Forum Objectives: Write a rough draft for your week 7 analysis paper and provide some reflections about that draft. Provide peer review of reflective letters and, if desired, drafts.

This week you are submitting your week 7 analysis paper. In order to get ready to do that, this forum gives you the opportunity to do some reflection about that paper and share those reflective thoughts in the form of a “Dear Reader” letter. This can be thought of as a cover letter to go with your essay. Note: You won’t be asked to submit this with your assignment.

Read this article, “Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking?,” which is linked here. Then draft a letter to your reader and make it your initial post in this forum. Use the following questions to help you write this Dear Reader letter.

• My intentions for this essay were…
• I wanted the paper to successfully do this….(talk about purpose and effects)
• I imagine that my target audience looks like this…
• The process I used to build this draft involves these steps…
• I arrived at the topic and narrowed it in the following way…
• My pre-writing steps involved the following…
• Challenges I faced included these…
• Pleasant surprises I encountered in the process were…
• I made a few/many changes as I went along and they were…
• I had to make some decisions that related to…
• The work we’ve done in previous forums helped me in the following way(s)…
• The primary take-away I want my reader to have from this paper is…
• My suggestions to others writing a similar paper would be these…

If you want to, you can post your draft essay in the Writer’s Circle forum this week, so your peers can look at your paper if they want to. The Writers’ Circle is an ungraded forum that provides a central location for those who want to share their drafts with others.

*** Since you are all majoring in different fields of study, and some of you may be using APA, Chicago/Turabian, or MLA for your essay format and citations, please tell me in your post which notation style you are using. The final submission must be correctly formatted with citations.***

Responses to Other Students’ Dear Reader letters

When you respond to the initial posts of others, look carefully at their Dear Reader letters.

• Ask them questions about why they made the reflective comments they did.
• If a peer posts his/her draft in the Writers’ Circle and you read it, provide feedback about the relationship between the Dear Reader letter and the draft. Do the statements in the letter match the draft?
• Identify where you see similarities and differences between the peer’s letter and yours. Ask questions to explore those differences.

Responses to Other Students’ Drafts

If you choose to review others’ drafts, these questions can help with writing your feedback.

• Does the essay have a good thesis statement?
• Do the supporting paragraphs talk about/illustrate/justify the main idea?
• Is there a counterargument and rebuttal paragraph that talks about the other side and a rebuttal paragraph that rebuts the other side?
• Are there any grammar errors?
• Does the essay have a good introduction paragraph and a good conclusion paragraph?
• Does the essay use 3rd person only with no signs of 1st or 2nd (unless sharing a personal story as one of the supporting points)?
• Is research used well and cited correctly?
• Is the essay format correct for the style they’re using?

Classmate # 1:

Good Morning class,

-My intentions for this essay was to inform parents the dangers of a younger age of children having smartphones. Also, to provide facts that have been proven as to why cell phones are dangerous.

-I wanted the paper to successfully post facts and information about why giving children smartphones was dangerous.

-I imagined my target audience looked like a room full of parents with kids under the age of 13

-I arrived at this topic of cell phone use because my niece has one and is always glued to it and it was narrowed by my daughter wanting one because she knows a lot of people that have them. While I find myself getting frustrated with children who I am around and they are glued to their phones I immediately said no, but then wanted to do more research on different reasons why.

-My pre writing steps were I first made a rough outline of what I was writing about and some points I wanted to make, some topics I wanted to research and then I started on my paper doing more research and going into greater detail.

-Challenges I faced was finding facts to provide for certain things such as how children can go around cell phone tracking etc.

-Some surprises I found was exactly how much information out there that there was going against the use of cell phones, because everyone has got them for their children these days everyone seems to disagree with me about this issue. So, I was shocked to see so much evidence backing up the way I feel about this issue.

-I didn’t find myself making many changes along the way.

-I had to make a few decisions based on the topic itself, because this could be such a broad topic and there are 1000’s of reason why I had to make decisions based on what I felt was most important to discuss about this topic.

-The work we have done in previous forms helped me because it taught me better ways to research, I specifically found the AMU research the most helpful and I was unaware of how to use this before this class as I am new to college.

-That I don’t think children under the age of 13 full/unlimited access to a smartphone without limitations as to when guidelines of specific times and places to have the device.

-My suggestions to other about this topic would be to just make sure your resources are from a replicable site. There are many sites out there on the internet that provide false information.

I hope you guys enjoyed this week’s assignment and I look forward to reading everyone’s forum post.

Classmate # 2:

Hello class,

-My intensions for writing my essay were to analyze what Intermittent fasting is, the benefits one can obtain from intermittent fasting, and argue why Intermittent fasting should be utilized by everyone if they’re interested in their overall health and fitness.

-I wanted my paper to be successful in doing this by promoting my argument with solid evidence as well as providing a counterargument providing evidence against the somewhat negative side as well to give my readers the big picture on the topic.

– I imagine my audience looks like any typical person trying to conquer the fitness world while maintaining a life of fun, food, and happiness.

-The process I used to create my rough draft was organizing my thoughts into separate columns for each paragraph, then putting bullet points underneath each column for important topic points I wanted to to cover.

-I knew I wanted to write about Intermittent Fasting because it changed my life and the way I eat for the better and helped me drastically reach my fitness goals. I knew that was my initial idea but It was difficult trying to narrow down my thoughts into the fewest points as possible but at the same time provide the most information.

-Im not going to lie, my pre writing steps included alot of procrastinating and alot of stress trying to find reliable sources in my research. It was challenging especially reading in the fitness world to find sources that really focused on the scientific evidence behind Fasting instead of having websites trying to sell you something.

-My only pleasent surprise was that 1000 words actually go by pretty quick and it’s actually a challenge to word your sentences to give the most information without going overboard or dragging them out.

-As this paper is still in it’s rough draft stage I am still making changes to my paper trying to get it right.

-Our last weeks forum helped me out alot with writing my paper because it kind of set the ground work for my overall idea that I would branch off of and organize.

-The primary takeway I want my readers have is that Intermittent Fasting is so much more than just a diet as it has numerous health benefits on top of weight loss.

-My suggestion to others who are writing a similar paper is to keep your thoughts organized. It was always a struggle for me to get my thoughts out on paper, but organizing them out before you start writing is a definite time saver.

***100 words answer to each***