Proofreading and Editing

Happy Friday!
Make sure you have a book out. 

I apologize for not being able to give you the document for your final draft of your personal statement earlier this week. As I said, I was attempting a new tool. As may always happen, it didn't go over as planned.

Because of this, you will need to open the file below and make a copy for yourself that you share with me.

When it asks you how to title it, please fill in the space where it says "full name" with your actual full name.

PERSONAL STATEMENT


Today's Goal:
This is the last day you have in class to work on your Personal Statements, so a few things need to happen:

• Proofread your work. Every time you start a new sentence, there should be a capital letter. Your sentences need to end in periods (or exclamation points, or question marks). 
• Does your verb tense match your nouns? Are you using the same verb tense throughout your essay?
• Look at your sentence length. Did you vary the sentence length? Is there a flow between sentences?

If you were to read your personal statement out loud, how would it sound? Sometimes reading a written piece of work out loud will help identify problems areas that sound weird. 

Last Ten Minutes:

On Monday, we are moving on. Now that the personal statement unit is over, we have a little bit more freedom in how we use our time. Not a lot, but enough that I am able to ask you to respond to the following questions:

We're moving on to fiction writing beginning next week. Knowing this, what do you want to be able to do and learn in our English class as we tackle it, and why? What would make your time in here the most valuable?


Your personal statement is due on Monday, October 10/6. Meaning your final draft should be in the document you created today, and shared with me. If it is not shared with me, it will be considered late.

Writing Response

Good Morning!

We'll be reading, as usual.


Goal #1: Revision
While some of you may have gotten good advice from some of your peers yesterday, we need to take a step back and work in smaller steps.

Today, you will work with partners. You should all be with new people. With these partners:

1. One person will read their personal statement to their partner.
2. The listener identifies at least one piece of praise, one question, and one wish about the reader's personal statement.
3. Trade roles.
4. After this process, I will give you all a copy of the rubric. Identify where your partner falls in each category on the rubric, and give some suggestions for how your partner could improve their score. I would recommend trading computers so that you don't have to worry about sharing it with them. 

Goal #2: Reflection 

When you return to your seats, after you've put your netbooks away, I have a small piece of reflective writing to ask of you. I will give you paper.

1. What worked well and what didn't work well in today's process of peer editing (being assigned a partner, reading, sharing suggestions, looking at the rubric)
2. What is working/not working in your personal statement?
3. What is your plan for fixing/improving upon those issues?