Handouts for students
Rhetorical analysis grading standards (J. Cline) (doc)
Used in Writing and Speaking Science; based on Herrick's grading standards
Editing checklist (J. Cline) (doc)
From Writing and Speaking Science
Tips for writing analytical essays (Yarnoff)
Comments: I distribute this handout the class period that precedes the due date for their first draft of an analytical essay on Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. As preparation for the discussion of the handout, I assign students to write a tentative thesis for their draft and to read a freshman seminar award-winning analytical essay (available on the Writing Place website-- http://www.writing.northwestern.edu/awards.html). I talk through the handout briefly and then ask students to review one another’s tentative thesis statements and make suggestions as needed.
Introductions & conclusions to analytical essays (Yarnoff)
Comments: I go over this handout before students write the first draft of their analytical essay. I have found that students frequently have brought with them from high school a few hackneyed methods for writing introductions and conclusions that are not appropriate for college-level analytical essays. The examples come from freshman seminar award-winning papers that appear on the Writing Place website (http://www.writing.northwestern.edu/awards.html).
Advice for writing summaries (doc)
This is advice from my freshman seminar (Fall 2009) that I gave to students after they wrote summaries of an excerpt from READING ACROSS BORDERS by S. Stone-Mediatore.
MLA format for quotations and citations (doc)
This document explains proper formatting of in-text citations, as well as how to integrate quotations into a prose paragraph.
