CVBF - Letters From A Skeptic (Week 4)

Let’s talk briefly about the Letters to a Skeptic assignment. Students really like this book and I hope you like it too. My main tip is to choose a correspondence that is NOT your favorite. Don’t choose a correspondence to analyze that you thoroughly love and think is perfect because it will be hard for you to state the limitations of the argument. Instead, choose a correspondence that you like but also find limiting in some way. The good news is that students tend to do well on this assignment. Good.

Now, some of you might be disappointed in the grade from your last paper. Here are some extra tips.

1. Make sure your writing is concise and pointed. Don’t waste your word count by restating the question or giving an introduction or conclusion.

2. Mark your paper! Literally, highlight or underline the key points in your answers. If you can only see one or two points in a response, that’s not an excellent answer. Each response should have three to four strong points Now you don’t have much word count, so you’ll have to be brief, but you must give me more than one or two points when you answer a question if you want an A grade.

Again, an A grade is excellent—it means you went beyond the expectations of the assignment and you wrote with excellence. And I promise you that marking your own work is a really helpful practice.

I’ll end on a note of humor. I found an old Mother’s Day card from my husband. The card only had a small space to write in and his message was pointed—he said, “I love you so much. You are the best wife and the best mom ever! Our daughter Willow is proof of it!” To me, that just shows how you can say a great deal in a few words if you get right to the point.