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Task: Write a 4 page academic essay in which you evaluate your skill-level as a collegiate writer entering this course, analyzing the “literacy sponsorship” experiences that have influenced you to develop literacy skills crucial to your writing effectively as a college student. Use several insightful references to Brandt’s thinking in “Sponsors of Literacy” to help you explain different specific skill developments. Research Brandt’s ideas about how influential people, programs, institutions, and such function as “sponsors of literacy,” usually helping us develop literacy skills and raise them to higher levels. Like many research sources do, Brandt’s ideas provide us “analytic perspective” for explaining, in this essay, why particular experiences caused specific literacy skills to develop as they did for us. So carefully study her ideas defining sponsorship generally and explaining the way sponsors provide access to literacy materials and learning opportunities, raise standards that encourage development of greater skill, and give us direction in appropriating skills for particular uses (although we may transfer these skills to other uses that we find compelling). (These italicized terms label the central ideas Brandt covers in the major sections of her article.) Make it your goal to explain for yourself and me “where you are” as a college writer, who helped you get there, the skills you have to work with, and the difference they make in the quality of your writing. Process: Beyond what’s here, you’ll see more general process guidance in our “Daily Schedule,” but you should supplement this guidance – or even replace it – with anything else that you’ve done productively in the past. Use journal writing to explore prospective material informally, describing personal experiences with influential sponsors, relating these experiences to specific ideas from Brandt’s article in a way that begins to explain/analyze how they affected the development of particular literacy skills for you. Use drafting, feedback, and revision to develop your thinking/reasoning in even more persuasive detail and to organize it effectively – in the various ways typical of academic essays. Foremost, focus on asserting an evaluative thesis and on validating it through multiple supporting paragraphs developed in the Pattern of Practical Reasoning (probably more than three). This Pattern, which you’ll be reading about in the meantime, describes the types and “flow” of content readers expect in persuasive analyses (academic essays). Grading: The following criteria, described in our course Portfolio Rubric, apply to this assignment: • Argumentation • Analysis • Synthesis • Forms and Conventions • Rhetorical Situation I have to have a detailed draft and answer these questions about my own paper Give your partner’s draft an appreciative but tough-minded critical reading as you write your feedback, using the following questions. Number and letter your responses so they correspond clearly to the questions below. Explain your responses with appropriate/helpful references to the assignment, to RW ch. 1c on effective of theses (especially pp. 10-11, on common problems with theses), and to my D2L file on Practical Reasoning. Help the your classmate develop reasoning appropriate to this assignment’s rhetorical situation. Email your feedback to your partner and upload it to me in either MS Word or Rich Text Format. 1. a) Does the introduction quickly focus readers’ attention on how literacy sponsors influence literacy development, particularly the writer’s sponsors and his development? b) Does it refer to any of Brandt’s ideas to help establish this focus? 2. a) What is the paper’s thesis (the assertion of the writer’s view of the literacy level her/his sponsors have helped her/him reach as a college student)? (Copy it into your feedback.) b) Does it clearly and concisely assert the specific level s/he has reached? c) If not, explain and underline (in the copy here) the words or phrases that could/should be improved. 3. a) Which supporting paragraph (not intro or conclusion) is the most well-reasoned at this point? What makes it most effective (clear claim, well-chosen evidence [including research citations], clearly explained warrant [including research citations], its unity, its smooth organization and style)? b) Should it be improved before being used as a model for other paragraphs? If so, how? 4. a) List (as “para. 3, 5, & 6,” for example) which supporting paragraphs seem particularly weak regarding any aspect of their practical reasoning or style/expression? b) For each, list what aspects of the reasoning (or other qualities) need improvement and explain why or even how. 5. a) Overall, how well organized is the essay paragraph-to-paragraph? b) Within each paragraph is the reasoning patterned effectively? 6. How effectively are citations from Brandt’s article being synthesized and documented in the following respects: a) paraphrases, summaries, and quotations are introduced smoothly with a signal phrase that names the author(s) and, where helpful, brief describes the original context b) the material provides analytic perspective for explaining the influence of the particular sponsorship experience described as evidence for the paragraph’s topic-sentence claim e) the documentation (both in-text and bibliographical) is correct and thorough (although I won’t be super-rigorous about this – so just review the honest effort being made) 7. a) Overall, in relation to the assigned audience (the writer and me), how well developed and effective does the content (the supporting reasoning) seem to you? (For example, is it “promising but thin even for a draft,” “good for a draft,” “strong for a draft,” “almost ready to turn in.”)agn b) Explain this overall impression.