College Writing

Thursday, April 12. Since we will only meet on Tuesday next week (Monday’s classes will be held on Thursday), please post on your blog by Tuesday (or earlier if possible!!) a proposal for your argument paper that includes the following:

• what issue would you like to write about, and why do you consider that issue controversial?
• what do you already now about the issue?
• how do you plan to conduct research? (where will you look for sources?; if you have any sources already, go ahead and post them as hyperlinks)
• how will you link this issue to a photo essay?

Once I post an approval (or alternate suggestion) on your blog, please go ahead and start research. Target goal is to complete research next week, draft essay the week of April 23, and turn in rough draft on or before Tuesday, May 1.

If you prefer to start with photo essay, please let me know–that may be possible as well, with adjusted dates.

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Tuesday, April 10. Final draft of ethnography due Thursday, April 12. If you turned in a rough draft already and need extra time, please feel free to ask for extension. If you did not turn in a rough drfta, you must turn in something by Thursday, or late penalties will start to accrue.

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Thursday, March 1.

We’re on a slightly different track in 8 am vs. 11 am class. Recap of 8 am to come.
Here’s info for 11 am class. In class, these are your priorities:

1. Get your memoir written and posted!!
2. Do peer review on two classmates’ essays. (Instructions here.)
3. Read the ethnographic profile “American Male, Age 10” ; then on your blog write a short post that explains how Orlean defines this subculture (i.e., what are the characteristic features of a 10-year-old boy?) and how does she organize the essay?
4. Read over the information about observation here. Watch the video (sound off) and examine the two images. Try your hand at writing a better description than the student sample given (a short paragraph is fine), and email it to me.
5. If you get all of that done, then post a proposal for your ethnography, a paragraph that includes the following information: what subculture will you observe? what fieldsite (real-world or virtual) or will you do a profile? what do you know already about this subculture? how will you access it? what are your plans for observation and interview?

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Wednesday, Feb. 29 (run-down of next few weeks’ worth of due dates). The main goals for the week are to do peer review on memoirs and to read and discuss Susan Orlean’s essay “American Man, Age 10.” The 8 am class will do peer review outside of class (see instructions here), and we’ll read the Orlean’s essay in class on Thursday. The 11 am class will do the opposite: peer review in class (see this post with instructions) and Orlean’s essay for homework for Thursday, 3/1. 

Note for both classes: If you have problems with the instructions in the blog post (to peer review the two people below you on the class list, or the next two who have posted an essay), just find someone in your class who has an essay posted but has not yet received two peer reviews. I’ll come up with a better system next time around!

• For both classes, as you read Orlean’s essay, think about how and why this is an ethnographic profile (how does it define a certain subculture? what are the features of that subculture?), and notice how it is organized. Also, be thinking about how you will handle this assignment.
• By the end of this week, you should have posted four reading journal entries; I will be grading these over the weekend.
• Final draft of memoir will be due next Thursday, 3/8, as paper copy to be turned in during class.
• Rough draft of ethnography will be due the week after spring break (exact date TBA).

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Tuesday, Feb. 14. In class this afternoon, we looked again at the section Writing as thinking made visible, at the link near the bottom of the page to Dennis Jerz’s page on Show, Don’t (Just) Tell, and posted (on students’ blogs) revised versions of the four sentences at the bottom of page. (NOTE: We did not do this in 8 am class, but will talk about it on Thursday, 2/16.)

Due next class (Thursday., 2/16). Read the short essay “Killing Chickens.” On a sheet of paper (or on keyboard) list three specific details from the essay that seem particularly effective. Write one sentence that sums up what you believe is the main point of the essay, the answer to the “So what?” question. Finally, list several things you noticed in the essay in terms of the writer’s strategies or style.

During this week read the sections under the Remember tab.

Due next Thursday (2/23). Post on your blog a rough draft for the memoir assignment.

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Tuesday, Feb. 7. In class today I talked about the first two sections under the Writing tab (writing as rhetorical act and writing as thinking made visible). Your first “real” assignment for the course applies the ideas in these two sections to analyze an advertisement. Click here for the assignment. For next class (Thursday, 2/9) select an ad connected to your theme that seems interesting to write about. Either upload the ad onto your blog (via scanned-in file or URL) or bring the print ad to class.

The blog post for this assignment is due Tuesday, 2/14.

Also, now that themes have been approved (or should be), the reading journal assignment starts this week. I’ll get more info about that up later this afternoon. Please get in touch with me if you haven’t yet gotten approval for your chosen theme.

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In-class work for Thursday, Feb. 2: Attention Whole Foods Shoppers

Practice link for class, 1/31: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/education/15recess.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

Tuesday, January 31: Due Thursday, February 2 (for proposal); Tuesday, Feb. 7 (for other reading assigned). The main goals this week are to get themes chosen/approved and to do some reading about the reading process. After taking some time to brainstorm possible writing topics, please choose the theme you’d most like to tackle. Check this post for some suggestions. Write a blog post (another chunky paragraph) on your own blog that explains why you have chosen this theme: why it interests you and what are some possible topics within this theme that you might want to write about (as I did for essays I might write for the business and economics theme). I would like to see evidence that you are not just settling for the first thing that crosses your mind, but rather that this particular theme causes you to ask some questions that have some weight, depth, complexity. Remember that you must come up with personal, observational, and argumentative topics within this theme. Please give specific ideas for essays of each genre that fit the theme.

Also, please give two themes that you would consider as second and third choices if your first choice is not approved. (In addition to considering the thoughtfulness of your proposal, I will also try to “spread things out” so that each theme has a number of people writing on it.)

Sometime this week, read the sections on the class blog under the reading tab (why writers need to read and reading strategies–which has three articles).

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Thursday, Jan. 26: Due Tues., Jan. 31. Make sure that you’ve given me your blog’s URL either in class or via email  (if you’ve been successful in setting it up).If you’re still having problems, don’t worry! We’ll get it straightened out next week. If you do have blog set up, please do Writer’s autobiography as a first post. I’ll make a short video by tonight to show you how to do that. (If you don’t have blog set up, just type out Writer’s autobiography and save it–we’ll get blog set up and you can post next week.)

Also, read over the introductory material for the course under Intro tab on the top of this course blog (note the drop-down menu with five separate small pages).

Email if you have questions.