IMPORTANT FINAL EXAM DAY CHANGED!!

Students,
There is an error on the syllabus, the final exam is on MONDAY from 5:00-7:30 p.m. (not wednesday!). I apologize for the error. Please change your syllabus.

Visual Argument

In 250-500 words explain (what, how, why) your visual argument project. Identify your claim and how you are attempting to argue your point in a new visual medium. Also, take us through your revision steps and the decision you made regarding appeals to logic, character, and reason. What rhetorical choices did you make and why? 

Specifically:

• remind readers of the context and give an overview of your argument 
• describe what medium you have chosen for the rhetorical revision
• explain in detail the choices you made in turning this into a visual ad for mainstream culture (as opposed to a more academic setting)
• what you learned about the rhetorical process (issues of audience—including visual appeals, etc.) from making these changes
• This journal is due on December 3, 3008 at midnight.

Journal Entry #4

Second Journal Entry, Research Paper/Essay #3

For your journal, write two paragraphs reflecting on your experience researching. You might answer questions like: What was easy? What was difficult? Did you have to change your search to find relevant sources? Did you have to narrow down to be able to manage the sources? or broaden to find enough sources? What advice would you give your classmates or other researchers working in these databases or search engines? Or anything else you want to reflect on.

Then, read and respond to two other classmates' Journal Entry #4. 

Initial posts due by midnight 11/3. Response to peers due by midnight 11/7.

Journal Entry #3

Research Paper, Essay #3

You'll be starting your research process with a topic, question, and rationale. Write a journal entry that introduces your TQR.

• Topic - Remember that the topic needs to be related to technology in some way. In your journal, briefly describe your topic.
• Question – Review the Handbook pp. 112 and “Chapter 13: Writing a research Paper” pp. 672-675 to ensure your question is researchable. In your journal, share your question and why you think it is a researchable question.
• Rationale - Think about why you are interested in this topic. In your journal, reflect on why you want to research this topic (or answer this question), what you hope/want to get out of your research, and how your question matters.
• Then, you will need to read and respond to two class mates (at least a full paragraph. And, you must practice “RESPONSE.”

Journal Entry #3 Postponed

Students,

     I have decided to postpone Journal Entry #3. It will now be due on 10/20/2008. I will post the prompt late in the week.

Journal Entry #2

Mini-ethnography, Essay #2

The main part of this journal assignment is choosing a topic for your Ethnographic Essay. First, make sure your subculture meets the following qualifications:

• it is accessible to you
• its members gather at places you can visit
• it interests you in some way
• it is something you can research online or at the library if you get stuck
• you are not a member of the subculture

Also, you have to ensure that your group meets the definition of a subculture. In order for it to be considered a subculture, the answers to the following questions need to be yes:

• Group Identity: Does the group you want to study feel, at least implicitly, a sense of identification with each other as members? (This doesn't necessarily mean that they all like each other or always get along.)
• Rituals: Do group members share certain behaviors, outlooks, beliefs, or motivations for belonging?
• Language: Do they share a common language? Do they tend to describe things in similar ways, or use words or phrases that have special significance to the group?
• Artifacts: Do they share an interest in certain objects or artifacts? Do they invest these things with similar significance?

Write about how you chose subculture. Describe the subculture, why you chose it, and how it meets the above qualifications (in both sets of questions). 

Setting Your Blog to Private

Students,

Please cut and paste (use the “Edit tab”) the class emails into your blog:

1. Sign-in to your Blogger account
2. go to your dashboard
3. click on “Settings”
4. Click on “Permissions”
5. Scroll down to “Blog Readers”
6. Click on “Only People I choose”
7. Now, click on the blue button “Add Readers”
8. Cut and Paste the class emails into the white box
9. Make sure you have separated the emails with a comma
10. Now, click on the orange invite button

Once you have done this, blogger will send an invite email to those listed. That means you will also be invited to view 20+ blogs. When you receive the invite emails click on the link provided in the email (it means you accept) and then you will be able to access the blog every time. It will only be this complicated while we set up privacy! If you have questions, please email me. Our regular class blog will stay open to all viewers but your personal link will go private once you complete the steps in this email.

 

 

Journal Entry #1

Personal, Expository Essay #1
Select a topic for your own Personal Essay. You can use the fastwritings you have done for this class or something entirely different you've thought about outside of class. Also, remember the suggestions we discussed from the textbook about what makes an effective topic.

Once you've chosen a topic, you'll compose a journal entry reflecting on your choice of topic. In it, please cover the following:
• what your topic is
• how you came to decide on that topic
• what questions do you have about the topic that you expect to work through in your writing (or, what do you want to understand about this topic that you don't fully understand now?) - remember that you don't need to have a perfectly neat 'thesis' at this stage in the process

Keep in mind that the journal style is expected to be written in paragraph form but can have a casual, conversational tone. These are more for you as a writer to practice writing and to learn to discover what you think by writing. You should write between 250-500 words for journal entries, unless otherwise noted. Your response should be posted by September Monday, September 8th.

Welcome and First Assignment!

Welcome to the Freshman Composition I class blog. This blog will be used by our class this semester as a space to post writing journal entries, helpful links, and to post the final visual arguments. I designed this blog with you in mind—here you should be able to interact with classmates and engage in course material beyond our class sessions. It is also a great way to cut down on the large amounts of paper used in a classroom.

With that in mind, your first class assignment is to create a blog, using ONLY blogger, and then to email me the URL. Keep in mind that this blog must be separate from your own personal blog and is to be used only for our ENC 1101 class (anything you would be embarrassed to show your professor should not end up here—ie: this is not the place for mysapce type of personal pics). As such, I have (and you should) set your permissions to only allow our class to read and post to your blog.

Once everyone has created their own blog and emailed me the URL, I'll post a list of links on this page so that we can easily find and read each other's pages and postings. In order to do this, we must first cover some rules of engagement and protocols for our blog.

What Do I Expect of You?

Participation: These assignments are graded. Essentially, instead of turning in your journal entries, you will post the entry to your blog. Beyond that, you are not required to post here unless otherwise noted.

Interaction - Got an opinion? Express it. Speak up. One of the reasons you will post material online is so that you can see other students’ take on these issues and work through the writing process.

Keep an Open Mind – Writing is challenging and often asks us to move beyond our comfort zone into some dicey and uncomfortable areas. Keep working through it and keeping writing. There will be a moment of clarity (even if it is momentary)!

Academic Language—While the online writing journal is a space where you can personally express yourself, it still operates within the rhetorical conventions of academia. Keep your entries grounded on the prompt. Answer the questions as they pertain to wiritng and to your topic. Finally, while these entries are informal they also require that you use Standard Written English, refrain from profanity, and keep the subject matter G rated.

Sense of Humor –Come on people, some of this stuff is funny! It is ok to laugh at something even if we are simultaneously analyzing or agonizing over it.

Spirit of Collaboration – Learn from each other, ask questions, and remember that sometimes it takes a village. With that being said, don’t expect that others will do your work for you. To collaborate does not mean to hand everything over to one leader; instead it requires that we learn, despite or because of difference, to work together to accomplish our goals.

What you can expect from me.

Answers - Good answers to all questions, even the hard ones. And, sometimes that means my answer is to send you to find the answer.

Posting and Discussion Protocols:

Be considerate of others. It is important to be honest and to express yourself freely but being considerate of others online is just as important as in the classroom.

Make every effort to be clear. Online communication lacks the nonverbal cues that fill in much of the meaning in face-to-face communication.

If you want to send a message to me, email me instead of posting a comment to the blog.

Post your assignments to YOUR page and not to mine—your page should hold all of your work for the semester and mine should hold the prompts.

Use the following conventions when composing a discussion posting:

Be careful about "Subject" headings; use the subject suggested in your assignment.

Create a new post for every journal entry and/or assignment instead of posting to the first one, that way it is easy for everyone to find.

If you are asked to respond to your classmates’ writing, avoid postings such as "I agree," "I don't know either," "who cares," or "ditto." They do not add to the discussion! Take up space and communicate when asked to respond to others. These “same here” style posts will not be counted for credit.

Do not use all caps. This makes the message very hard to read and is considered "shouting."

Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation. These count online.

Try to avoid posting large blocks of text but when you must, break them into paragraphs and use a space between paragraphs.

Whew! Without further delay, your fist assignment is to create a blog using Blogger and write your first post. Here are the instructions:

1. Set up your blog: to do this, go to www.blogger.com and follow the on-screen directions for setting up a free blog. Please take some time to personalize your blog. This is a way for the class to get to know you, so feel free to include a photo (remember my comment about appropriate), links to other sites you enjoy, etc. Please make sure that your name (first/preferred name and last initial) is clear on your blog. I know that some/many of you already have a blog where you write posts; however, for the purposes of this course, you will need a separate blog that is focused on our course. You should feel free to provide a link to your other blog if you would like to share that with your classmates as well (as long as postings and pictures are Disney rated).

2. Write your first post: your first assignment is to write a letter of introduction about yourself. In addition to the basics—where you are from, what major you are or want to be, etc—I want to know a few things related to your participation in this course. Here is a series of questions to think about as you write (you are not expected to answer all of these, of course; pick a few from the list that you would find beneficial to describe given your own history):

· Why are you interested in taking this writing course? If your answer is simply that it’s required, then what would you like to get out of it?

· What types of writing do you primarily do now (think beyond traditional school papers to other kinds of writing and technologies, like email, texting, etc.)? How do you feel about your writing? Why?

· What type of writing would you like to do if you had the time? Why?

· What type of writing have you always liked? Why?

· What type of writing have you always disliked? Why?

· What types of texts (autobiographies, histories, essays, short stories, poems, plays, reviews, editorials, something applicable to your major, etc.) do you most enjoy writing? Why?

· Who has had a great influence on how you write?

· What strategies do you use when you write and where did you learn them? Do you use the same strategies for every piece you write, or do they differ according to the context? What are these differences?

· What themes or issues attract you most in your writing?

· What do you find most difficult about writing? What makes writing easy (or at least less difficult for you?

· Why do you find writing important—or not—in your life?

· If you could change one thing about yourself as a writer, what would it be?

· Overall, how would you assess your strengths and weaknesses as a writer?

· What areas do you hope to improve upon as a writer this semester?

At the end of your letter to me (it should be around 250-500 words), please write a final statement letting me know that you have read, understand, and agree to the terms of the course blog. This should go without saying, but please remember that all of your blog entries should be in paragraph form and use complete sentences.

3. Follow up: email me at mtweed1@atlas.valenciacc.edu with your URL (http://____.blogspot.com), so that I can add it to the list on our course page. Your personal page, including this first letter assignment, must be posted before midnight on September 3, 2008.