Reflections on Project Two

In order to prepare for next week's conferences, I want you each to reflect on project two before your scheduled meeting time. In fact, so I have time to review everyone's posts, make sure that you comment on this post by Monday February 22 at 12:00 pm.

Look over the rubric and project expectations that you have and that we've discussed, and respond to the following:

What story from your first project will you be revisiting for Project 2? What medium will you be using to tell that story? Why have you chosen this medium? What are the advantages that you will argue in support of? What difficulties do you imagine you will encounter in completing Project 2? Do you have any other concerns not mentioned in this post? Why do you think I have assigned this project in the way that I have?

This takes the place of the blog post on the syllabus for Friday, February 19. Concentrate instead on the reading for Friday (DK handbook, p. 186-191, 212-225).

Class exercise, Feb. 15

For today's class discussion on Scott Carlson's article "Net Generation," I want you to practice critiquing an argument for its effectiveness and validity. Having read the article over the weekend, you should have a reasonably clear idea of the argument Carlson is offering here. Your job now, regardless of whether or not you agree with Carlson and his point of view, is to argue AGAINST his argument.

In order to do this, you need to explain to a reader that Carlson's argument cannot be valid for various reasons. How you choose to do this is, naturally, up to you.

In order to strengthen your critique, consider implementing the following:

1. Offer competing points of view.

2. Direct attention to problematic parts of the article.

3. Identify any assumptions the article makes that may not be true.

4. Examine the conclusions he draws and determine whether they must be true.

In critiquing this article, keep in mind that you are NOT critiquing Scott Carlson. As such, you should avoid any attacks on his personality or character. Rather, restrict your critique solely to the argument itself.

Post your critique as a response to this post. In your post, list the name of everyone in your group. Write this response in whatever style you think will best lend respectability to your argument.

Net Generation

For Monday's class, please PRINT OUT and read the document titled "Net Generation" on the class Vista site and post a response to the prompt here. It's located in the "Syllabus and Assignments" folder.

How truthful do you think this description of the "net generation" is? Do you think it is appropriate/fair for this generation to be described in this way? To what extent do you see the strategies suggested by Scott Carlson being implemented in your own college education? Do you think there are benefits to viewing education the way the net generation does? Are there disadvantages?

As an added challenge for this post, I want you each to try answering this prompt without breaking it down linearly. Act as though you are discussing this topic with your closest friend, and want to be sure that you get all of this information across. Rather than merely listing your responses, try to approach this prompt more organically.

Lastly - come to class ready to discuss this further. Bring THE COPY OF THE ARTICLE YOU'VE PRINTED OUT with highlighting so that you can use examples and evidence while defending a point about the article. See you all Monday.

Class activity, Feb. 10

Hey guys -

It sounds like most of you viewed the peer review process as largely positive, and for that I am very glad.

One comment that I was glad somebody shared, however, is that it can be difficult to peer review when you are all in the same class to learn how to write in the first place; how can you, then, recognize a mistake that someone else doesn't?

For today's class, I want to go over a few common mistakes that many, sometimes even most, beginning writers make that are easy to avoid, and then I want to give you guys a chance to practice using these as you might in your paper. Through this exercise I want to encourage you guys to see what's already going on in your paper, and think about how those areas affect the final impact of your writing.

3 COMMON PROBLEMS OF THE BEGINNING WRITING PROCESS

1. Helicopter author syndrome

Everyone has known someone whose mother (or father) is way, WAY too concerned with the well-being of her (or his) child; you may, in fact, have one of those mothers (or fathers). College administrators HATE parents like this, and call them "helicopter parents," because they just sort of hover around their children and hold their hand through every little bump in the road.

Many times when writers first get started composing, they experience a relationship with their text very similar to what a helicopter mom feels for their child. They primp and pamper and hold its hand, and the result is a very prolonged and weakened establishment of authority.

To avoid being a helicopter author:

- Be confident when introducing your point. If you have more than 2 introductory sentences AT THE ABSOLUTE MOST before you get to content unique to yourself, you are hovering too much.

- Don't just restate the expectations in the paper prompt. I wrote the damn thing; I know what you're writing about and how you're going to do it. I expect you to have an introduction to your papers; I also expect that introduction to be your words and your thoughts, not just my guidelines. If your introduction merely restates the information found in the essay prompt, you're hovering too much.

- Don't second guess the intelligence of your reader. Sometimes when you're writing something and you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO get a specific message across, it can be tempting to hit the reader over the head with what he/she should take away from your text. This obvious manipulation can be very off-putting at times. Instead, have faith that your reader experiences emotions the way every normal human does, and leave it to him/her to decide that Bambi's mother dying is sad.

2. Marty McFly syndrome

Whether you knew it or not, you think the title of the movie "Back to the Future" is hilarious. Everybody does. It's because there's a weird little twist in your expected mental chronology there. You can't go BACK to the future, because the future, by its very definition, is IN FRONT OF US. Ha ha ha.

When you're reading a paper, however, it isn't funny if your understanding of time gets jumbled up like Marty's thoughts when his future mom kisses him in the past. To avoid the confusing metaphor, it detracts significantly from an organic enjoyment of writing if you keep switching tenses without a genius-level creative reason for doing so.

To avoid being a Marty McFly:

- DON'T JUST RELY ON SPELLCHECK. Have a human being read over your writing. Have a couple, in fact. As you read over your writing, ask yourself: AM I KEEPING MY READER IN A CONSTANT TIME, OR IS MY READER ABOUT TO KISS HIS MOTHER IN THE PAST?

- Let me put that another way. If you are telling a story that happened to you in the past, as you most often will, you have three options:

(A) Tell it ALL in the past tense. This mimics typical storytelling and is usually what a reader expects in the average story. Example: I went to the store. I bought popcorn, and then I watched Back to the Future.

(B) Tell it ALL in the present tense. This can make a story seem more immediate and engaging, but at the expense of making it more difficult to separate WHEN things are happening. Example: I go into the store. I buy popcorn, and then I watched Back to the Future.

(C) Tell it in a HODGEPODGE OF TENSES THAT LEAVE MY READER CONFUSED. This is an excellent choice if you dislike your readers and want to keep secrets from them. Example: I went to the store. I buy popcorn, and then I watched Garth sob in the corner about my tense misuse.

3. Michael Scott syndrome

Everyone knows somebody who can't really tell the difference between a great time to tell the story of their uncle's hernia exam and a terrible time to tell the story of their uncle's hernia exam. A useful hint is that it's never a good time to tell the story of your uncle's hernia exam.

In academic writing, this comes across as a misuse of voice. There is a wide range of subjects that I am sure you would discuss with your roommate/best friend/dear diary that you simply wouldn't discuss with your mother/me/the little old lady waiting for the bus. Though your mother, the old lady, and I are all very eager to know who you are and what you're all about, it would be a mistake to just launch into a curse-laden tirade about how much crack you snorted this weekend.

To avoid being a Michael Scott:

- Understand WHO you're writing to (if you want to be absolutely correct: Understand TO WHOM you are writing). In academic writing, it is best to imagine saying everything you've just written while wearing a suit and tie and applying for the job of your dreams at the ice cream factory (or wherever the job of your dreams may be).

- Understand WHAT you're writing about. Some topics may be difficult to write about without horrifying an academic audience. These can be obvious, like the time you kidnapped the crown prince of Somalia, or more subtle, like when you use personal anecdotes in a situation that isn't appropriate. Ask yourself whether the topic you're writing about lends itself to a Michael Scott moment, and then steer clear.

- Be yourself. Nobody wants to read robot writing. By the same token, I expect you guys to imbue your writing with some of the flavor of your individual lives. Just make sure that you don't share more than you intend to get graded on.

ACTIVITY TIME!

To put these three subjects in practice, we're going to do a little writing exercise. Below are links to three songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDm_ZHyYTrg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhRRWwH3Fro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsClnVfJwHA&feature=fvw

Each song tells a clear story. I want you each to pick one song (your choice; please don't all just pick the first link) and treat it as if it happened to you and you're including it as the first story in your paper.

To complete this exercise, you need to:

1. Introduce your story in a way that sets up our understanding of it without holding our hand.

2. Describe the story in a consistent and appropriate way. Each of these songs will have some element that is probably not appropriate to turn in for a grade; it's your job to decide what to include and what not to include.

3. Reflect on this story AS THE PERSON SINGING IT. That is, analyze the ethos of this song so as to decide why it would be relevant to include in a paper like this.

Write this as a comment to this post. BE PREPARED TO SHARE YOUR WRITING.

The Benifits of Peer Review

I believe I started doing a form of peer review when I was in the fourth grade through an activity my teacher called the writers workshop. Besides being able to share your writing with your classmates, peer reviews were not very effective at such a young age. Now that I am older I do feel that peer reviews can be very beneficial depending on one thing, whom your peer is. If the person who is reading your paper doesn’t really care to read or make adjustments to improve your best interest then a peer review is a complete waste of time. Fortunately for me the person who read my paper did provide some positive insights on ways I can improve my writing in addition to some constructive criticism. I found that it was helpful to write on the top of your paper what you wanted the reader to look for, this of assistance to both the writer and the reader. The main changes that I felt needed to be made was that I was not given a lot of time to talk with the person who read my paper instead it was just written here is what you did wrong, now go fix it. I do not feel that this was the fault of the person who edited my paper but instead the lack of time and the awkwardness of not knowing one another was to blame.

Reading another classmates paper, who was given the same topic as me was very interesting because our papers were truly polar opposites. It was hard to tell that we even had the same rubric; this is not necessarily a bad thing considering we both covered the required material. I just found it rather noteworthy the way people perceive the same thesis differently. Reading another persons paper gave me a clearer understanding of what my paper was lacking in terms of details and significance of events. Personally I wanted to receive as much feedback as possible, I kept this in mind when editing my class mates paper and I tried to put in as much effort as I would expect my peer to do for me. The biggest challenge when editing a classmate’s paper is giving detailed suggestions without rewriting the paper for them.

Once I received my paper post revision I was impressed with the comments and feedback I was given. Every suggestion and correction that was made is beneficial and a step in the right direction in getting my paper to its full potential. The comment that I will implement most will be rewriting my first event so that it is more concrete and distinguished. It is sometimes hard to receive criticism and determine if it is in fact worth taking and following up on, but over all I know that all the suggestions made on my paper were in fact helpful and will be present in my final draft. Peer review is proof that we are sometimes too blind to see what is wrong in our own work because it is a product of us.

Peer review and draft writing

I am interested in getting your honest opinion of the peer review process from Monday without fear of repercussion. As such, I will be moderating your comments to this post. While I understand that, at first, that sounds like Big Brother, what moderation entails is this:

You will write out your response and click submit as usual. If you would like your post to be visible to me only, however, you need to post as "Anonymous" by changing the options in the "Comment As" box below your comment. Rather than being immediately readable to everyone, however, your comments will be submitted for my approval first. I will be the only person who reads your comment, and as such you may respond honestly to the process of peer review without worrying about offending anyone else in the class.

This does NOT mean, however, that I will tolerate rudeness or offensiveness. I expect any critiques you have of the peer review process to be respectful and constructive, rather than aggressive or hostile. I am asking you to critique the process of peer review, not to critique your peers. I welcome you to offer critiques to me personally, and I assure you that I will not take any comments you have on the process of peer review personally unless you explicitly say "You, sir, are a jerk." If that's the case... I'm rubber and you're etc. etc.

In a comment to this post, please respond to the following:

1. Have you done peer review activities before? What is your response to the process of peer review as it applies to the composition of this paper? What did you find helpful or advantageous? What did you think needed to be changed?

2. Did reading your peer's papers give you a clearer understanding of your own writing? How did making comments on some one else's paper influence the way you think of your own?

3. How did it feel to receive direct comments on something you've written? Will you be implementing the comments you received into your paper? Did you receive any comments that you decided not to implement? How did you distinguish between comments you chose to use and comments you chose not to use?

Make sure that you post your response to this prompt BY TWELVE O'CLOCK ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. If you did not participate in the peer review session on Monday for any reason, please indicate that in your response and discuss instead what advantages and disadvantages you think peer review adds to the process of creating a paper.

Class discussion, Feb. 3

- First of all, what did you think of this reading? Did you like it? hate it? refuse to do it to see if eventually I'll break down in tears? Why do you think I had you read this for class?

- What are ethos, pathos, and logos? Give an example of each, if possible.

- How do you see yourself working each of these into your mirror essay?

- Do you think one of these strategies will be more/less important than the others? If so, which one and why? If necessary, could you rank ethos/pathos/logos in order of most to least effective and relevant to your assignment?

Respond to these points based on your reading for today. We'll be using your writing to spark discussion so that we don't have to spend the hour listening to me make sideways comments about my own voice.

Let me emphasize - THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER, ONLY A WELL-DEFENDED ARGUMENT. The purpose of these discussion points is to see how well you think, not to test you on what you know. It is far better to go out on a limb in the aim of demonstrating an interesting point than to play it safe and make no ripple in the discussion.

Class exercise, Feb. 1

For today's class, we will be doing a small group exercise explaining certain elements of grammar and how to implement them in your writing. Each group will be responsible for reviewing an assigned link and then making a brief comment to THIS post with important bullet points to remember when using their assigned punctuation and demonstrating this punctuation's proper use with example sentences from previous blog posts.

Group 1: theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

Group 2: theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

Group 3: lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/comma.html [Parts 1 and 3]

Group 4: lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/comma.html [Parts 2 and 4]

You can find examples where the convention is used incorrectly; however, bear in mind that these blog posts are written informally, and you should avoid making judgments of the poster's writing style based on their usage of apostrohes, semicolons, or commas. If you correct another student's post, please don't use names.

Grammar

Grammar to me is how well a paper is written using periods, commas, and things like that. Grammar is taught to everyone beginning in elementary school. Of course, it gets more intensive as students get older and go into high school and college. To me, grammar is like writing etiquette, it is necessary to understand many kinds of writing. If we didn’t have grammar then many sentences and words would be jumbled up together in a paragraph or story. I am usually very good with grammar. My friends always yell at me because I use it in my text messages, like with my “LOL’s” and such. I think that it spaces out words and is usually necessary for understanding many kinds of writing. Advantages of using proper grammar are getting used to using it for things like school papers and if you work where proper grammar is needed. It is never inappropriate to use grammar, it is a choice people will have to use it and it’s not like there is any time that you absolutely cannot use it.