or partially convinced you (but not totally) say why this is the case. How could the author strengthen their claims?

You might also already agree with the author, and reading the chapter confirmed your belief, or gave you more proof of something that you already thought. You should say why this is the case, too. What was it about the author’s claim(s) that confirmed a belief that you already had about writing?

📱Step five: Guide my feedback to you, and post your reflection to your Slack channel

The last step will be to post your personal reflection to your personal Slack channel (i.e. mine would be posted to the #lindseyalbracht channel). You should do this before class on the day that we’re discussing the chapter that is connected to your reflection. **Update: You can now submit PRJs after the class when we’re discussing that chapter, though you should still strive to turn it in on the day of the discussion** If you have invited me to your channel, I will receive a notification when it is there. I will check to make sure that you have met the minimum requirements. If the post meets minimum requirements I will comment on it with a ✅. If it doesn’t, I will DM you to let you know what needs to be amended.

In a paragraph (or a couple of sentences) that you leave as a comment in Slack or somewhere in your draft, please let me know what kind of feedback you’re looking for on each reflection. You might use this feedback menu to get ideas about things you could request.

Giving me some guidance on the level and detail of feedback that you want and need can help me to respond to your work in ways that feel useful to you.

If you don’t get feedback from me within about 48 hours of posting, please DM me on Slack and make sure that I saw the post.