writingrhetoric2018

[writingrhetoric2018]

Music Monday

In honor of the last week (and two days) of the quarter ... the final countdown!

:-)

[writingrhetoric2018]

Self-Assessment Reflection

In reflecting, we can change, we can transform, we can envisage.  -- Ann Berthoff 

Reflection gives you a change to take charge of your education, but often times, you don’t realize you have capability to do so: you complete an assignment to get a grade; you enroll in a class because it fulfills a requirement; or you simply don’t engage with the material of a class. The type of reflection you are going to do to conclude this course helps move you towards becoming the active “agent” Yancey discussed in her chapter, thus, you are going to conclude this quarter by being extremely mindful and openly honest by assessing ... yourself. 

In as many words as you feel necessary, please asses yourself in this course. Below are some things to think about/with and the opening of my assessment letter to you all. 

Please conclude your self-assessment with a “rate my student” response following the exact same measures as “rate my professor” does.  DO NOT put this up on your Tumblr. Instead, please bring it with you to your conference on Tuesday or Wednesday, you will be turning it into me. 

Good luck! :-)

Things to think about before beginning: 

1. Learning and effort are not one the same *but* they do compliment each other.  2. Writing is a process, so review your entire “portfolio” of work from the quarter: from Tumblr posts to Sunday Somethings to major assignments to in-class work and participation. We’ve had (or will have by Sunday) 9 Sunday Somethings; 13 homework Tumblr posts (associated with 10 readings); 2 maps; 1 scavenger hunt; 3 extra credit “games,”; 3 major writing assignments (various drafts); 3 drafts of your theory of writing; and many, many discussions.  3. What did you first believe about writing? What do you now believe about writing? Has it been revised? Built upon? Remained exactly the same? How do you know?  4. Have you been an active, engaged participant (remember how we defined active and engaged, it’s not just about talking)? Have you texted repeatedly in class? Have you missed more than 2 days of classes? Have your assignments been perpetually late or written in haste at 3:00 in the morning?  5. Why is “writing so much more than a grade?”  6. You are not evaluating yourself ... you are assessing yourself. Please keep that in mind. 

Arguable the most important question to ask yourself and to be able to articulate in concrete ways ...  What have you learned? 

As a reminder ... here is what the opening of my assessment letter to you said: 

We are told that college prepares us for life – whatever “life” may be for us outside of college. It could be a career in the business world, it could be as medical doctor, it could be as a professional athlete, it could be as manager of a 5 star resort. Our goal(s) while in college are to learn skills, knowledges, and practices that will enable us to be successful in life past college. As freshmen, sometimes it can be difficult to imagine this because you still have several years of college left to complete, but even as a freshmen you still begin to learn information and practices that will carry forward with you. The hope of any course – whether it’s a writing course, a course in the major, or a common core course – is that you learn a knowledge, a practice, or a skill that you transfer to another context, experience, or situation. In order for this to effectively happen, our focus needs to shift slightly from only thinking about the grade to thinking about what we are learning – this, of course, is challenging. We are told from a young age that grades matter, and while they do matter, they should not be the only, main, live-or-die, focus – we are limiting our ability to truly open up and learn by doing so. Why? Because the focus is only on the grade – in a writing class, this tends to mean that students write with the sole focus of getting an “A” or getting a “B” instead of focusing on the process, the audience, the rhetorical situation, etc. We also limit our ability to take a risk for fear of doing something “wrong” or write simply to “please” the teacher; however, to put this into perspective by a well-known, fairly successful writer:

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.

― Stephen King

In short, writing is so much more than writing for a grade.

[writingrhetoric2018]

Go sign-up for Check Point #2 (either next Tuesday or next Wednesday)! :-)

[writingrhetoric2018]

Week-by-Week: Week 10

[writingrhetoric2018]

The ePortfolio

(1) The Opening Reflection (2) Argument 1: The Digital Argument (3) Argument 2: The Popular Argument (4) Argument 3: The Traditional Argument (5) Theory of Writing

We have drafted all of these in some way, shape, or form throughout the quarter even the opening reflection (hint: go back through and read all of your Tumblr posts!). To bring the ePortfolio together, you want to revise and/or rewrite each component double checking that they are responding to the rhetorical situation of each one. Each component speaks to what we have been reading about, writing about, reflecting upon, and discussing for the last nine weeks. In short, you are attempting to create an ePortfolio that creates effective rhetoric. How well you do this depends on how well you respond to (a) to the rhetorical situation (and the purpose); (b) to the audience; (c) to fulfilling the genre conventions of each; and (d) to being reflective about what you’ve learned, how you’ve learned, and how this learning then translates to the different components.

Try to pace yourself and get organized, here are some helpful hints:

(a) Make a list: what do you have to do for each part of the ePortfolio? (b) Plot out work hours/days on your calendar that are dedicated to only working on the components of the ePortfolio. Be mindful --- don’t try and work on them all at once! Space out the work. (c Remind yourself: you’ve got this. You’ve been working on this for almost a full quarter, feel confident in that. (d) Be reflective. (e) Create a kick-ass playlist and dance it out. Some suggestions: “Eye of the Tiger,” “Edge of Glory,” “Lose Yourself,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Stronger,” “Ain’t No Mountain High,” and “The Final Countdown.” (d) Put up post-it reminders all over your dorm including positive affirmations.

ePortfolio: Full, working draft due at your conference on Tuesday/Wednesday of Week 10.

Final Draft: due on or before Wednesday, March 14, 2018 @ 11:59 pm.

[writingrhetoric2018]

Week-by-Week: Week 9

[writingrhetoric2018]

Music Monday

The last two (and half) weeks of the quarter are upon us! They will fly by in a blur of due dates and stress. How do you want to finish up the quarter? What do you need to do to be successful? To survive? Well, Britney might have the answer ... you better work b**ch! :-) 

Don’t forget what Yancey has taught us: you are in control of your education, how well you want to do depends on you. The amount of effort you put into things, the resources used, the time spent, the moments being reflective, all of it adds together to help you succeed. Plan out your next two weeks -- give yourself a schedule and hold yourself accountable to it. Give yourself little goals to achieve and check them off once you complete them. And remember .. you’ve got this!

[writingrhetoric2018]

Week 8: Week-by-Week

[writingrhetoric2018]

The Unveiling of a Writer

Throughout the past quarter, you have been thinking and theorizing about your understanding of writing and your identity as a writer. For this post, I want you to discuss who you believe you are as a writer. You have to do this in a non-traditional way in that you are not merely responding to questions. Begin by thinking about what are some characteristics that define who you are as a writer. What are they? Then decide how you want to represent this.

Some suggestions of what you could create to get your point across:

*A job wanted ad or a personal

*an obit (an obituary)

*a short short (a piece of fiction that is super short)

*a song

*a narrative poem (shorter poems will not count)

The possibilities are very open, but the end result must be representative of who you are as a writer and they must be written (so no media for this post!). 

Once you complete this, then you must do a quick reflection:

Why did you pick the characteristics that you did? What has influenced your writerly identity (include both past experiences and current experiences)? What's been a memorable college writing experience that has impacted your writerly identity and why this experience? Sum up as how you view yourself as a writer.

NO Responses to Peers for this post.

DUE by class time on Tuesday, February 27, 2018. 

[writingrhetoric2018]

Part 2 of Attendance for Thursday, February 22, 2018

The second part of being in attendance also due by 11:59 pm on Friday, February 23, 2018. 

As a reminder ...

The Theory of Writing

The evolution of writing is something that helps us understand what.writing.is – to us, to others, to vast audiences, and so on. Part of this class includes you developing your “theory of writing” and given that we are on the back end of the quarter, this is a fitting moment to pause and consider what your theory is right now.

A theory of writing gives you, the writer, the opportunity to think about your relationship with writing: it enables you consider what writing is to you. This can include, but is not limited to, what is your writing process(es), what is your practices, what types of key terms provide the foundation for your theory, how do you actually enact those key terms in your writing, and so on. It is within this theory that you can articulate – in your own words using your own language – how you understand writing, what you’ve learned about writing, and where writing can take you.

So, this is your theory of writing take 2! Here’s what you need to do: 

1. Go and reread what you wrote for the first round. 

2. Reflect upon what is working, still makes sense about your understanding of writing, and what needs to change. 

3. Write up a new theory of writing, this time starting to use your own writing as evidence for what you are saying. The final version should be 300 words  +

4. Next, create a meme that represents your theory of writing. The goal is to create a form of rhetoric, a form of discourse. Memes can do that when they are done correctly. One little caveat: you can NOT pull an image from the web. You have to actually use one of your own images taken with your phone and/or your camera. There are lots of meme generators out there to use or you can simply use a picture and add a caption to it. 

ALL due by Friday, February 23, 2018 by 11:59 in order to (a) be in attendance and (b) receive credit for the work. 

Good luck! 

[writingrhetoric2018]

Part 1 of Attendance for Thursday, February 22, 2018

[writingrhetoric2018]

Let’s have a Moment

This homework assignments builds on what we started to talk about in class on Tuesday ... 

“Sometimes, you know, you have a moment."

As you read in Yancey's chapter a few weeks ago, reflection is a way to help you become an active agent in your learning. You are an active participant by not simply being someone who is fed information, but someone who questions, explores, muses, theorizes, and reflects ... and that is exactly what you've been doing with your Tumblr posts, our class discussions, and your drafting of the major assignments. 

For this homework post, I want you to develop three moments in which you describe/explain/explore what you’re learning as part of this course that relates to you as a writer, a thinker, and a learner. Draw connections inside of the classroom and outside of the classroom. Make sure you evidence your moments with readings. And for each moment, please include an image that actually represents that moment for you. 

So, your post will have the following: (1) three written out moments and (2) three images that represent your moments. 

DUE by class time on Thursday, February 22, 2018. 

NO responses to peers! 

[writingrhetoric2018]

Music Monday

Sometimes you just need a happy song ... for no other reason but to dance it out!

Enjoy. 

[writingrhetoric2018]

Murder! Rhetorically Speaking

You are going to respond to the reading as in directly respond to what it ask you to do through out it -- you can't do this properly without reading, so it'll be important that you actually do read all the way through the reading. As you read, there are several prompts -- I want you to respond to all of them, including the last set, which are called "discussion" (these should be easy since we've discussed the purpose behind the questions several times in class and in our blogs). How you respond to the prompts are up to you, but in order to be successfully, you need to (a) be a little creative and (b) think about the rhetorical situation (the purpose), the audience, and the genre that's being asked of you.

Each part should be as long as it needs to be to get your point across.

Response to your peers: pick 2 people who you've never responded to before ... and respond to their posts. Do you believe them? In other words, what makes you believe in the ethos established for each of the prompts?

DUE by class time on Tuesday, February 20, 2018.

[writingrhetoric2018]

Valentine’s Day

A little Valentine’s day fun ... ending with arguably  my favorite meme ever (makes me laugh every time!) ... enjoy!  :-)

[writingrhetoric2018]

Drafts for Thursday

DUE by class time on Thursday, February 15, 2018

Create 2 new pages: one for Argument 1 and one for Argument 2.

Argument #1 Draft #2: Please make sure you post a more defined draft #2 based on our conversations and your peer review. This is going to look different for everyone *but* given the fact that you’ve had a conference with me and done a peer review there must be revision.

Argument #2 Draft #1: Please make sure you post both columns. These are the first draft, so it’s ok if they are rough, but they should be complete written drafts. Don’t worry about the layout and formatting just yet just worry about the words.

For both of these create a new page --> this is NOT A POST --> please follow these guidelines:

1. Click on the head/shoulders image.

2. Click on “edit appearance.”

3. Click on “edit theme.”

4. Scroll all the way down.

5. Click ‘+ Add a page.’

6. Click on the tab “show link in this page” if you don’t it won’t show up!

7. Give it a url name.

8. Give it a page title --> it should be, “Argument 1: Draft 2″ AND “Argument 2:Draft 1.”

9. Copy and paste into the white space. You can add images and videos but you have insert them individually, you can’t just copy and paste the whole thing from a Word document (for the images, you can copy and paste text with no problem).

10. Hit “update preview” -- check and make sure it all looks ok.

11. Hit Save. Click out.

12. Click save again.

13. Double check that it posted -- go to your actual Tumblr page not your Dashboard.

All due by class time on Thursday!

Good luck! :-)

[writingrhetoric2018]

Week 7: Week-by-Week