Personal Essay Assignment

• 500-700 word essay about a time you switched between your languages and/or Englishes

• No specific format or style required (does not need to follow 5 paragraph essay style)

• Double spaced is nice

• Having a title is great, but not required

• No research, sources, or citation

Goals of the assignment:

• Practice writing as a process

• Practice balancing specific details and elaboration (evidence!) with general statements (claims!)

• Explore your linguistic background as an asset in your life

• Learn about your classmates’ backgrounds

See Rubric here

We will read about the history of Gustavus as a class, and you will get to choose one of the readings to summarize. (Sorry I decided to choose for you!) This summary will help you write your upcoming Analysis Essay.

• 250-300 words

• No citation page or quotations/citations

• Do not include your opinions for this assignment

To succeed in this exercise, you'll need to practice active reading skills, and perhaps write an outline of the reading to help prepare your summary.

Grading criteria:

A-B Range:

• Explains the purpose, context, and audience for the reading

• Captures the most important information from the reading, including the main point, and at least two examples of how the author supports the main point

• Does not include opinion or evaluation

• Summary is carefully revised for clarity and word choice between first and final drafts

• Verbs that refer to the author's ideas are effective and accurate

C-D Range:

• Does not fully contextualize the reading

• Misses some of the most important information, or overemphasizes relatively unimportant information

• Summarizes topic rather than claims

• Summary includes typos, unclear language, or other indications of inadequate revision between first and final drafts

• Verbs that refer to the author's ideas might be somewhat inappropriate or not inaccurate

Analysis Essay Assignment

In this essay, you will build off of your Summary Exercise to write on the following prompt:

• What is the traditional, widely accepted narrative of the international/multilingual history of Gustavus?

• What, in your opinion, is missing in the traditional narratives of the international/multilingual history of Gustavus?

• What have you learned in class readings, class discussions, and our archives trips that could be included in the Wikipedia page?

• Why would these inclusions be helpful? What would be the effect for readers?

Your essay should be 3-4 pages long.

You will need to use the citation style that is most common in your field.

You will need to go through the drafting, revising and reflection stages of the writing process.

You will need to target “academic English” in your small-scale revisions, according to how you define it.

See the Rubric here

Group Project Assignment

Based on your interests in the Analysis Essay, you will be assigned into small groups with the task of identifying a useful edit for the Gustavus Adolphus College Wikipedia page. Your proposed edit will relate to the international and multilingual history (or present condition) of the college in some way. As a group you will need to:

• identify an edit that is not too large and not too small

• identify at least one source to support the edit

• propose the edit according to the writing community practices

• respond to any discussion that unfolds on the Wikipedia editing page

• decide how to revise based on the discussion

• make the edit adhering to the writing community practices; cite sources in the edit according to the writing community practices

• take good notes during the entire process, which will help your group prepare for the presentation

We will determine the rubric as a class no later than March 5 and it will be posted here.

You (or you and a classmate, if we have a large class) will select an item from the archives (photo, document, etc.) and prepare discussion questions about that item for your classmates. Your role will be to facilitate, not dominate, the discussion. That means you will want to select open-ended questions that are genuinely interesting to you. You will also need to prepare specific talking points/ideas for when and if the discussion lags.

The aim of this assignment is to give you agency over class discussion as a scholarly act so that you feel more empowered to engage in future discussions in this and other classes.

We will decide as a class on the rubric by February 18 and it will be posted here.

Your presentation is a very short opportunity for your group to share what happened in your group edit, including the brainstorming, writing, discussion, and editing stages. You'll be asked to explain your decisions and reflect on the process as well as recommend future edits.

The class will determine the guidelines and rubric for the presentation no later than March 15 and they will be published here.

We will conduct this in-class writing assignment during the last class period, after final presentations are concluded. (Students will have until the end of the day to complete outside of class if needed.)

Please choose one or two of the following questions and reflect in writing. The entire reflection assignment should be 2-3 well-developed paragraphs.

• What does "academic success" mean to you? What goals do you have for next semester to be "successful" academically?

• How does your "academic success" relate to your "academic voice" in speaking or writing?

• What is one take-away from this class that you can use in your future classes?

• What is one take-away from this class that you can use in future writing/presentations/discussions in your professional life (not classes)?

A-B Range:

• Reflection is on-task, clearly choosing and responding to one or two of the questions

• Clearly connects personal experiences/ideas with class content (discussion, readings, or other activities)

• Each paragraph has focus, but need not conform to traditional academic paragraph structure

• Reflection elaborates on main ideas with specific examples

C-D Range:

• Reflection is not connected or only loosely connected to prompt

• Reflection lacks specific examples to illustrate and support general ideas

• Reflection evaluates the class rather than making connections with the class

• Reflection is too short to adequately address the prompt (only a few sentences)

To do well in this class, it is important to be a full member of the class community, which is a safe space on campus for international and multilingual students. This includes coming to class and meetings, being on time for class and meetings, being prepared, and being an active member of the class.

There are multiple ways to be active and engaged in class. Some students speak up a lot in discussion, but you can also be active and engaged by taking notes, asking questions, pointing out interesting facts/ideas from the reading, giving thorough feedback on your classmates' writing, letting your classmates know when/if you agree with their ideas in class by nodding your head or making a comment, and so on. Please talk to me if you'd like more ideas on how to be an engaged and active student.

In addition to class meetings, you will attend 2 one-on-one meetings with me, lasting approximately 30 minutes. During these meetings, you will receive individual feedback and can ask any questions you want. We will schedule the meetings on the first day of class. If you missed the first day, you can schedule your meetings as soon as you wish here.