workshopping (& conferences) ENGL489 Advanced Portfolio Workshop
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Need to be in touch with me?
LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 ltorda@bridgew.edu www.leetorda.com |
Spring 2019 Office Hours:
W 3:30-4:30 R 11:00-12:00 F 11:00-12:00 And by appointment. Want to make an appointment? Click here. |
Revise/Rethink workshops (before midterm): For the first half of the semester, you will work with a smaller group of your classmates who are working on material that roughly fits into the same genre. Groups should be about three or four people.
Each week in the lead up to turning in your midterm portfolio, you will meet with your workshop group. How the workshop group manages its time will be largely up to it's members. I would suggest trying to read and respond to two people each week. This will mean that most folks will be workshopped twice before the midterm portfolio is due (and, as part of that portfolio, the completed revise/rethink piece is due). It might be possible to squeeze three workshop opportunities in. You are welcome to alter how workshops run each class--if you want to read and respond to everyone's each workshop, more power to you. Keep in mind that you will have about forty minutes for these workshops.
Once you are placed in your workshop groups, you can start to figure out the mechanics of it: who will go each week and how/when you'll get your material to each other. During workshops, I will mill around from group to group. I will have read everyone's material once, but may not have read interim drafts. I'm not in the group to comment, just to listen.
During the last workshop before the midterm portfolio is due, I will ask each of you to write about two things:
Please keep in mind that I require civil, thoughtful workshops in this class. You are here to help a writer move the piece from where it is to someplace new and hopefully better. You are talking about the work not the person, but the work is certainly an extension of the person, so please be considerate with your critique. On the other hand, if you just sit around telling each other how beautiful you are, you will not get very far either. If I get the sense that a particular workshop group is veering towards cruelty or, on the other end, mindless praise, I'll say something.
I will model what I consider a moderate, measured, useful kind of critique that is about the writing and not the writer with a sample of the kinds of comments I give to students. As I mentioned in the policies for this class, I don't routinely assign letter grades. I give extensive written feedback. I will share with you real feedback to real students (names removed of course). And I will talk about my philosophy of reading the writing of others--Reading with Love. You may think I'm making that up, but I am so totally not. You'll see.
Final Project Workshops (after midterm): During the second half of the semester, we will move to a whole class workshop system. Much of what I said above about the workshopping in the smaller groups remains true for the second half of the semester. I expect civil workshops. I expect thoughtful responses. There are a few things that are different:
Sample feedback letters
Each week in the lead up to turning in your midterm portfolio, you will meet with your workshop group. How the workshop group manages its time will be largely up to it's members. I would suggest trying to read and respond to two people each week. This will mean that most folks will be workshopped twice before the midterm portfolio is due (and, as part of that portfolio, the completed revise/rethink piece is due). It might be possible to squeeze three workshop opportunities in. You are welcome to alter how workshops run each class--if you want to read and respond to everyone's each workshop, more power to you. Keep in mind that you will have about forty minutes for these workshops.
Once you are placed in your workshop groups, you can start to figure out the mechanics of it: who will go each week and how/when you'll get your material to each other. During workshops, I will mill around from group to group. I will have read everyone's material once, but may not have read interim drafts. I'm not in the group to comment, just to listen.
During the last workshop before the midterm portfolio is due, I will ask each of you to write about two things:
- what did you feel like your best contributions to the workshop experience was and
- were there other people in your group that did a particularly great job at workshopping.
Please keep in mind that I require civil, thoughtful workshops in this class. You are here to help a writer move the piece from where it is to someplace new and hopefully better. You are talking about the work not the person, but the work is certainly an extension of the person, so please be considerate with your critique. On the other hand, if you just sit around telling each other how beautiful you are, you will not get very far either. If I get the sense that a particular workshop group is veering towards cruelty or, on the other end, mindless praise, I'll say something.
I will model what I consider a moderate, measured, useful kind of critique that is about the writing and not the writer with a sample of the kinds of comments I give to students. As I mentioned in the policies for this class, I don't routinely assign letter grades. I give extensive written feedback. I will share with you real feedback to real students (names removed of course). And I will talk about my philosophy of reading the writing of others--Reading with Love. You may think I'm making that up, but I am so totally not. You'll see.
Final Project Workshops (after midterm): During the second half of the semester, we will move to a whole class workshop system. Much of what I said above about the workshopping in the smaller groups remains true for the second half of the semester. I expect civil workshops. I expect thoughtful responses. There are a few things that are different:
- You'll sign up for when you will be workshopped by the first or second class back from spring break. Those folks who sign up for earlier workshops will not be expected to have a ton of perfect writing. Those who sign up for later workshops will be expected to be farther along in their writing process for their piece. Realistically, folks will only have the chance to be workshopped once for their final project piece. Sign up for a workshop slot here.
- You'll be responsible for making your material available to your classmates during the class a week before you are to be workshopped. For courtesy's sake, no excuses with this.
- Each week, I expect those folks who are reading the work of others to respond in writing via a short letter to the writer and in-text comments as needed--in a fashion similar to how I would respond to your work. And, again, I will have modeled this behavior with you all semester long. Remember: read with love. It will work out.
- Folks should respond to whatever is being workshopped as a reader first. You might be reading in a genre that you are not that familiar with and may not feel like an expert at. That's OK. Others in the class will step up during weeks when a genre they are experts at is on the table. But all writers need to think of all their readers, even inexpert ones, so everybody's voice counts.
- Bring two copies of your short letter to the writer and expect to turn one of those letters in to me and to give the other to the author along with the marked up text. I do not need a copy of the text with your in-text comments. I just want the short letter to the writer.
- Be prepared to contribute to a lively conversation about a writer's text during the in-class workshop. Please do not feel that because you've written your comments out that you are exempt from contributing to the discussion. Equally, it's not appropriate for any one student to monopolize an entire discussion. Workshop should be a discussion.
Sample feedback letters
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