Sythesis Essay Feedback

Hello Students,

Hopefully mid-terms have gone well, and you'll have some fresh ideas for the second drafts of your synthesis essays.  Yes, it does sound painful, but I spent quite a bit of time working through them providing feedback, so I'd like to see something truly polished where issues of content and grammar are truly addressed.

We all know how the synthesis essay works, and we all know that solid opinion is built on a foundation of solid sources.  How we use and interact with these sources separates good writers from great writers, and hard working writers from lazy writers.  A lazy writer thinks they can be vague and avoid opening a book, bloating up an essay full of fancy terms and nice sounding generalizations that only someone with a PHD is supposedly allowed to attempt.   How do I know this?  Because I used to be that writer, and during my first semester at university I got a lot of C's on essays which I thought were brilliant (and no, I didn't write them a week before class and develop a plan or outline.  I wrote them at 2 am and handed them in at 8 am).  I learned that my "BS" wasn't good enough, and in AP that's what we are trying to improve.  A second draft will add to this learning process and eliminate traces of what I just said.

Below are the scores.  Lateness was factored in, and I was clear that there would be a penalty.  Keep in mind that in university, many or most professors won't accept papers even if they are 1 minute late.  I am being generous.  "Source Contribution" is a score out of 5 for what you posted on your blog, and how relevant it was, and whether or not you added some commentary as I requested.  I am also being generous here.  Some sources were very useful and were featured heavily in many essays.  If you didn't post any sources before the essays were written, then I wasn't able to give a score.  I also thought about grading your contribution to "class discussion," but only a few of you would have benefited.   Point to be taken: stay on the ball, participate, and take things more seriously. If you want to bump these scores up, please produce a much improved second draft, which we will discuss in class.  You each have unique strengths and weaknesses as writers, so I encourage you to learn from one another.

	Alias	Content/10	Mechanics/10	Structure/5	Source Contribution/5	TOTAL
	Stitch	9.3	9.3	4.7	4.5	27.8/92.6%
	Gingerbread	9.2	9.4	4.5	4.4	27.5/91.6%
	Pooh	8.7	9.2	4.5 (-2 late)	0	20.4/68.0%
	Tom the Cat	9.2	9.4	4.5	4.7	27.8/92.6%
	Simba	9.2	9.3	4.5 (-1 late)	4.6	26.6/88.6%
	Peekachu	9.2	9.3	4.5 (-3 late)	4.5	24.5/81.6%
	Nemo	9.4	9.4	4.6	4.8	28.2/94.0%
	Elmo	9.0	9.1	4.5	0	22.6/75.3%
	Modapi	9.3	9.2	4.5	4.7	27.7/92.3%

On a side note, I found this article, which you may want to read for advice I hope you'll never need, never accept, and never become good at.  It might even make you laugh.