Class Agenda 9-26

1. Working toward essay assignment one and the peer review

Review essay assignment number one.

2. Making sure we can discuss the science of climate change

Review the evidence for climate change we're read so far. Let's review what's most useful from these readings by working with a group to find evidence we can use in our essay assignment. Each group will be assigned one of the four major readings we've had so far.

a. New York Times article: "New York is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critics Warn." (Group One)
b. The Global Warming Reader. "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change."
c. The Global Warming Reader. "The 'Anthropocene.'"
d. The Global Warming Reader. "The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature."

 The goal for each group will be to find the following information:

* three references for the scientific information for climate change (evidence/data, important terms, and sources)
* any information about the consequences or effects of climate change

Groups will also have to give their best guesses to this question:

What does this evidence mean for anyone living in New York City, and is the city doing enough to prepare for climate change?

(Please note that we will continue to review the evidence for climate change after this first essay comes due. We will compile on-going evidence for our end-of-the-semester projects.)

3.  Drafting your letter: in class writing

After working in groups, students will return to their desks to begin composing their letters to Mayor Bloomberg. They should reflect on what their group found and discussed. Then they should begin to draft their own version of the following few sentences below in bold:

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

[Identify yourself, your class, and this assignment]
[Thank him for his time and attention: be polite]

Based on my reading from the recent New York Times article "New York Lagging As Seas and Risks Rise, Critics Warn," I believe that New York IS/IS NOT PREPARED FOR CLIMATE CHANGE BECAUSE [STATE YOUR OVERALL REASONS, IN YOUR OWN WORDS]. [EXPLAIN YOUR REASONS BY STATING THE MAIN SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE YOU'VE FOUND FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, CITING SOURCES.] [STATE HOW THIS EVIDENCE WILL AFFECT NEW YORK CITY]

[Explain to the Mayor what you will do for the rest of the essay.]

NOTE: The sentences you're writing in class are part of a DRAFT. They may or may not change as you create your PEER REVIEW draft for Monday. They may or may not change as you revise into your final draft.

4. Interpreting Visual Data - considering charts and graphs - explaining visual information - checking your sources

Non-scientific sources of information

(Source)

(Source)

(Source)
350.org

VIDEO (Link)
FACT SHEET (Link)


NOAA - information - scientific sources (National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration)

(Source)

(Source)



NASA - information- scientific sources (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

(Link)



Other Info Links

Oceans absorbing carbon dioxide (Link)
CO2 at Arctic pole (Link)

Thinking about transferring to four-year colleges?

Consider attending these (it's NEVER too early):

*  Faculty Research Panel (Oct. 10, 2:30pm @ E147): Students will learn about the rewards of research from faculty.  Flyer and full details to follow.

*  Informational Session: Columbia University, School of General Studies Admissions Director (Oct. 16, 4:00pm-5:00pm, Library Conference Room, E-101).

*  Personal Essay Workshop: Details TBA

Class News on Twitter!

Check your Twitter accounts!

Also, follow this blog to get emails on blog updates!

Also, can someone who is "following" this blog explain how they did it to other students? Maybe reply to this posting in the "comment" section?

Quiz #2

Open Note. Open book with evidence of notes. 

For class today we read "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change" and "The Anthropocene" in The Global Warming Reader.

Select one of these articles and summarize the main ideas for someone that has not read it. Be as specific as possible where necessary (who, what, when, where, why, how).

10 minutes.

Blog Assignment #2

(See syllabus for information on blog length)

Readings to Review

For their second blog, students will turn to chapters we read for 9-24 in The Global Warming Reader (“The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change” (75-80), “The Anthropocene,” (69-74)). 

Assignment Goal

Their goal is to explain the science of climate change to an outsider reader who knows nothing about the topic using these readings.

Different Parts of the Blog:

Telling their readers why they're writing and on what
briefly introducing themselves and the assignment
briefly explaining the main ideas of the blog (consider drafting and revising this LAST)

Practicing Summary
communicating the main ideas from each essays (the readings for 9-24)
communicating the important "specific" information from those essays

Focusing on some of the scientific evidence
paraphrasing the evidence for climate change in these articles.

Students choose what they want to focus on
This last part of the blog means that students will have to choose the evidence they want to use; there is probably too much evidence in these essays for students to include all of it.

Imagine the audience as someone you know
Since students are responsible for making sure someone else understands climate change, they will have to be attentive how their writing is read by others.

Before you stop writing, ask yourself
After they write their sentences, students should ask themselves: will someone else understand the ideas and words in this sentence? If students believe that an idea or word needs to be explained, they should explain that idea or word in their next sentence.





                
                                                                                                   
                                                                                      (Source)

Class Agenda for Lab; 9-24

Class Goals

The goal of this class is to continue practicing summaries. To do this, we're going to examine our first summaries that we wrote last week. Then we're going to discuss and write about the chapters from the The Global Warming Reader.

We're going to add some new criteria for excellent summaries:

They must contain the "main ideas," but they must also contain important "specific" information. We must remember:
* the title of article or text we're summarizing
* the author of the article/text
* to define the main ideas using "paraphrase" from the article/text
* to take note of important sources of information (experts, cited texts, names, institutions, dates, years)
* to take note of different kinds of evidence (we want to pay attention to "quantitative" data, like numbers, percents (%), and any charts/graphs                                                                                            (Source)

Agenda

1. Take Quiz.

2. As a class, we're going to discuss the New York Times article on climate change. Then we're going to read two blogs that responded to our assignment on this article. Then students are going to write a brief blog on their computers about whether they believe their own first blog fulfilled the assignment, and why. If their blog didn't fulfill the assignment, they should list the changes they plan to make to receive full credit on the blog.

Blog one (186 words)
Blog two (156 words)

3. The Global Warming Reader essays          (Source)

For rest of class, students will work on the essays from the reader.

First, they will go through their Twitter feed and see what main ideas other students Tweeted. They should note down the main ideas they believe should go into a summary (remember, students will need these summaries to help them write their first essay assignment, as well as their second blog). Students should "favorite" or "Retweet" any Tweets they think are especially helpful or insightful.

Second, students will work with a partner to answer the following questions (be sure to keep straight where you're getting your information, and use Google to look up any ideas or words you don't feel comfortable with).

Who is responsible for communicating evidence of climate change?
When have they communicated this? For how long?

What kind of evidence do we have for climate change?

Students should be able to explain the evidence for climate change to an "outsider" who knows nothing about it.

Class Update: Tweets & Twitter

This is a reminder to sign up for Twitter and begin Tweeting the reading. If there are any problems, please check in.

For students already on Twitter, look at my followers and follow the other members of the class.

For Tweets, they might look like:

"This tweet is summarizing a main idea from the reading (p 55)"

In other words, you can put down a main idea in your Tweet, but put the page number down, too, so we can all find it.

Library Day: 10/25 @10.30am

We just received word that we will be meeting in the library on October 25th from 10.30 to 11.30am. You will go straight there on that morning. Please mark your syllabus. I'll talk more about it in class. 

Brief Class Update: Monday

1. I see a lot of students have looked at this blog today, probably for the first blog assignment. Well done.

2. Several of you have started following me on Twitter. I just followed you back. If you look at my "followers," you might see some of the most recent are from our class. Follow them, too!

3. We have a blog due tonight. Remember that!

Suggested first sentence for blog...

In this blog I am responding to an assignment in my ENG 101 composition class on climate change. The assignment asked me to...In this blog I will discuss...

Twitter Assignment #1

For the first week of Tweets:

- follow the instructions on this blog and set up your Twitter account.
- Anytime before Friday 9/21: Tweet TWICE. ONE for EACH reading (76-80, 69-74).
- Each Tweet will be a summary in your own words (short!) of ONE main idea from the reading. Be sure to give the page number from the text.
- It's ok to use short-hand and numbers for your Tweets. They don't have to be grammatically correct. 

                                                                          (Source)

Blog Assignment #1

See syllabus for due date. 

(Source)

In this week's New York Times there was an article on what New York City is doing to prepare for climate change. For your first blog, do the following:

read this article and the first three comments under "Reader's Picks." Take basic notes.

Begin your blog by explaining to your potential readers who you are and what you're doing, and why. This should be about one sentence. We call this the blog intro.

Then, spend 100-150 words summarizing the main points of the article. Remember to be as specific as possible.

Finally, in the last 100-150 words of your blog focus on just one of the first three "Reader's Picks" comments to the article. Summarize the best idea from the comment, and react to it with your own perspective.

Remember: to credit your sources the best you can. When you summarize from the article, pay attention to where the article gets its information. Be as specific as possible about where the information comes from. The same is true for the "Reader's Pick" comment. Give the writer of the comment some credit as you summarize his or her ideas.

QUIZ #1

Closed Book. Open Note.

The short introduction by Bill McKibben makes a few basic points about global warming and climate change. What were they?

From the New York Times

New York Is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critics Warn

By MIREYA NAVARRO

Published: September 10, 2012

With a 520-mile-long coast lined largely by teeming roads and fragile infrastructure, New York City is gingerly facing up to the intertwined threats posed by rising seas and ever-more-severe storm flooding.

So far, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has commissioned exhaustive research on the challenge of climate change. His administration is expanding wetlands to accommodate surging tides, installing green roofs to absorb rainwater and prodding property owners to move boilers out of flood-prone basements.

Read the rest here. 

Book Title: Global Warming Reader Not Climate Change Reader

Hey, sorry for the mistake. Who still uses the phrase global warming? Doh! It's in the bookstore.

First Day Questions

If any of you have any questions, you can sign-in to Blogger and leave them as comments here. You can also email me at the address on the syllabus.

Terrific job registering with Blogger. We're going to get to know each other a little better on Thursday.

Remember to visit the bookstore and buy the books. We'll deal with Twitter and the rest of our activities on Thursday.

Have a great first week.

Hurricane Katrina. (Source). 

Diagnostic

For this first post, students should try to write 300 words.

Prompt: Describe a time when you experienced a shift in environment. Have you moved? Have you traveled? Explain to a reader the difference between the first environment and the second environment. Reflect and take notes. In an introduction, explain to your reader what you learned from being in both environments, and in follow-up paragraphs, explain what made each both similar and different.

Welcome to Composing Climate Change!