Blog Reflection: for Wed., August 5th

For today's post, please write a short (1 paragraph) reflection about what your experience has been so far with using a blog in English 150.

What I am interested in is how the blog has facilitated your learning and/or your writing. Here are a few questions that may help you as you write your reflection (you may focus on just one, on several, or write about something related): What has been your overall experience with the blog? What have been your favorite blogs posts? What have been your least favorite blogs posts? Have certain types of posts really helped you with your writing? Has the discussion through blog comments helped your learning? Do you feel like you've participated in true discourse with your peers? To you, what are the advantages and disadvantages of a blog over traditional assignments of the same size? Does the fact that all of your peers are going to read what you write change how/what you write? Give specific examples if it fits with your reflection.

Types of comments that will be useful: Build off of what your peer has said--if they wrote about a different aspect of the blog than you, then comment about that aspect as well. If you disagree with something they said, feel free to share. Or if something in their blog post really resonates with you, share why you agree and give a personal example.

Number of comments: 2
Number of comment responses (to anyone's comments on anyone's posts): 2

Label to put on post: blog reflection

Partial Issues Paper Draft: for Wed, July 29th

Write at least 3-4 pages (double spaced) of your issues paper draft in Word or another word processing program. Now post these as a blog post.

Label to put on post: issues paper

Required Comments: You will be given time in class to write comments.

My Research Topic: for Wed., July 22

Step 1: Explain your research topic. What is your topic? How are you narrowing it? What are the major issues in this topic? What makes your argument kairotic?

Step 2: What are two or three types of arguments (for example, stases or topics of invention) that you could make about your topic? Why do you think these types of arguments would be useful or important to your topic?

Label to put on post: issues paper

Comments required on the posts of others: 2
Response comments required: 1

Writing to an Audience: in class on July 15, 2009

Hopefully you have taken steps to "publish" or share your opinion editorial, in whatever manner you choose. Make it meaningful--to people that may be affected by reading it. If you have not published it yet, do so now.

Write a paragraph about the experience of publishing or sharing your opinion editorial. Were you happy with what you had to share? How did people react to it? How does the act of publishing or sharing your writing with an actual audience change the act of writing or how you think about writing?

Label to put on post: publishing

Required number of comments: 2
Required number of comment responses: 2 (These responses may be to comments on your own post or to comments on someone else's post.)

Partial Rhetorical Analysis Draft: for Monday, July 13th

Post the first four to five paragraphs of your rhetorical analysis for this blog post. (If you've written more than that, feel free to include them.)

The first paragraph should be an introduction that hooks us and has an argument about the overall rhetorical effect of the article on its intended audience.

Then include the first three to four body paragraphs of your rhetorical analysis.

Comments and comment responses: do none over the weekend. You'll be given specific instructions for these in class and will have time to work on them in class.

Label to put on post: rhetorical analysis

Starting to Analyze: for Friday, July 10th

After reading Writing and Rhetoric chapter 5, find three of the tools mentioned in the chapter (for example, allusion) that are used in the article for your rhetorical analysis.

In your blog give the title of the article you are writing on. Then for each of the three tools you found being used, label the tool, give an example of the tool, and write a sentence or two on how this particular tool works in the article.

Required comments: 2
Comment responses: 1

If possible, I recommend that you do the comments and comment responses on people writing on the same article.

Label to put on post: rhetorical analysis

Audience Analysis: for Wednesday, July 8

1. Read either G 6-B or 7-D.
2. Research something about the audience or something about the author, journal, time published, etc. that would affect the audience.
Information you could find out might include (choose one or two of these or something similar):
-What is the author's political affiliation?
-What other articles has the author published?
-What is the author's occupation and their area of specialty?
-What journal was this article originally published in? What audience is this journal targeted to?
-What journal was the article originally published in and what other articles were published in the same issue?
-When was this article originally published? What were the major debates about this topic that were going on at this time period and how does this article fit into that time period's discourse?
-Were there any major political/economic/cultural events previous to the article being published that would have a direct impact on this article?
- Who truly is the intended audience for this article? What are their attitudes and beliefs about the subject and/or the author?

Note: Researching this subject may be challenging--I'd recommend using the Internet, going to the Periodicals section of the Library (the Reference Desk employees may be able to help you find the original journal or information about it), looking for news articles etc. Don't spend too much time on this -- just go for one piece of information that relates in some way to the audience, or to the author or issue (with something that would effect the audience).

3. Now that you've researched and found the information, look back in the article and find some way in which this information about the audience/author/background of the article influences the content or approach of the article. Make sure to include at least one specific example.

4. Post a paragraph which includes: what article you choose; the researched information that you found; and your analysis of how this affects the content or approach of the article, with at least one specific example.

Required number of comments on other people's posts: 3
Required number of comment responses: 2

Label to put on the post: rhetorical analysis