Unit 1: Writing to Evaluate
In Focus: Reviewing the Documentary
Summary of Assignment: In English 101, you’ve combined personal observations, analysis, summary, and research to develop and explore ideas. This unit will require you to use those elements, especially summary and analysis, in order to evaluate a documentary film. In addition, your review will utilize a clear set of evaluative criteria along with specific evidence from research and the movie itself that will help explain your conclusions to the audience. You will also conduct research in order to see if the claims made in the documentary can be verified through other sources.
Assignment Parameters: 4-5 page essay, Times New Roman font, 1’’ margins, in-text citations and works cited page formatted according to MLA conventions. (You must use at least 2 sources.) Process work will include: outline, 2-3 pages of movie notes, 3-column table listing criteria, evidence, and judgments.
Audience: Your potential readers are both academic and general. Academic readers will appreciate a clear thesis, organization, and correct documentation according to MLA conventions. General readers will want to understand more about the movie, using the analysis and summary that you provide in order for the readers to decide whether they should see the movie or not.
List of Documentaries: Each student will choose one documentary movie to review and post the title on the Discussion Board. (No more than two reviews on a specific movie. Check the Discussion Board to learn what other students are doing.) The documentary should be at least 60 minutes long (or somewhere in that range). You’ll write a proposal for your documentary review in class (this will also be known as Exploration 1). I’ll read these and make sure the documentary works for this writing assignment.
We will watch some portions of documentaries in class. I’ll have some links for documentary options on Blackboard. Any essays on unapproved documentaries won’t be accepted.
Points:
130 points: Essay with Works Cited page (should be organized, have a clear thesis, use specific evaluative criteria, and use elements of summary, analysis, and research. Essays that do not use all of these elements will not receive full credit. For example, an essay that is just summary would not receive a passing grade.
10 points: Movie notes (2-3 pages). Notes, taken during the movie, should include not only a summary of the main events of the documentary, but also your impressions of the material. (Does not need to be typed.)
20 points: Outline (should follow the outline structure detailed in Unit 1.)
20 points: 3-Column table (at least one page of criteria, evidence, and judgments).
20 points: Exploration 1 (documentary proposal). Proposal should be 1 to 1 ½ pages long and answer the following questions: Which documentary are you going to review? What is the documentary about? Why did you choose this one? (What is your interest in the subject and why do you think the audience will care?)
Assignment Outcomes:
• apply strategies for generating ideas for writing, for planning and organizing material, for identifying purpose and audience, and for revising intentionally;
• produce writing in non-fiction, inquiry-based genres appropriate to the subject, context, purpose, and audience;
• integrate evidence gathered from experience, reading, observations, and/or other forms of research into their own writing in a way that begins to complicate their own understanding;
• use a variety of strategies for reading and engaging with a range of material;
• use an academic documentation style, even though they may not show mastery;
• revise to extend their thinking about a topic, not just to rearrange material or “fix” mechanical errors;
• articulate the rhetorical choices they have made, illustrating their awareness of a writer’s relationship to the subject, context, purpose, and audience;
• provide appropriate, engaged feedback to peers throughout the writing process;
• produce prose without surface-level convention errors that distract readers from attending to the meaning and purpose of the writing.
Schedule:
Aug. 23rd : Hand out Unit 3 Assignment Sheet
Aug. 25th : Lecture/discussion—Understanding criteria and its function in the review.
Discuss Criteria sheets and outlines.
Homework: Continue working on 3-column tables, documentary proposals
Aug. 30th : Sample review handouts. Highlight the criteria.
Discussion: Research possibilities.
Write in class Exploration 1 (proposals)
Sept. 1st :
Read They Say/I Say intro and pages 1-29. Bring in thesis statement.
Watch: sample documentary
Group Discussions
Sept. 6th :
Rough Draft Workshops. Bring in two copies of your rough draft.
Sept. 8th : Unit 1 essay is due. Also, please attach your outline, 3-column table, movie notes, and finalized works cited page.
Writing: In-class reflection on Unit 1.
