Friday, December 12, 2014



Skill-Building Revision Assignment

Points: If you earned anything less than an A, you can earn eight (8) points added to your essay grade. I will add the points tonight, and they will stay in your grade if I receive a satisfactory revision assignment by Monday.  If I do not receive a satisfactory assignment by Monday, I will remove the points from your essay score.

Due date: December 15, 2014

Chose one of the following revision assignments.

1) Writing clear, concise prose
You might want to choose this if your major problems are related to wordiness/language clutter, filler words, vague or empty words, misplaced modifiers, awkward diction or syntax, excessive use of the passive voice and verbs of being.

2) Avoiding comma splices (do not join independent clauses with only a comma)

3) Writing a focused, detailed and meaningful thesis statement and clearly connected topic sentences for each body paragraph
Improving Your Focus: Creating Continuity between your Thesis Statement and Body Paragraphs  (pp 14-15 of your AP Language and Composition Writing Sourcebook)

4) Properly punctuating citations and avoiding floating quotes (according to MLA guidelines)

5) Other problems with punctuation (e.g. proper use of commas, colons, semicolons, apostrophes, etc)

6) All other problems (e.g. redundancy, poor word choices, poor choice of supporting evidence, misinterpretation of the text, etc.)

Assignment Parts:

a.      Write a rationale statement explaining why you feel you most need to work on this particular skill.  Generally speaking, I want you to explain why – based on past experience, comments on this essay and others, etc. – you feel this is a writing skill you most need to work on.

b.      Find a good source in print or on the internet which provides guidance on this writing skill. Copy/print a reasonable length (5 or less pages) for the purpose of annotating.  Read it and annotate it for important advice and tips, especially advice that pertains directly to your struggles.

c.       Next, choose the portion(s) of your paper which need from revisions/improvements in this area, and rewrite it according to the guidance provided. Using the cross-out functions in Word or Google Docs and/or highlighting/underlining functions, show the edits you made to improve your writing. Use text boxes/comments to explain in the margins why you made your changes and/or how they made your writing better.

d.      Write a strong reflection paragraph describing what you learned from doing this assignment and how it will help you in future essay writing.

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