7.5: Exam Review and Practice Activities

Following are activities and tips to help you prepare for the midterm or final exam.

A. Understanding Essay Structure

Practice 1: Reviewing General Summary-Response Essay Structure

Work with your team to fill in the chart.

PARAGRAPH 1
PARAGRAPH 2
PARAGRAPH 3
PARAGRAPH 4
PARAGRAPH 5

Practice 2: Reviewing the Components of Each Paragraph

Cut and paste each element in the right column under the paragraph it belongs to. Check with your team when you are done.

SUMMARY-RESPONSE ESSAY STRUCTURE

|c|c| PARAGRAPH & SUMMARY-RESPONSE ESSAY ELEMENTS
INTRODUCTION &

- Mention specific opinion from the article

- Add final thought

- State author’s thesis or purpose

SUMMARY &

- OSS: title, author’s name, author’s argument

- Respond to the point

- Restate your thesis

|l|l|

RESPONSE (1 or 2 paragraphs)

\(\bullet\)

&

- Demonstrate understanding of the article’s

organization

- Present your own evidence &

Practice 3: Putting It All Together

Use this interactive PPT to help you review the structure of a summary-response essay. See the instructions and a screen shot of the game below.

STRUCTURE OF A SUMMARY-RESPONSE ESSAY

DIRECTIONS: Move the cards to the appropriate place in the chart to show the structure of a summary-response essay. The yellow cards belong on the left (Purpose of Paragraph) and the blue cards belong on the right (Parts of Paragraph).

Move the yellow and blue cards to the proper box on the game board. The number in each box in the blue column tells you how many blue cards belong in that box.

Click on this link to access the interactive review PPT.

PAUSE AND REFLECT: Thinking about Your Testing Skills
Discuss the following with your team:

• Which aspects of the exam do you feel most confident about? Why?
• Which parts of the exam do you think will be most challenging for you?
• What Ideas do you have to help you overcome those challenges?

B. Paraphrasing Practice

Practice 1: Using Word Forms to Paraphrase Sentences

Paraphrase each of the following sentences by changing the word form (part of speech) of the underlined word.

|l|l| &

EXAMPLE: Physical fitness produces good

feelings.

& A physically fit person feels good.

1. It can be difficult to choose a suitable place

to study English.

&

2. With practice, most students can paraphrase

effectively.

&
3. Writing essays can be a challenging task. &

4. When I go on a trip, I check my purse

carefully to make sure I have my passport.

&

5. Today, many people are worried about

internet security.

&

Practice 2: Paraphrasing Paragraphs

Paraphrase each of the following passages using at least two paraphrasing strategies. Be sure to include a signal phrase with the necessary citation information. Compare with your partner when you’re done.

1. Illiteracy is a problem in many of the world’s
poorest countries. Even in wealthier nations
like the United States, many children struggle
with reading and writing. But in 19 cities
across the U.S., the volunteers of Experience
Corps are helping youngsters learn to read.
The volunteers, all over 50, work with
students in low-income areas. (Finn Brown,
Older Volunteers Help Children Learn to Read,
page 34)
2. "To look at an individual’s personality, you can

do four different things. First, and perhaps most obviously, you can ask the person directly for her own opinion about what she is like. This is exactly what personality psychologists usually do. Second, you can find out what other people who know the person well say about her. Third, you can check on how the person is faring in life. And finally, you can observe what the person does and try to measure her behavior as directly and objectively as possible." (Steven Funder, page 152)

Need more practice? Check this exercise out.

C. Annotating for Exams

Effective writers read a text multiple times and annotate (make notes on) the text as they read. This helps them to identify the parts of the text and how they fit together. Below are strategies for annotating an article that will help you to identify the author’s argument and points to respond to.

STEP 1. Get a general idea of the article.

The first time you read an article, think about these general questions:

• What is the article about?
• What is the author’s view on this topic?
• What evidence does the author use to convince me of their argument?

STEP 2. Find the important information in the introductory paragraph.
Review the article a second time. As you read:

• Circle the author’s name and his/her title or credentials.
• Underline a few key words or phrases in the first few paragraphs that describe the topic and that would be helpful to include as background information for your reader.
• Try to find a thesis statement or argument in the first few paragraphs that seems to indicate the main idea. When you find it, mark it. (Note that in longer texts, the first few paragraphs may be background information for the reader, and the thesis may appear later in the text; it’s not always in the first or second paragraph.)

STEP 3. Find information for the summary paragraph.

• Highlight the author’s main points. To find these, after you have read each paragraph, ask yourself the question: Is the point of this paragraph a new one OR is it just more information about the point in the previous paragraph? Mark each point.
• Look for clues that point to the organizational patterns used in the article.
• Think about how you will explain each point. Look at the text again and mark one or two details that are most helpful or convincing to explain each one. These are the supporting points you’ll use.

STEP 4. Choose information to respond to in your response paragraphs.

• Make note of the opinions or conclusions that the author draws in the article. Be careful not to select a fact or observation.
• Are there specific arguments that you feel strongly about and can respond to? What ideas do you have to respond?

A NOTE ON ANNOTATING IN A BLACKBOARD EXAM

If you are taking the exam in Blackboard, you are not allowed to take notes on paper. In this case, it’s best to use the essay box to take notes and to copy important sentences from the article to help you organize your thoughts.

Keep your notes at the top of the box, and write your essay below. You can delete the notes one by one as you write your essay, or wait until you’ve completed the essay to delete them all at once. If time runs out but you haven’t deleted your notes, it’s okay. Your instructor can remove them before sending your exam to the ENGL 160 Committee for review.

Practice: Annotating and Article

Use the Comments feature to annotate the following article. Be sure to identify the main idea and important details, the organizational pattern, two to three opinions you can respond to, and your initial respond to each.

Delete Facebook?
Dean Burnett (he)

As a social network, Facebook seems to be defined by its problems - and for several good reasons, too! When it comes to the social network, it’s not an isolated instance of mishandling user data or a single bad policy... it’s that the company has repeatedly mishandled user data. It has continuously made bad policy decisions, and even doubled down on them when criticized by experts and the broader public. Some of Facebook’s most pressing issues have been a problem for over ten years now. Other social networking apps have had similar issues, though not to the extent of Facebook.

We all know at least one person who claims that they will quit Facebook/Twitter/another social network but never do, or if they do, they quietly return a short time later. Why are social networks so hard to quit using? There are many reasons why, but one is that they tend to stimulate our brains in fundamental ways.

According to researchers at Harvard University, social interactions played an important in the evolution of our large and powerful brains. These researchers argue that when you’re part of a human group, your group protects you, feeds you, cares for you, helps you, and even provides you with mating opportunities. Over time, this meant humans were unable to survive alone in the wild, but did succeed in a group. Basically, we’ve evolved to like and need social interactions. Social interactions and pleasure are connected.

Social media provides us with the opportunity to socialize with others \(24 / 7\) effortlessly. Our brains gain a lot of enjoyment from such a thing. Being able to interact with others at any time provides us with the protection, care, and attention that we as humans love and require.

Similarly, a negative social interaction, a rejection, causes us immense pain. This is because of how humans have evolved: if your survival depends on being accepted by the group, being rejected by others is a matter of life or death, so positive social interactions are crucial.

We may want to be liked and accepted by others, but we also want to be admired by them. Social status is important for many species, and humans are no different. Social phobias are by far the most common kinds, so any time you engage with someone new it’s potentially very important, requiring a lot of effort. And maybe because of this, we want to make sure other people like us as much as possible.

Social media also allows us nearly total control over how others perceive us. We can choose exactly how to look and what to say whenever we wish to say it, rather than allowing people to judge us without our control. Using social media reduces uncertainty and provides a very comforting sense of control in social interactions. What Facebook and other social networks do is provide the social
interactions, connections and approval we desire, but because we can control these interactions, it is less risky and easier to do.

Facebook and other social media platforms give us the attention that we need for survival. For that reason, it’s pretty obvious why so many have trouble getting away from it, despite all its considerable flaws.

Many suggest that we’re "addicted" to Facebook, but that’s a bit extreme. Instead, Facebook is part of our survival as humans because of the social aspect of it. But then we figured out how to refine our use of social media and now need self-discipline and control to avoid the problems that come with it.

Facebook is like sugar for the brain: something we hunger after, but can ultimately be unhealthy and for us. And, much like social media, if eating bag after bag of sugar didn’t make you noticeably sick and had no detectable health consequences, it would probably be hard to stop.

? =0

²⁵

??=0

²⁶

D. Outlining an Article

Read the article below, then complete the summary-response outline that follows.

Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Slovek and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.

Like Slovek and Feist, many introverts resist being herded together. They prefer having nooks and crannies they can hide away in and just be away from everybody. Privacy often makes us productive. It’s one thing to associate with a group in which each member works autonomously on his piece of the puzzle; it’s another to be corralled into endless meetings or conference calls conducted in offices that afford no rest from the noise and gaze of co-workers. Studies show that open-plan offices make workers hostile, insecure and distracted. They’re also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion. And people whose work is interrupted make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long to finish it.

Solitude can even help us learn. According to research on expert performance by the psychologist Anders Ericsson, the best way to master a field is to work on the task that’s most demanding for you personally. And often the best way to do this is alone. Only then, Mr. Ericsson told me, can you "go directly to the part that’s challenging to you. If you want to improve, you have to be the one who generates the move. Imagine a group class - you’re the one generating the move only a small percentage of the time."

I’m not suggesting that we abolish teamwork. Indeed, recent studies suggest that influential academic work is increasingly conducted by teams rather than by individuals. (Although teams whose members collaborate remotely, from separate universities, appear to be the most influential of all.) The problems we face in science, economics and many other fields are more complex than ever before, and we’ll need to stand on one another’s shoulders if we can possibly hope to solve them.

But even if the problems are different, human nature remains the same. And most humans have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy. To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.

Article adapted from Cain, Susan. "The Rise of the New Groupthink." The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2012. Article link.

Practice 1: Identifying Key Summary Features

Identify the author’s thesis/argument, and make an outline of the main supporting points from the article. Compare your outline with a partner when you’re done.

THESIS/ARGUMENT OF ARTICLE

\(\square\)

MAIN SUPPORTING POINTS

\(\bullet\)

Practice 2: Outlining a Response

Copy two sentences or short passages from the article that include an opinion. Then outline your response to each. Have a classmate check to see if the statements you chose are opinions and to provide feedback on your ideas.

|l|l|l| & &
1. & \(\square\) agree & \(\begin{array}{l}\text { Reason for your opinion: } \\ \bullet \\ \text { Evidence to support your opinion: } \\ \bullet \\ \text { Significance of evidence: } \\ \bullet\end{array}\)
2. & \(\square\) disagree &
\(\square\) mixed response & &

$\left.] \begin{array}{l}
\bullet



\bullet


\bullet\end{array}\right]$ disagree

\(\square\) mixed response

E. Analyzing a Summary-Response Essay

Following is a sample student essay based on this article. Skim the linked article, read the essay below, then complete the exercises that follow.

In his article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr discusses how widespread use the Internet is negatively impacting our reading, reasoning, and writing habits as well as the way our brains are adapting to changing times in the media industry. While I agree with Carr that new technologies, such as the internet and text messaging, are pushing us toward a more superficial interaction with information, I think he overstates the internet’s negative impact and ignores simple fixes that could substantially lessen it.

Carr argues that while the internet has many advantages, our nonstop use of it for work, school, and leisure is negatively impacting us by rewiring our brains and changing how we interact with information. Carr believes that the Internet is transforming us into easily distractible decoders of information who are losing our ability to interpret text and to make deeper critical connections between ideas. Carr approaches his argument from a personal standpoint, describing his own experiences with struggling to concentrate on complex texts because he has gotten used to consuming information in small snippets and quickly skipping from link to link. He cites the work of researcher Marianne Wolf, specifically the elemental differences between reading an ideogram language and an alphabet language, to show that how we read shapes the circuitry of our brains and how we interpret the world. Carr goes even further to argue that not only is the internet shaping how we interact with ideas, it is shaping how ideas are presented to us. As an example, he describes the New York Times’s recent decision to provide brief summaries of all of their stories so that readers can skim the headlines and main ideas of stories all in one place rather than having to read entire articles. In the end, he emphasizes that by relying on the Internet for information, we sacrifice the traditional culture that enhances our capacity to think.

In speaking about his own experience, Carr argues that "what the internet seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the internet distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." Here he compares how he currently interacts with information to how he used to before he started relying so much on the internet, and he laments how his capacity to think deeply has decreased as he has become more accustomed to how information is presented on the internet. I agree with Carr’s assessment of his recent lack of ability to interact deeply with ideas and his
disappointment with this because I’ve noticed the same issue in my own experience. Over the years, and I use the internet more and more, I have found that I have less patience for engaging with complex ideas, and I prefer to consume information on a surface level. Even while skimming an internet newspaper, I cannot be bothered to read the whole article but prefer to skim the headline and the one-sentence summary that typically appears at the beginning of the article. This summary seems to be a new development; I don’t think newspapers always had them but that, like the New York Times’s summary page, they have become more popular recently in response to how people prefer to consume the news. Like Carr, I miss the "deep reading" that used to come so naturally to me.

While I can relate to Carr’s observation of how his reading has changed, I believe that he is overstating the negative impact of the internet and ignoring the very solution he mentions in the article. In summarizing the work of researcher Marianne Wolf, Carr says "Reading is not an instinctive skill for human beings the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand." While he acknowledges that reading is a skill that requires practice and consistent skill building, he fails to make the connection between this idea and the issue he’s describing throughout the article. If our overreliance on the internet causes us to lose our ability to concentrate on complex texts, the solution is to periodically disengage from the internet and mindfully practice reading and engaging with complex texts. Or alternately, we can use the internet to seek out deeper analyses of complex ideas from time to time. If Carr wants to reverse the negative effects of his internet consumption on his thinking, he needs to change his habits and "reteach his mind" how to effectively engage with complex texts. Or, to use the metaphor he employs in the article, he needs to relearn how to scuba dive rather than only choosing to use his Jet Ski.

In "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr blames his increased internet use for negatively impacting how he reads and interacts with information. While I have noticed this trend in my personal experience, I believe it can be reversed with focused engagement with deeper reading and complex ideas. As Carr stated, reading is not automatic and requires work; perhaps breaking that work into smaller, focused tasks will make it more manageable and help to build back the skills that were lost.

Work Cited

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?." The Atlantic. July/August 2008. Web.

PRACTICE 1: Analyzing the Structure of a Summary-Response Essay
A. Complete the outline for the essay "Summary-Response of "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

|c|c|

One-Sentence

Summary

& author’s name + title + author’s thesis
&

Student

Writer’s Thesis

&

|c|cc|

Organizational

Pattern

(highlight one)

& List of Items Cause/Effect Pro/Con \(\quad\) Definition &
Compare/Contrast \(\quad\) Problem/Solution \(\quad\) Other: & &

Important

Supporting

Details

(words and

phrases only)

&

Use the organizational pattern to help you identify important ideas. List

bullet points and summarize the details included in the paragraph; do not

copy complete sentences from the essay.

&

|c|c|
Quotations from Author &

Reactions and Examples

(Summarize the writer’s ideas.)

&
&

PRACTICE 2: Digging Deeper into a Summary-Response Essay
A. Analyze the sample essay and answer the following questions.

Paragraph 1 (Introduction)

In his article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr discusses how widespread use the Internet is negatively impacting our reading, reasoning, and writing habits as well as the way our brains are adapting to changing times in the media industry. While I agree with Carr that new technologies, such as the internet and text messaging, are pushing us toward a more superficial interaction with information, I think he overstates the internet’s negative impact and ignores simple fixes that could substantially lessen it.

1. How many sentences are in the Introduction?
2. Underline Sentence 1. What’s the purpose of the first sentence? What’s included in the first sentence?
3. Italicize Sentence 2. What’s the purpose of the second sentence? What’s included in the second sentence?

Paragraph 2 (Summary)

Carr argues that while the internet has many advantages, our nonstop use of it for work, school, and leisure is negatively impacting us by rewiring our brains and changing how we interact with information. Carr believes that the Internet is transforming us into easily distractible decoders of information who are losing our ability to interpret text and to make deeper critical connections between ideas. Carr approaches his argument from a personal standpoint, describing his own experiences with struggling to concentrate on complex texts because he has gotten used to consuming information in small snippets and quickly skipping from link to link. He cites the work of researcher Marianne Wolf, specifically the elemental differences between reading an ideogram language and an alphabet language, to show that how we read shapes the circuitry of our brains and how we interpret the world. Carr goes even further to argue that not only is the internet shaping how we interact with ideas, it is shaping how ideas are presented to us. As an example, he describes the New York Times’s recent decision to provide brief summaries of all of their stories so that readers can skim the headlines and main ideas of stories all in one place rather than having to read entire articles. In the end, he emphasizes that by relying on the Internet for information, we sacrifice the traditional culture that enhances our capacity to think.

1. What’s the purpose of Paragraph 2?
2. Underline Sentence 1. What information is included in the first sentence of Paragraph 2?
3. Circle any mention of the author. How does this student make reference to the author?
4. Highlight any cohesive devices/transitions. How many does the student use? What types do they use?
5. Does the summary of the article make sense to you? Which aspects are unclear?

Paragraph 3 (Response 1)

In speaking about his own experience, Carr argues that "what the internet seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the internet distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." Here he compares how he currently interacts with information to how he used to before he started relying so much on the internet, and he laments how his capacity to think deeply has decreased as he has become more accustomed to how information is presented on the internet. I agree with Carr’s assessment of his recent lack of ability to interact deeply with ideas and his disappointment with this because I’ve noticed the same issue in my own experience. Over the years, and I use the internet more and more, I have found that I have less patience for engaging with complex ideas, and I prefer to consume information on a surface level. Even while skimming an internet newspaper, I cannot be bothered to read the whole article but prefer to skim the headline and the one-sentence summary that typically appears at the beginning of the article. This summary seems to be a new development; I don’t think newspapers always had them but that, like the New York Times’s summary page, they have become more popular recently in response to how people prefer to consume the news. Like Carr, I miss the "deep reading" that used to come so naturally to me.

1. What’s the purpose of Body Paragraph 3?
2. Underline Sentence 1. What information is included in the first sentence of Paragraph 3?
3. Highlight any quotes or paraphrases. Has the student quoted the author and paraphrased what the author has written?
4. What type of response is the student using? Are they agreeing, disagreeing, or both? Are they using personal experience? Are they comparing it to another text?
5. Is their response well-developed? Why or why not?
6. Has the student added new examples for the conversation, or have they just repeated the original author?
7. Is the connection to the original author’s point clear?
8. Is the student’s response listed in their thesis? Highlight it in the thesis.

Paragraph 4 (Response 2)

While I can relate to Carr’s observation of how his reading has changed, I believe that he is overstating the negative impact of the internet and ignoring the very solution he mentions in the article. In summarizing the work of researcher Marianne Wolf, Carr says "Reading is not an instinctive skill for human beings the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand." While he acknowledges that reading is a skill that requires practice and consistent skill building, he fails to make the connection between this idea and the issue he’s describing throughout the article. If our overreliance on the internet causes us to lose our ability to concentrate on complex texts, the solution is to periodically disengage from the internet and mindfully practice reading and engaging with complex texts. Or alternately, we can use the internet to seek out deeper analyses of complex ideas from time to time. If Carr wants to reverse the negative effects of his internet consumption on his thinking, he needs to change his habits and "reteach his mind" how to effectively engage with complex texts. Or, to use the metaphor he employs in the article, he needs to relearn how to scuba dive rather than only choosing to use his Jet Ski.

1. What’s the purpose of Paragraph 4 ?
2. Underline Sentence 1. What information is included in the first sentence of Paragraph 4?
3. Highlight any quotes or paraphrases. Has the student quoted the author and paraphrased what the author has written?
4. What type of response is the student using? Are they agreeing, disagreeing, or both? Are they using personal experience? Are they comparing it to another text?
5. Is their response well-developed? Why or why not?
6. Has the student added new examples for the conversation, or have they just repeated the original author?
7. Is the connection to the original author’s point clear?
8. Is the student’s response listed in their thesis? Highlight it in the thesis.

Paragraph 5 (Conclusion)

In "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr blames his increased internet use for negatively impacting how he reads and interacts with information. While I have noticed this trend in my personal experience, I believe it can be reversed with focused engagement with deeper reading and complex ideas. As Carr stated, reading is not automatic and requires work; perhaps breaking that work into smaller, focused tasks will make it more manageable and help to build back the skills that were lost.

1. What’s the purpose of Paragraph 5?

2. Highlight the following elements of Paragraph 5:
   a. Summary of the original author’s thesis/argument
   b. Restatement of student writer’s thesis
   c. Final thought

3. What type of final thought does the writer include? (Underline one.)
   a. Prediction
   b. Recommendation
   c. Warning
   d. Call to action
   e. Other (explain):

F. Evaluating Sample Student Essays

One effective way of reviewing for a writing exam is to analyze and evaluate sample essays to determine what they do well and what they need to focus more on. Following are several samples written by students in past semesters.

Practice: Evaluating Student Essays

In the chart below, click on the final exam practice article for your semester and skim it. Then decide with your team which of the two essays you will focus on together. Read and evaluate the essay using the following evaluation form.

Once you are done, discuss your evaluation with your team, and as a committee decide whether the student is ready for ENGL 160 based on their essay.

|l|l|l| SEMESTER & &
FALL & "Combatting Fake News" & \(\frac{\text { Student 1 }}{\underline{\text { Student 2 }}}\)
SPRING & "Getting Wise to Fake News" &

\(\underline{\text { Student 1 }}\)

Student 2

SUMMER & "Teens and Risky Behavior" &

Student 1

Student 2

SUMMARY-RESPONSE ESSAY EVALUATION FORM

Evaluate the student essay based on the summary-response criteria we have focused on in class. Once you are done, reflect on what the essay does well and how it could be improved. Discuss your evaluation with your team, and as a committee decide whether the essay demonstrates that the student is ready for ENGL 160 or not.

\]

\]

INTRODUCTION, ORGANIZATION & CONCLUSION

|l|l|l| & SCALE & COMMENTS

First sentence includes accurate and complete

in-text citation information (author and title)

and an accurate and brief one-sentence

summary of the article.

& S NI U &

|l|lll|l|

The introduction includes clear thesis

statement that agrees or disagrees with the

article.

& S & NI & \(\mathbf{U}\) &

The ideas from the thesis are reflected in the

response paragraphs.

& S & NI & \(\mathbf{U}\) &

The essay is complete. It includes five

paragraphs with a clear introduction, summary

paragraph, at least two response paragraphs,

and a conclusion.

& S & NI & \(\mathbf{U}\) &

The concluding paragraph restates the author’s

thesis, summarizes the main points of the essay,

and provides a final thought.

& S & NI & \(\mathbf{U}\) &

SUMMARY

|l|ll|l| & &

The summary begins with the main argument of

the article.

& S \(\quad\) NI \(\quad\) U & &

The summary includes all major supporting

points and important details and examples

without recounting them in excessive detail. The

various supporting points are presented in a

balanced manner.

& S NI & &

The relationship between various points of the

summary are clearly and effectively shown

& & &

through a variety of cohesive devices and

transitions. The organizational pattern of the

text is clear (pro/con, problem/solution,

cause/effect, compare/contrast).

& S & NI &

There are references to the author or the article

throughout the summary. The last name of the

author is used.

& S NI & &

RESPONSE

CRITERIA	SCALE	COMMENTS
The writer mentions the specific points from the article that they are focusing on in the response paragraphs.	S NI U
The writer utilizes various strategies and a variety of evidence to respond to the article (agree; disagree; personal experience; references to history, current issues, culture, or other texts)	S NI U
The responses are sufficiently developed using specific examples that are relevant to the point being made.	S NI U
The response paragraphs show evidence of critical thinking (criticize the text, question the text, provide solutions or alternative ideas the text hasn’t mentioned).	S NI U

|l|l|l| & SCALE &

Grammar and Sentence Structure. Grammar is

accurate. Verb tense is consistent. No or

minimal errors in verb and pronoun use, missing

words, word order, agreement, and other

grammatical structures. Sentences are clear,

correct, and complete.

& S NI U &

Vocabulary. Word choice is precise and

effective. Word forms are correct.

& S NI U &

Mechanics. Spelling, capitalization and

punctuation

& S NI U &

YOUR REFLECTION

Once you’ve completed the rubric, reflect on the student’s performance.

What did the student do well? List 2 positives of this essay.
1.
2.

What does the student need to review? List 2 negatives of this essay.
1.
2.

COMMITTEE DECISION

After reflecting, discuss your evaluation with your committee team, and make a decision together.

|l|l|l| STUDENT & COMMITTEE DECISION & EVIDENCE FOR YOUR DECISION
Student 1 &

\(\square\) ENGL 160

\(\square\) EAP II

&
Student 2 &

\(\square\) ENGL 160

\(\square\) EAP II

&

G. End of Semester Reflection (Review for Final Exam)

Practice 1: Review

Take a look at the diagnostic essay you wrote during the first week of the semester. Fill in the chart based on what you wrote at the beginning of the semester.

ORGANIZATION

|c|c|c|c| 1. Was the essay organized in a logical fashion? & YES & NO & SO-SO
2. Did the essay have correct summary-response essay organization? If not, what was it missing? & YES & NO & SO-SO

1. Did the summary include the most important main ideas and supporting details from the reading? & YES & NO & SO-SO
2. Did the summary include only necessary details? Explain any issues with unnecessary details. & YES & NO & SO-SO
3. Did you effectively use transitions throughout the summary? Explain any issues with transitions. & YES & NO & SO-SO

1. Did you select a quote or a specific point from the author that is relevant to the overall argument of the article? Did you choose a fact or opinion? (Circle one.) & YES & NO & SO-SO

2. What strategies is the writer using to respond? Check all that apply.

Give specific examples from the essay.

&
3. Is the response well developed? & YES & NO & SO-SO
4. Does the response show adequate critical thinking? & YES & NO & SO-SO

Practice 2: Reflect

Answer the following questions in as much detail as possible.

Compare the writer you were at the beginning of the semester and the writer you are now.

• What have you learned in terms of organization, reading strategies, time management, academic texts, integrating sources, argumentation, and critical thinking?
• How have you grown?

If you could give two pieces of advice to yourself at the beginning of the semester, what would they be?
1.
2.