writingwithstyle

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 05.10: final exam

for today

final exam

for next time (DPH 226 from 10-12)

due (5/13): portfolio

due (5/13): commonplace book

due (5/13): copia journal

[writingwithstyle]

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 05.06

for today

mini practice final

mad lib finale

for next time

final exam: Friday, May 10 from 12:00-2:00 (DPH 208)

due (5/13): portfolio

due (5/13): commonplace book

due (5/13): copia journal

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 05.03

for today (w/ special guest)

open work day

portfolio essay peer review

Your portfolio folder should contain three documents: portfolio letter, revised versions of two major assignments. Go ahead and work on the versions of your major assignments that you turned in and then simply move them into the portfolio folder. This will help me track any and all changes that you made during the revision process.

for next time

revise: major assignments

compose: copia sentences

add: commonplace book entries

draft: portfolio letter

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 05.01

for today

exercise 10 work

open work day

for next time

revise: major assignments

draft: portfolio letter

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.29

for today

synaesthesia and assonance [slide deck] [movie]

exercise 10 what might therefor go in my portfolio?: make your own folder in the "Portfolio" folder. Create a "Portfolio Essay" GoogleDoc in your newly created folder. Type a key quote from the Muckelbauer reading. Then add 150 words on how this quote relates to the work that you’ve done in the semester so far.

for next time

revise: major assignments

finish: exercise 10

draft: portfolio letter

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.26

for today

syntactic symbolism [slide deck]

a divagation concerning versification

for next time

revise: major assignments

brainstorm: portfolio letter

read: Forsyth, "Synaesthesia," 37-39; "Assonance," 154-57

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.24

for today

zeugma & paradox [slide deck]

final exam prep

calendar update: portfolio due 05.13

for next time

attend (this afternoon): English Department Spring Ceremony

read: Tufte, “Syntactic,” 253-72

read: Forsyth, "A Divagation Concerning Versification," 121-35

sign up: personal statement conferences

find: an example of synaesthesia in a song

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.22

for today

portfolio letter prep

open work day

for next time

read: Forsyth, "Zeugma," 136-140 & "Paradox," 141-145

prepare: exam prep—review any exercises that you had particular trouble with

[writingwithstyle]

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.19

for today

exercise 8 discussion

shameless promotion of my next amazing course: public writing (engl 3860)

discussing the rest of the semester

open work day

for next time

brainstorm: portfolio letter

prep: open work day

sign up: personal statement conferences

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.17

for today

Why I Write Work Day

focus on two things to revise

articulate those revisions in terms of Tufte (i.e., I will here work on cohesion across my paragraphs. I want to create parallelism within this paragraph. I need to get my adverbs under control. I need to focus on my sentence openers.)

enact those plans

for next time

prep: work day

prep: exercise 8 discussion

enroll: in public writing (engl 3860)

[writingwithstyle]

Course Description (previous course site)

Our worlds are built of things that matter: values, relations (friends and family), institutions (cultural, political, religious), and cultural productions (literature, music, movies) We build worlds by sharing these things that matter to us through all available means of communication—of persuasion: we write reviews of books online, we share playlists of music and pictures of the places we visit and inhabit, and we speak out on behalf of others in the name of justice or solidaity. And in this course that is eaclty what you will do: write about the things that matter to you.

But there is a catch. You must write publicly about things that matter in ways that contribute to their continued mattering. The things that matter to us—our beliefs and values, the places and institutions that shelter and sustain our modes of being, the cultural productions that give meaning and direction to that being—must be argued for. Like gardeners we must cultivate the lives that matter to us. The world as we know it and the worlds we might want otherwise must be persuasively articulated in order to be kept and made real. Indeed, a term precious to democratic life, republic, means simply “a public thing”: a thing held together in common but also over and about which we argue. This means that our writing too must be public. No mere diary entries or talk among aficionados, we must produce public texts for unfamiliar audiences who might not yet share our commitment to public parks, accessibility, pop music, food security, bricks, the environmental and social justice. To engage such audiences, you’ll need to write persuasively and in media that activate and cultivate that audience’s attention. This time around, the course is digging into Zine culture. Zines are short, self-published magazines dedicated to a particular, underrepresented subject matter, which are then informally circulated (via photocopying). Zines are evocative mixtures of prose, images, and design elements. In addition to fashioning a series of zines on a topic of their choosing, students will have opportunities to create stickers, buttons, posters and a range of other tangible texts in the service of bringing their project to life. The goal of this course is for you to write in public so that the things that matter to you might persist and flourish—so that your world can be shared with others. Students have complete creative control over their productions in terms of medium, style, and content. The only requirement is that these texts be public and for a discernible audience who might yet be persuaded.

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.15

for today

cohesion [in-class writing] [slide deck]

commonplace book & copia journal workday: making sense(tences)

for next time

prep: Why I Write work day

complete: exercise 8

sign up: personal statement conferences

[writingwithstyle]

Come celebrate! And come to celebrate your classmate Carmen Lo in particular!

[writingwithstyle]

agenda, 04.12

for today

free modifiers [slide deck]

isocolon & enallage [slide deck]

for next time

read: Tufte, “Cohesion,” 237-52

prepare for: copia and commonplace book work day