WRA 150: EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN THOUGHT

THURSDAY, OCT. 10, 2013

AGENDA

Housekeeping Disciplinary literacies paper

Community based asset inventory Interviews: Emailing your interviewee

Project Management What’s next

REMINDER

Final drafts are due by 11:59 pm on Thursday.

Any questions?

GOALS FOR TODAY

Continue talking about project three this time we will focus on setting up your

interviews, developing interview questions and sending emails.

Talk about project management and how this will help you structure and scaffold the work you need to do for this project

FIRSTLY…AN ACTIVITY

Last class I had you do a quick writing task about your major.

I want to revisit this, and have you all share with the class: what your major is, why you’ve chosen it and what you see yourself doing in five years

Basically, this will help take inventory of the disciplines in the room Which will hopefully connect you with peers

in your field.

ACTIVITY CONT’D

Now that we’ve gone around the room, group yourselves with classmates from your discipline.

Together, look at your program’s webpage What does the website tell you about what this field values?

What classes are required? What classes are optional? Etc. Take stock of the skills these classes will be instilling in you.

Who are the people that make up your field? Look through some of their profiles and see what credentials they have and the classes they teach, projects they’ve worked on, things they’ve published.

What are the implications of the things you see? Why has MSU chosen to represent itself in these ways?

After doing that, go to another university website for your field and compare/contrast what you see there with what you found earlier.

INTERVIEWS: EMAILING A PROFESSOR/PROFESSIONAL

Now that you’ve had the chance to investigate the ways that your chosen discipline represents itself within the university, lets focus on the people.

Hopefully by now, you’ve given some thought to who you could potentially contact for your interview portion of the research

If not, that’s ok. We’ll be talking about the first step in securing that interview: the email.

EMAIL

This may seem like an easy task, and it’s definitely a literacy you already possess—think about how many emails do you send/receive a day?

But this is a pretty high stakes email to send. Not only will some of you be “cold-calling” a professor/professional, but you are requesting something—their time.

So we’ll spend some time talking about what makes a successful email and what makes a not so successful email.

EMAIL ETIQUETTE

There are certain things you should and should not do when emailing professors (or anybody, really), especially when you’re asking for something.

That’s where email etiquette comes into play. This will not only serve you well for this

assignment, but in the future as well. So what are some things that you should include

in your email? Think back to the class where we talked about rhetorical appeals Ethos, pathos and logos: how do these figure into

what you write?

WHAT MAKES AN UNSUCCESSFUL EMAIL?

Slang Being impolite Text talk LOL U Bad grammar, punctuation Don’t be demanding Succinct yet informative

EXAMPLE

hey dr brown,

i need to interview you for class. Please get back to me asap. thanx

EXAMPLE

Most esteemed Professor Dr. Lee, PhD,You may possibly remember me from your Friday morning seminar this semester. My class, WRA  150: Evolution of Thought in America, requires me to conduct a research project about the literacy practices in relation to the respected academic field of my choice, computational chemistry. It would be most appreciated if you would possibly grace me with a few minutes of your extremely precious time. If so, we will never forget your benevolence on this most singular of occasions.With Sincerest Gratitude, Reba McIntyrerebarox@yahoo.net555-867-5309On-campus:  6 Bessey HallPermanent/off-campus: 123 Bacon Blvd, Chicago Illinois

WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL EMAIL?

Short and to the point, Uses good grammar, spelling Formal Courteous

SUCCESSFUL EMAILS

Subject line Short, relevant, informative

Salutation Dear, hi, sup, etc Professor, Dr, Mr, Mrs,

Madam, etc Who you are

Student at MSU Working on project for a

class Explain connection to them

What you want To interview them

Why you want it/chosen them

Avoid jargon (WRA150, literacy)

Compliment their expertise (within reason)

Make it easy Be polite: say please Give a deadline, politely Be clear, confident and quick Check spelling, grammar, etc

Closing Sincerely, thoughtfully

yours, etc Your name and contact info

Email/phone number if you are comfortable

EMAIL ETIQUETTE

Basically, this will be a practice in being a deliberate writer. Every choice you make does make a difference in the responses you get Especially if you don’t know the

professor/professional you will be asking—some will judge your emails very harshly, other may likely will not care if you misuse a comma.

This will also help you think about the role of audience in a setting outside of an academic paper (even though it’s for academic purposes) Audience always matters!

All that being said, these are just emails, so don’t spend too much time achingly deciding which word to use, etc. The fact that you are already being thoughtful counts and will reflect positively in your final product.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

This paper is a lot more involved than the first two papers you’ve written for class so far Planning, securing and conducting an interview,

researching scholarly and trade publications, writing an annotated bibliography, writing the paper…

Because of that, in order to manage all the moving parts of your project, we will spend a little time talking about what it means to implement some project management techniques to keep you on task. Risk management, task sequencing, eliminating time

and effort, managing communication

RISK MANAGEMENT

Consists of figuring out, ahead of time, what might go wrong in any phase of your project

Must then determine ways to keep those wrong things from happening And having a basic plan to deal with them,

just in case they do go wrong What are some things, for this project in

particular where you see some risks?

TASK SEQUENCING

Breaking down the whole project into smaller, manageable chunks

Setting deadlines for the completion of those chunks

When working with a group, part of task sequencing will also be figuring out who will be responsible for each task

Since you know the overall goal of the project, how can you best manage your time?

ELIMINATING TIME AND EFFORT Thinking hard—before you even get

started—about how much time each task will take you. And how much effort is required to

complete each task Plan accordingly to the conclusions you

come up with. What aspects of this project will require

more effort/time? Should you get those out of the way first?

MANAGING COMMUNICATION When working in groups, it is important

to work out a plan for how and when you’ll contact each other and communicate progress or questions/concerns.

This may not be as applicable, because group work has yet to be determined.

But how do you see the utility of group work and collaboration for this project?

Are there any components of the project where you think extra support might beneficial?

TO SUM UP

Project management, even on a small scale project like this can help you make the most of your time and put in the right amount of work for each task

Email is a big deal, even though it really shouldn’t be. But asking for things is difficult, so take your time in crafting an email that strikes the right balance between short and informative, polite but not cloying or disingenuous.

QUESTIONS?

Is there anything thus far that is unclear to you?

Any concerns as we move forward?

FOR NEXT CLASS

Draft an email to your prospective interviewee.

Come up with five questions you would ask this prospective interviewee (using the knowledge you gained from the reading you did for today) We will be talking more about the actual

interview process next class. READ

“Learning the Language” by Perry Klass in Reading and Writing Literacies