wait! before the assignment (and, yes, there is a lot of information here; read it all, and remember to gloss the prompt)

In this class we will be re-using (upcycling?) and improving-upon things that you have already done. In the first Lecture you saw that this writing process is called "scaffolding," and it is a very effective way of developing college/university papers.

Some of you can juggle the steps in your heads (with more or less success), but for many pacing yourself, gathering thoughts/notes, thinking about what added information you need to locate, and building up the paper in stages WILL help you go from "I'm not good at English" to "This really is not so hard; it's a process that involves following simple steps and instructions."

In this stage you are going to turn work that you have already done into a completed essay. The class already went through the listing process with the Too Much Stuff discussion. You used five-to-seven of the most unique and interesting examples from your list to create the short TMS Exercise (where you also were required to follow MLA-8 format, do a tiny bit of searching on the internet, and use a documented quotation from a source which you also created a Works Cited entry for). Now you will add on to that TMS Exercise and turn it into a fully-developed paper.

when you say "add on," does that mean we can use the exercise word-for-word as the beginning of this essay?

The answer is, "Maybe." If you scored an "A" or a "B" on that Exercise, then why change it? It's a solid openuing. But if you got a lot of feedback about needing to fix format or about missing your parenthetical citation or about having an overly-long introduction or (?), then you want to fix those things first before adding on more. If we go back to the building analogy (I don't know how much you all know about building structures, but I'm sure you can follow this), let's say that you started a foundation for the tiny house you are building. You created the wooden forms to hold the concrete and poured in bag after bag of cement mix. The inspector comes out to look at it and says, "WHOA! There is no rebar in the foundqation, so it won't be stable, and you dumped a mixture of Portland cement, sand, and gravel into the form, but you FORGOT TO MIX IT WITH WATER. You are basically expecting to hold your house up with dust. You need to go back and fix those things before you can start building the house on top."

The basic requirements

  1. The finished paper must be at least three FULL (so not 2 1/2) pages of body text; that does not count pictures or the Works Cited. Any paper shorter than three full pages will not be accepted, and any paper that IS three full pages but less than four full pages is trying for a "C" maximum (so that is an option).

    NOTE: four full pages is the typical length of a college essay, so I need to get you there.

  2. Any paper that is not in MLA-8 format will not be accepted; you will be asked to fix it, and it will be a late paper with the late penalty (see Writing Assignments page).

    If you are unsure about format and how to set up your paper, please go back and RE-watch the set-up video and/or read the MLA Sample reference file you were asked to print out; you can also look at the Student Samples.

  3. You need to use a minimum of two sources (you already have one) NOT from our class reading list. By "USE" I mean you need to quote detailed examples from them in your paper, follow those quotations with parenthetical citations, and have a correctly-done Works Cited entry for them on your Works Cited.

    I actually recommend that you use three or more sources here, and make sure the sources have a lot of detaied text, not just short tags with pictures.

Oh, and you absolutely may use pictures in the paper; it's a visual topic, after all. However, pictures do not count toward the page count; that's just the body text.

ok, enough introduction, on to the assignment

The assignment will be submitted the same way you submit your essays--as attached .doc, .docx, .pdf or .rtf files attached to your e-mail (personal or laccd; sometimes the laccd accounts do not attach files well), and sent to me at jrcorbally@gmail.com; if you have any questions about How to Submit Your Work or how to set up a paper in MLA format, please review the Writing Assignments page for our class.

Note: There are multiple parts to this assignment, but do not number them. You will move from one to the next writing everything in sentence/paragraph/essay form. One paragraph will follow the next (not on separate pages) with smooth transitions between them. Of course the Works Cited starts on a fresh page of its own.

The first part you have done! It's your opening that leads to the background paragraph on upcycling.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this is just your opening paragraph, NOT the material on upcycling, not yet. It will likely open with something like this:

The oven door handle fell off, and I opened the kitchen junk drawer to find a phillips head screwdriver to fix it, but when I opened the drawer, I was faced with such a mis-matched pile of random stuff, that I had to start digging. I found...

or

Needing my shin guards for soccer practice, I opened the closet door. Out tumbled an avalanche of...

You get the idea :)

At the end of this this paragraph you can wonder why things are so out of control; why have you let things pile up. And this would be a great spot to note that this is not just you; it's a common sitaution. You could even quote one of the reasons giving in one of our class readings (quote directly and follow it with a parenthetical citation); the quotation here is optional, but it's a nice touch, and it adds both ideas andd length to your paper.

The next section will start main body of your paper and will explain what upcycling is and put it in context with some background on repurposing snd upcycling. It should be one or two paragraphs with at least two early/historical examples including specific quoted details from researched articles.

The next two or three paragraphs will be the longest part of your paper and will look at why repurposing and upcycling is currently such a popular trend. And don't just settle for one reason; there are several; here are just a few:

Reminder, you are not JUST explaining in your own words; you are explaining, yes, but you are locating detailed information from your sources that support and illustrate your own observations. About 1/3 of the History and Trending sections must be direct quotations followed by parenthetical citations. These will sometimes give reasons, but they will also sometimes explore some unique examples.

In the last short paragraph of your paper, give an example of how at least one of the items on your list could be upcycled or decluttered with a clever repurposing solution. This will likely be from the last part of your Stuff Exercise only a bit expanded (not too much; this is still short; we have plans for this section later).

Finally, create a correctly-formatted MLA Works Cited page (Works Cited pagese always start on their own page, but they still have the header 1/2" from the top right), that includes entries for the two (or more; you can use more) sources that you quoted above. Again, DO NOT GUESS AT THIS (print out and refer to MLA-8 WORKS CITED INFORMATION file and the SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER and use both as models).

you can all do this, if...

...you follow the instructions.

Yes, I gave you a ton of instructions there; it is essentially a step-by-step how-to-build-a-paper manual. It's pretty much the opposite of a teacher standing in front of a class saying, "OK, go home and write me a four-page, correctly-done paper on upcycling." What would you produce? Where would you begin? How would you know if it was what the teacher wanted?

FINAL VERY STRONG RECOMMENDATION: gloss the prompt; be sure to create a checklist that you can refer to to make sure you have everything covered. If you need to review Lecture 3, well, review Lecture 3. It's still there for you. Go through the steps, and, "You got this!" :)