*Assignments (MW 8 am)

Wednesday, April 13.

Peer review assignment (to do during class). Here are questions and partner assignments:

Wednesday, April 6.

Rough draft of full text-wrestling essay (Essay 3) is due Friday, April 8.

By Monday, April 11 please post on your blog a proposal that indicates what research question you plan to take on. This should be an arguable issue (a question that people are debating, a problem that needs a solution, a trend or phenomenon about which you could make a claim about causes or effects). In a few days I’ll post a list of possible questions I’ve collected. Your proposal should also include the following: why you’re interested in this question and (briefly) what you know about it already; where you plan to look for information; what sort of a photo essay might connect to this issue. If you’re torn between two (or more) questions, post them both, and I’ll give some feedback, or if you don’t know how to adapt for a photo essay, please mention that as well and I’ll try to come up with something. (Not all arguable issues will easily lend themselves to photo essays.)

Next step will be to start research and post some sources as hyperlinks on your blog.

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Wednesday, March 23.

Ethnography rough drafts should have been posted before break (many are missing; I’ll get comments on ones that are up this afternoon, 3/22). Peer reviews are due by Friday, March 25. 

Here are questions and partner assignments:

• Comment on the writer’s use of specific detail. What are the most successful places where you can “see” the subculture. Point out general statements that could be sharpened with more specific detail, and give suggestions for types of details that could be included.
• What are the essential characteristics of the subgroup as defined by the writer?
• How has the writer organized the material? Does the organization work well? Do paragraphs seem to have one clear main idea (point out any paragraphs that seem to lack this unity)?
• What’s the most successful aspect of the draft?

Partners:

• Andrew, please do Chris; Chris, do Sami; and Sami do Andrew

Remember to double-post peer reviews on your own blog as well as on your partner’s blog. Let me know if you get your draft posted in the next couple days, and I’ll try to find you a peer review partner. If I can’t find one, to get credit for doing peer review, find someone who needs a peer review and add comment there.

Final draft of ethnography will be due Friday, April 1, to be passed in during class on paper or emailed by midnight.

For next class (Monday, March 28) print out, read, and annotate the article for your theme as listed in this post.

Summary part only of text-wrestling assignment will be due Monday, March 28, to be posted on your blog; full rough draft will be due Friday, April 8.

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Wednesday, Feb. 24.

In class today I talked about writing summaries; info is here. Students wrote three summaries. If you missed class and want credit for classwork, write a two- or three-sentence summary for three of the following short articles:

• “Some Microbes May Be Our ‘Old Friends'”
• “The Homework Parent Trap”
• “Protect and Restore Animal Habitats”
• “Popular Culture Can Inspire and Entice Girls in Technology”
• “The Vacuity of the ‘Vision Thing'” (note this is just the first of several articles; click on read more)

For next week, read info on Ethnography (under Observe tab at top of blog): What is ethnography?, On observation, Sample ethnographies, and the ethnography assignment.

For your next reading journal post , look at links on the top of Sample ethnographies page to find an ethnography that fits your theme (or google if you can’t find one that way). Post link to the ethnography you find, as well as a brief summary of the features of culture described (just a paragraph) and comment on how the writer has structured the ethnography.

Final draft of memoir is due this Friday, Feb. 26, to be emailed as an attached file (.doc, .docx, .rft, .pdf, or .pages).

Rough draft of ethnography will be due Friday, March 11, to be posted on your blog.

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Wednesday, Feb. 17.

For Thursday, Feb. 18, read the page Writing as interplay between the general and the specific and do the Writing Exercise at the bottom of that page, to be posted on your blog.

Note from below that peer review is also due on Feb. 18. Also remember to do reading journal post for the week.

For next week, read page on Revision. Final draft of memoir is due Friday, Feb. 26, to be emailed to me as attached file and (suggested) posted on your blog as well.

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Wednesday, Feb. 10.

Also read the page Thoughts on peer review. Peer review is due Thursday, Feb. 18, to be posted both as a comment on your partner’s essay post and as a post on your own blog. Instructions are here. 

Peer review partners:

• Briana and Elexis
• Matt and Sami
• Mike and Chris
• Damen and Paiva (Ryan)
• Evan and Andrew

NOTE: I am not making a peer review partner assignment if your memoir has not been posted. If you wish to participate in peer review, feel free to let me know when your essay is posted, and I will try to find you a partner (but no promises).

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Monday, Feb. 1.

Read the pages Keeping a reading journal and Finding articles to read (or videos to watch). Due Friday, Feb. 5 post your first reading journal entry (instructions on Keeping a reading journal page). Reading journal posts will be due weekly until further notice (approx. half way through the semester). If you come across a good article for reading journal, please feel free to suggest it, and I’ll add it to the list of approved articles if it seems good (not news stories, but well-written feature articles). 

Memoir rough draft will be due Wednesday, Feb. 10, to be posted on your blog by midnight.

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Wed., Jan. 27.

Read the page on Why writers need to read and the article “How to Read like a Writer” (which is under the Reading tab, under Reading strategies (it’s a pdf download).

Read the pages under the Remember tab: Why should anyone care about your life and Memoir: samples to read. Look online for a short and well-written memoir that would fit your chosen theme. Do not go to freeessays.com type sites that give sample student essays or just google “memoirs family” (for example), but rather look for more polished writing by sites that are edited/curated or online sites associated with print journals. Please post a link to the essay you find as a third post on your blog (second for the week; third total), along with a couple short paragraphs (the first paragraph should provide a short summary/description of the essay and the second your evaluation–why did you pick it? what do you like about it? did it give you any ideas you might use for your own memoir?)

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Monday, Jan. 25.

If you have not done so already, please email me the URL of your blog. (See videos on site if you need a refresher on how to do this, or if you’d like some face-to-face help, come see me in my office in A104–I’m free lots of times in addition to office hours.)

For next class (due Wed., Jan. 27) (re)read the info on Choosing a theme and More thoughts/info on theme proposals. You may also want to glance at the five assignments for the semester, listed to the right margin (called sidebar) on this blog. Then write and post on your blog a proposal for the theme you’d like to read, think, and write about for the semester. Include the following info:

• identify the theme
• why are you interested in this theme (what is your previous experience/background and/or why does this theme arouse your curiosity?)
• give two or three possible subjects from that thematic area that you could write about  for each of the essays (except text-wrestling–I’ll assign articles for that one)

Note sample student proposal here. You only need to give info for the one theme you choose, but if you’re split between two themes, you might want to brainstorm ideas for each of them, and I can give you some feedback about which seems more promising to me.

Also by the next class, please post a comment on someone else’s blog. Respond to something they say about writing, or make a personal connection of some sort (just to get practice making comments and to start talking to each other).

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Wednesday, Jan. 20.

During class today you will be setting up your own blog and emailing me its URL.

Due next class, Monday, Jan. 25:

Play around with your blog to get comfortable (but don;t worry if you have problems–we’ll go over things again next week).

Read the info under the Intro tab at the top of the page (Intro, Starting out, Syllabus, Paper vs. screen, Setting up your blog, and Choosing a theme) as well as the first post Welcome to spring semester.

Note that the Welcome to spring semester post asks you to read two articles on college writing as well as to write your first post explaining something about your experiences with and attitudes towards writing. If you have trouble posting that “writer’s autobiography” just type it up as Word file and email to yourself so we can get it posted during class on Monday.