College Writing

As a first post on your blog and an introduction, write a chunky paragraph or several (about 250 words, or more, if you want) that tells us something about who you are as a writer and/or a reader. You might want to think over questions such as the following: what were some memorable pieces of writing (or reading) you did as you were growing up? what writing do you do these days (think about writing to connect to friends and family, work-related writing, writing for self-expression and/or to relieve stress)? how do you write? where? do you have favorite utensils? favorite kinds of paper? who were some influential writing teachers you had and why? what were the stages in your development as a writer and reader? what do you see as your strengths and weaknesses as a writer or reader now? what would you like to work on during this semester with respect to your writing? You may also want to include where you stand on the paper vs. screen issue. Of course, you do not need to answer all of these questions!  Any questions of that sort (or other similar ones you might think of) are fair game for this “assignment.”

Feel free to approach this as “creatively” as you’d like. Some of my students in the past have responded to this prompt with a poem. If you’d like to include something visual, a photograph or several, to illustrate your words, go right ahead!

(And don’t tell me, as one of my students did, that you are not a writer! You’ve been a writer from the first time you started putting words on paper, maybe at age three or four.) Here’s a sample from my daughter. Bonus points to first person who can identify this in comments!

I’ve only met with three classes now, but already we’ve run into a lot of problems with setting up blogs, particularly with the verification step google often uses (sending verification code via text message to your cellphone).  If you’ve been able to set up your google blog via blogger, please go ahead and send/give me its URL. (Note that this is the blog address you see in the address bar when you are “outside” the blog, using the “View blog” button. It ends with .blogspot.com and what precedes that is the text you typed in the bar as you set up the blog. If you don’t follow thyis, DON’T WORRY.We’ll talk more about this in class, and I’ll be available to meet with students individually.)

For those of you who have run into problems, with blogger.com, if you’re comfortable with technology please go ahead instead to edublogs.org and set up an account there instead. YOU DO NOT NEED BOTH: it’s one or the other. It’s really a straight-forward process…promise!!! If you’re not comfortable doing that by yourself, I’ll be glad to walk you through it in class, or come see me during an office hour. I’m pretty available this week (before I start work in Writing Center next week, so stop by K226 or send me an email if you want to see when I’m free.) If you do get an edublogs account set up, please send me the URL for that.

If you haven’t had class yet, don’t worry about this–we’ll talk it over when I see you.

SPECIAL NOTE FOR EDUBLOGS PEOPLE: I didn’t choose edublogs to start because as you’ve seen it’s a little messy “under the hood”–that dashboard is an awfully busy page. I just noticed yesterday, though, that there’s a button on neat the top right of dashboard that says “Activate easy mode.” If you click that, the layout is much cleaner.

For an introduction to the course, please read over the material in the drop-down menu labelled “Intro” at the left of the menu bar. In particular, a short video in the section “Starting out” will give you a short tour of this course space.

Assignments for the first week of class will be posted here (and in sidebar to the right) by mid-afternoon tomorrow (1/24).

From peer group list below, find your name and identify the two (or three) other students in your group. Read those essays, using links on the right,and post a comment on your group members’ essays that includes the following info:

• What seems to be the main “message” of the essay? What does the author seem to be saying about this experience/person/etc. that you can connect to on a more universal level? Point out any resonant lines that seem to have particular significance or emotional power (which may or may not be developed in the rest of the essay).
• Consider the writer’s use of specific detail. Identify any particularly sharp, effective use of detail (by para. number or context, as in “I really get a clear picture of Uncle Eddie”). Indicate places where you think the writer might add more detail (eiter because something is unclear or could be made more vivid or engaging or understandable). If possible, include questions for the writer: “Could you give an example of a time when yr gramma was cruel?”, “This seems to be the crucial scene of the essay. Maybe add some dialogue here?”)
• What is/are the most successful aspects of the draft? What/s working well? You might indicate a particular part of the essay (lead, fight scene, reflection at the end) or point to the author’s voice or tone, choice of subject matter, vivid descriptions, wonderful style, etc.

Here are the instructions for peer reviews of summaries. For all of my classes, these reviews should be done by mid-week (Wed. 11/17 or 11/18). Links are posted below the instructions to get you directly to the summaries of article you read.

I will post some general comments here after I give a few more people a chance to get summaries posted. In the meantime, if you have read and summarized an article, please review the summaries of two other people who read the same article you did (as comments to their blog posts). These people may be in your section or in one of my other sections. Try to select summaries that have either  one or zero reviews already posted so that everyone can get some feedback. Address the following issues:

• Is the summary accurate? (If not, please indicate how you believe the summary-author has misunderstood the article-author)?
• Is the summary complete? (If not, what main points do you think are missing)?
• Is the summary objective, representing fairly the argument of the article-author? (If not, where do you find the summary-author responding or evaluating the article rather than “merely” summarizing.)
• Does the summary-author use his/her own words appropriately to avoid any charges of plagiarism (or quotation marks where he/she uses exact wording from the article)? If not, please indicate problem areas.

Once you get your ethnography posted on blog, it’s time for peer review (please try to get it done by Wed. since final drafts are due before break). Rather than assigning peer review groups, this time we’ll try it free-form: comment on two ethnographies, picking ones that have either no or one peer review.

In your comments, please address the following issues:

Is the level of detail sufficient to let you see what’s going on in the subculture? Does the author describe the fieldsite and seem to report on specific observations made at the site? What details work best? Where might details be added?

What seems to be the author’s focus? What is the main point the author makes about this subculture?

Comment on the structure. Is the essay arranged chronologically, by subtopic, or by some other organizing principle? Is the structure consistent? Does it work well? What are other ways to organize the material that the author might want to consider?

Read with a pen, marking any of the following sorts of things that you notice:

• any particularly sharp images or details that catch yr attention
• any resonant lines (that is, lines that seem especially important, that focus the piece in some way)
• any word choices (specific nouns, concrete adjs., vivid active verbs) you admire
• any other “writerly moves” (clever transitions, for example) that you notice

In addition, browsing through Brevity would be a great way to get a sense of the enormous variety of subjects covered in personal essays and also an appreciation for just how much a writer can convey in 750 words (the maximum length of the essays published there). Note that there’s a link on the left of Brevity homepage to past issues.

Finally, a bit of inspiration from an interview with Meredith Hall:

Actually, I think a couple things are going on. One is there are moments in my life, not large events so much as very distinct moments, that tug at my memory and tug at my desire to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and understand. But, mostly, as a writer they catch my attention. I know they’re big moments; I know they’re moments that are waiting to be exploded into a larger understanding, and I can’t do that in my head so I end up doing it on paper. But I’m very aware that they hold some potential for a discovery beyond the moment itself.[...]

So I think probably all of them, those obsessive images, I suspect, for each of us, are about difficulties in our lives. They get hazy in our memory of happiness or times we are at peace in our lives. And these images are jarring to us because we’re not yet at peace with them. I think writing is a way, in part, to come to terms with them.

For a writing assignment, please write 1 or 2 pages (or more, if you’re on a roll) that explain something about your history as a reader and/or writer. (Traditionally these are referred to as literacy narratives.) For inspiration you can browse through Chapter 2 in the course text. You may approach this in any way you like, focusing on a single pivotal experience or a series of experiences as your literacy has developed, or perhaps on a person or several people important in fostering (or obstructing) your progress. You might describe the three or four most important pieces of writing you’ve done over the past few years (or your lifetime as a writer). Or you may want to consider where you are as a writer/reader starting out your college career and what you hope to accomplish in this lass. Here’s an example from my blog that talks about my history as a reader. I’d prefer to have these typed, but hand-written is acceptable. They can be hard copy you turn in during class or you may email to me if you don’t have a printer.

To recap what I said in class yesterday, remember that yr role in peer review is to serve as a friendly responder who recognizes that the piece of writing you are commenting on is a work in progress. Keep yr focus on the writing itself, not on yr response to what has gone on in the writer’s life. Try to keep yr tone supportive but helpful at the same time (praise alone will not be too useful to the writer who sits down to revise the piece). Be as specific as possible, giving reasons for why you admire a particular aspect of the writing and explanations of just how you think another aspect or section or sentence might be improved.

Aim at providing for the writer 10 or 12 marginal comments, including the following:

• identify phrases or sentences in the text that seem to get at the main point you think the author is trying to make, what I call resonant lines (places where the author reveals his/her attitude towards the subject matter, his/her reason for selecting and exploring this part of his/her life)
• identify what you think is working well in the piece, what aspects of the writing you find admirable; this may include sharp images, well-chosen words, engaging introductions, perceptive or satisfying conclusions, clever transitions, effective use of sentence rhythms, and so forth
• mark places of confusion, questions you may have about who is doing what, when, where or about the narrator or other characters’ motivations or attitudes about what has happened or is happening
• mark places where you think the writer might consider adding or subtracting details (if more detail would help the reader to “see” what’s going on, don’t just write “be more specific” but rather ask questions to suggest sorts of details that the writer might want to add)

At the top where you can comment on the piece as a whole, please write a couple sentence summary of yr response, identifying the strongest part/aspect of the piece and suggesting what the author might focus on in revision.