Week 4: Rain garden draft 2 due on Friday+peer editing Monday
UPDATED: Your useful Monday greeting ;)
Cognitive wedge (seen before) and this rain garden-oriented detail--> 
Arrangments/categories (four paragraps with opening and closing first person statements)
- Predefinition paragragh
- classifying (kitchen sink paragraph) OR illustrating paragraph (form and function show how/describe causality (stasis 3)
- what about the last paragraph for claim and evidence? Next week.
Take-aways for life: Definitions should be in the beginning of all documents. A preview paragraph is like a topic sentence for the entire document! Make this short and include either the numbered counting idea or use two key ideas.
We are going back to week 3 and retrieve some sentence stuff and paragraph stuff. I want you to see the counting out technique at the paragraph level and the document level. The magic number for the rain garden memo is two:
- Two related environmental problems: storm water events and pollution carried in that water.
- Rain gardens have form and function that address these two problems (form and function -- two!)
- Rain garden (RG) form 1 = above ground biotic plant material. RG form 2=below ground = layers of soil and media, in a depression.
- Two bits of evidence that reflect this pattern of two is that we can use the logos of numbers from Alan Davis/Low Impact Development Center about
- volume of water remediated?
- percentage/quantifier of sample pollution type remediated.
Now, let's think about sentences in these short Google docs:
Pitch the Verb (did you look/skim read last week?)
And, on to paragraphs (read these this week; fuller exploration next week. hint: sentences form paragraphs):
Paragraph Definition: think Architectures (did you look/skim read last week?)
Paragraphs with a Purpose: field guide to samples (we will look this week at mentor paragraphs)
Image by Felix Hu from PixabayNow, some words of aide and comfort to those who missed the first Eli Review cycle. Be on time for each other in the drafts portion of all assignments. What this means is that you post the Writing Task (Friday evenings with Saturday midday "halo"), which permits you to enter in the Review Task (opens on Saturday and due on Monday evening.).
For me, you have a week to turn in.
--
Wednesday preview: NEW arrangement item: dummy text using lorum ipsum (fake Latin to manage document before formatting/printing/publishing) to show you relative size of paragraphs PLUS cognitive wedge shape/size.
Think about counting out. Jennifer Lopez, will help us, truly!
Science references popular culture. Including JLo!
Marybeth Shea
Happy Wednesday! Last night was Mardi Gras and I wonder if you enjoyed food and frivolity. We are also still in Lunar New Year time. I like holidays that overlap.
Your ER Writing Task is live and due on Friday evening, with Saturday morning halo of forgiveness. Be on time for each other.
Today, we knit back and pick up the stitches (metaphor!) about the lorem ipsum dummy text document about the rain garden memo posted on Monday. Two new resources:
- Checklist (we are working toward all these elements!)
- Triangulating in on authoritative sources for Davis work without you hitting a pay wall (sending reader to pay wall, too)
Now, let me give you hints about the best referral links for the illustrating and classifying paragraphs:
- Prince George's County Department of Environmental Resources: look for their HUGE PDF of the bible of rain garden design -- The Bioretention Manual.
- The Low Impact Development Center (founded by Larry Coffman).
We can talk a bit about hidden knowledge within professions, too. Have you been to relevant Wikepedia entries? Let's talk about their ethos, too.
Hidden writing craft lesson: italics in foreign language words dropped into English. Did you know that Wikipedia uses a style guide? Here is the note about organisms that most scientists really need to know.
Read more (long web exhibit) about this condition, including pronounciation scenarios, at Grammar Girl.
Marybeth Shea
Friday, we made it.
Some details on how to manage the difficult kitchen sink paragraph aka classifying. Recall that this memo is, essentially, an elaborated definition. Definitions are key to human understanding. Here are details that you need to include. If you are unsure, well, select a topic sentence and simply list in tentative order what details this paragraph will include. Details that we need -->
- who -- Larry Coffman, then director of Prince George's Dept. of Environment; founder of Low Impact Development Center
- what -- early innovation to manage storm water/ow cost by mimicking what meadows/ponds/wetlands do
- when -- early 1990s, 1992 to be exact
- where -- Prince George's County, MD
Optional but can help preview the last paragraph/evaluation paragraph
Coffman worked with civil engineering professor Alan Davis (UMCP) to development rain garden evaluation techniques.
Now, rain gardens and other bioretention practies are global with likely millions of rain gardens now filtering storm water and trapping pollutants.
Recall that next week we will discuss fully how to use referral link citation. You have many choices but here are some sentence fragments/sources you can use -->
This information about the origin of rain gardens can be found at. X; the "rain garden" Wikipedia entry is quite helpful especiallysection X and the two linked sources at the end, see articles by Mario and Luigi in notes 3 and 7, respectively.
Many of the web page as the Low Impact Development Center hint at rain garden invention. The role of Prince George's County and the University of Maryland quickly emerge. Additionally, a quick discussion with MbS confirmed these details about Coffman and Davis. See also. X....
Quick reminder about how much you are learning in this process:
- logos, details about rain garden design/construction in the illustrating paragraph (definition strategy)
- ethos, especially of Coffman in storm water management and Davis in civil engineering, low imipact development, and environmental study design
- audience/context specificity: Jane is meetingwith the MD governor who will want to know the MD history of rain garden and bioretention practices.
- Topic sentences support readers and writers
- subject-verb pair early in sentence
- preview the point/content of the paragraph
- topic sentences are the tip of the cognitive wedge for each paragraph
- Cognitive wedge approaches help readers
- build knowledge to understand the overall content (became expert for the document
- allow readers with existing knowledge to skim content (be efficient readers)
- Others than you can think of?
If you are having trouble now, please read this week and last week. I think you will be in better shape. Also, have you built a working document of all the free sentences and sentence portions I have given you? Please copy paste them into a "crap" draft document for yourself. Please DO NOT keep researching this topic. Researching MORE now will not help you. Working with words, phrases, sentences, folded into paragraphs WILL HELP YOU.