Day 5: Conversation Between Artifacts
One way to understand how to create conversation between texts is to look at visual texts: consider where they converge and differ, and how we make sense of them in juxtaposition, and how the similarities…
Author: Prof. Mani
Day 5: The Conversation Essay
The critical response essay was meant to teach you a skill that’s essential for college level writing, namely the ability to critically engage with texts on their own merits as well as with your own…
Day 5: REM Cycles and Sleep Apps
The first piece of advice today is don’t pull all-nighters. Seriously. Don’t do it. I’ve done it, and 0/10 would not recommend. Your brain will not recover from the impact of sleep deficit, and there…
Day 5: AIC Method
Although this is written for graduate students and professors, Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s post on carving out time to read–reading quickly and synthesizing important information–offers good strategies for undergraduates as well: We’ll discuss a simplified method…
Day 4: Focus and Attention
On a good day it can be hard to maintain focus for long periods of time, so here are some apps to help you create work habits for yourself when you’re working on your own…
Day 4: Effectively Doing Peer Review
In which I ask myself and y’all about the kinds of feedback you’re used to, and what you assume about feedback, structured as a series of myths I see taking shape in some of your…
Day 3: Warrants and Inferences
An excellent Twitter thread about a short sentence authored by Hemingway, and what we’re prone to assume, and why (click the date for the thread): “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Hemingway’s infamous six-word is…
Day 3: Writing Center Tips from People Who Use Writing Centers
Columbia University’s Writing Center is located in 310 Philosophy Hall. When the year begins, you can use their online scheduler to make appointments with tutors trained to work with you on your writing one-on-one. I…
Day 3: Close Reading Practice
When you close read essays, particularly more complicated work, and especially when you plan to “borrow” structures from that work, you may want to review Carillo’s (2017) text on close reading. She reminds us to…
Day 3: Formulating Claims
There’s no single formula for writing a college essay, but the Critical Response Essay tends to be a little more formulaic. Separate from the Critical Response Essay, a general template for critical thinking might look…