Thursday In-Class Activity

Good morning ENG 101 students. Right now Professor Schwartz is reading this to you. Hi Professor Schwartz.

Special Announcement: The syllabus reading assignment for Monday says to read pages 55-81. This is obviously nonsense. Instead read to page 99. Make a note in your syllabus. It's not much reading. Get your other work done!

Special Announcement: Remember to turn in your first essays to Professor Schwartz! He better not forget to collect them! If you emailed me about a Monday extension, check your email...I should have responded! If you haven't heard about this extension, check the blog more often! And if there's a problem, email me!

Special Announcement: Twitter is 10% of your grade!

Directions for in-class assignment

The goal of this class is for you to produce reading summaries for other students and for our class. To do this, each group will need to do the following:


1. Figure out what reading the group is responsible for.

2. Produce at least two different kinds of documents that summarizes the reading: one formal sheet to turn in to Professor Schwartz, and a set of notes so that each student in the group can post their group summaries on their personal blog.

The first two students from each group to post the assignment to their personal blog will receive a bonus point on their end of semester blog grade (this translates to an extra point of their entire grade, or the equivalent of an entire reading quiz). Students that do not post will have a point cut from their end of the semester blog grade (yikes!). Students have until Sunday at 11 pm to post. I'll try to remind you on Twitter (ahem!). I will read these on Monday.

3. To turn in to Professor Schwartz: Each group will turn in the following sheet to Professor Schwartz:

1. Have all group names at the top.
2. The sheet will contain a summary of the group's assigned pages (main ideas, written in sentences).
3. The sheet will paraphrase two important passages from their assigned pages (your choice of "important").
4. The sheet will contain one correctly written direct quote from the assigned pages (with citation).
5. The sheet will contain one paragraph that answers this question: What is the most important thing for readers to know from these pages, and why? (Paragraph = 4-6 sentences)

When Professor Schwartz receives a group's sheet and verifies that each student has their own individual notes for a blog, he can dismiss the group.

4. To post on individual student blogs:

1. Each student will take away enough notes to post their own answer to number five above. This can be a version of what they group turned in to Professor Schwartz, or it can be unique to the student. It's up to the student.

Groups and Pages

Group One

"Causes of the Russian Heat Wave..." (89-93) NOTE: This group must be able to explain the basic meaning of the charts. Include this information in their summary.


Group Two

Zeitoun (42-46)

Group Three

Zeitoun (47-54)


Group Four

Zeitoun (55-62)

Group Five

Zeitoun  (63-68)

Group Six

Zeitoun (68-74)