Blog 22: LAST BLOG ENTRY

I designed this course to revolve around work because I discovered that so many of my students hadn't thought about work in any meaningful way. How has this course affected the way you see work and your future? Which aspects of work do you think about differently?

DUE Wednesday, Decemeber 5

Blog 21: Reflection

Looking back on this semester, what is your favorite memory?

DUE Wednesday, December 5

Blog 20: On My Vacation, I . . .

What are your plans for the Thanksgiving break? Will you be spending time with your family? Meeting the family of a boyfriend or girlfriend? What are your Thanksgiving traditions like?

DUE Sunday, November 18

Blog 19: On Strike

The current writers and stagehands' strikes got me thinking about the nature of protest in America. I always feel that, nowadays, we never quite protest as well as other countries.

Have you ever protested something? Maybe you walked out of school or refused to clean your room or marched about a political issue. What did you protest? Why? How did it make you feel? What was the end result of your efforts?

If you've never protested anything, why not? What would it take to make you speak out against something?

DUE Sunday, November 18

Blog 18: Dear Abby, or Bob, or Suzie, or Mike

Salon.com, an online magazine, runs an advice column called "Since You Asked" by Cary Tennis. While I don't always agree with his advice, I always like how he says it. I thought his Halloween-related column was particularly poetic:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2007/10/31/halloween/index.html

Choose one of the questions asked of and answered by him. You can see more questions towards the bottom of the page by clicking on "Read more Cary Tennis at the 'Since You Asked' directory." Copy and paste the question into your response (the question does not count towards your one-page count) and then answer the question.

Happy advicing!

DUE Sunday, November 11

Blog 17: Weak-ipedia

Go to Wikipedia.com (yes, I'm serious) and check out a few random entries to get a feel for their style.

Now, create a Wikipedia entry for yourself, complete with important dates and references (what "references" means I leave up to you).

DUE Sunday, November 11

Article on Plagiarism

Some of you may have heard the recent flap over a cookbook written by Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry. Her book bears striking similarity to a book published earlier this year by another author. Both cookbooks are about hiding veggies in children's food.

The article's author includes a great description of plagiarism and the differences between plagiarism and copyright infringement.


http://www.slate.com/id/2176563/fr/flyout

Blog 16: M-P-Wheeee!

As we close in on writing a critique, take a look at your MP3 player or CD collection. Name the top ten songs in your collection. Why are these songs your favorites? Be specific and give us a few sentences about each.

DUE Sunday, November 4

Blog 15: The Outsourced Brain

I discovered an interesting op-ed piece in The New York Times today that really got me thinking about the implications of our dependence upon technology.

Read the article and respond:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/opinion/26brooks.html?_r=1&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/David%20Brooks&oref=slogin

What do you think about what Brooks has to say?

DUE Sunday, November 4
(Don't forget to turn your clocks back!)

Article To Check Out

I'm in my office during office hours, but none of you come to see me, so I scour the Internet, trying to stave off boredom. I found the following article while perusing Freakonomics, a blog run off of The New York Times.

Steven Levitt, who has been dubbed a “rogue economist,” uses facts and stats to promulgate some rather controversial assertions. One of the most well-known was that crime rates dropped in the 1990s because it was about 15 years after Roe v. Wade. (Less unwanted children = less criminals.)

The following article isn't from Freakonomics, but from a link on the site. It's a blog entry about the effects of privilege on college admissions. It could be useful for several of the groups in the class, so I thought I'd share it.

http://mijkasamora.blogspot.com/2007/10/dads-academic-club.html

Re: Blog 14: Dinner Party

Seriously people . . . no Jesus, no Muhammed, no SHAKESPEARE?!?!?

Blog 14: Dinner Party, A Classic Question

Imagine the perfect dinner party. You can invite five guests, living or dead. Who would you invite and why? What would you eat? What would you talk about?

DUE Sunday, October 21

Blog 13: Interview Reflection

The question is simple enough: What did you learn from your interview?

DUE Sunday, October 21

Fall Break, The Blog, & You

With Fall Break upon us, you only have on blog entry to do for the coming week.

Have a great break!

Blog 12: It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . . You

If you could be a superhero with any superpower, which ability would you want and why?

DUE Sunday, October 14

You Can Teach An Old Professor New Tricks!

One of the things I love most about teaching is that I am just as much a student as you are. Something new I learned today:

For those of you who haven't completed your interviews yet and are doing them in person, you can go to

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

and download recording software. Most of your laptops, unless you're working with the smallest Tangents, have a microphone, or you can buy a microphone at the bookstore for $14 if you're interested. It'll save you from having to hunt down an old-school tape recorder or (perish the thought) take notes during your interview. Might also be useful for those of you who dream of becoming the next American Idol.

Have a great weekend!

Blog 11: Minimum Rage

What should the national minimum wage be? Should we even have a national minimum wage? How do you calculate a "living wage"? What are the implications for businesses if the minimum wage is raised? What do you predict would happen to the economy? Why do you think Congress has been so reluctant to raise minimum wage?

DUE Sunday, October 7

Blog 10: A Question.

Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan? Explain, with examples.

DUE Sunday, October 7

Rhetorical Analysis

Using the techniques discussed in class and in your Brief Guide, you will develop a rhetorical analysis comparing an article from a popular periodical to an article from a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal.

First, find an article in a popular magazine related to your field of study or potential career. For example, business students might use Business Week, engineering students might use Popular Mechanics, pre-med students might choose Men’s Health or Self, etc. (Think towards periodicals available in a large bookstore.) Your task will be easier if you choose the popular article first.

The second step is to find an article on the same topic in a scholarly peer-reviewed journal. Use the databases and the peer-reviewed limiter, remembering how to differentiate a scholarly source.

Compare the rhetorical techniques used in both articles. Some questions to consider:

-To whom is the text addressed?
-What is the author’s purpose for writing the piece?
-Are the author’s word choice and language appropriate for her audience?
-Describe the author’s sentence structure. How well does it work for her rhetorical situation?
-What arguments or assertions does the author make?
-What kinds of evidence does the author provide (logos, pathos, ethos, anecdotal, facts and stats, etc.)? Are her choices of evidence best serving her audience?
-What do the visual cues of each article tell us? What do the graphic details look like? Are there charts or graphs? Photos, drawings, or schematics? Why might these elements have been used?

These are not all the potential questions to be considered, and you should not feel the need to respond to all of these questions. For more possibilities, refer to your Brief Guide, The Everyday Writer, and the sheet of questions handed out in class.

The analysis should be 3-4 pages, typed, double-spaced in MLA format. Include a Works Cited page listing the two articles (not included in your page count) and attach a copy of the first page of both articles to the back of your submitted draft.


DUE Monday, October 8

Blog 9: Channeling Queneau

Raymond Queneau was a French author who wrote Exercises in Style, a book in which he approached the same short story in 99 different ways: a haiku, telegram, prognostication, interjections, etc. There are myriad ways to convey the same information to different groups of people.

In order to study how authors make the rhetorical choices they do, I want you to write two short notes. Imagine today is a nice day and you don't feel like going to class. (Of course, you would never do such a thing in real life!) You must write a note to your professor explaining why you couldn't make it to class and another note to your best friend explaining what you did with your day.

How did your voice change from one note to the other? What language did you use for each? Were your explanations different? If so, why? Why do we change how we communicate with different groups of people?

DUE Sunday, September 30

Blog 8: My Fellow Americans . . .

Imagine you've just been elected President. Write your acceptance speech, outlining your comprehensive vision for America.

DUE Sunday, September 30

First-Year Reading: The Price of a Dream

The schedule for Friday, September 28 is as follows:

3:00 pm Students meet with faculty and upper-class student facilitators in assigned classrooms; welcome and introductions; discussion groups proceed to Frericks Hall for author’s lecture.

3:30 pm David Bornstein, author of the First-Year Reading, addresses the first-year class, along with discussion facilitators, in Frericks Hall.

4:30 pm Students and facilitators return to assigned rooms for small group discussions. Author joins one of the discussion groups.

5:30 pm Students and faculty are encouraged to attend ArtBeat performances and activities which run throughout the evening at ArtStreet.

Interview Assignment

Your next assignment is to conduct an interview with someone currently working in the career field you plan to enter. If you are uncertain about the career you plan to pursue, this is a good opportunity to seek more information.

This interview will consist of two parts. First, you will ask questions related to writing. How often and in what ways does the subject use writing at work? Which formats (reports, proposals, e-mails, etc.) does the interviewee use regularly? What courses might be recommended in preparation for a career in the field?

Next, you are to ask the interviewee about his career in general. What does he like about his job? What does he not like? Does he see what he does as a job, career, or calling? What advice would he give to someone considering entering the field?

Your interview should consist of approximately fifteen to twenty well-developed questions. Be sure to ask open-ended questions and don’t be afraid to follow up with unprepared questions. You are aiming for an interview that feels more like a conversation than a scripted set of questions.

Submit a complete transcript of your interview, with each person who is speaking clearly delineated. Your interview should have background information about your interviewee, either within the body of the interview or in an introductory paragraph. This might include where he grew up, where he went to school, what positions he has held within the field, or anything else you believe to be pertinent.

You will be graded on the format of the interview (how readable is it?), how well you convey the personality of the interviewee, the quality of your questions, the completeness of the conversation (does it follow a logical progression and have a beginning, middle and end?), and your ability to respond to what has been said.


SEE ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE LOCATING SOMEONE TO INTERVIEW!


DUE Monday, October 15 (50 points)
______________________________________

Here are some examples of interviews:

This first example is an interview from Salon with Jonathan Kozol, author of the groundbreaking book, Savage Inequalities, about the deplorable conditions in our nation's public schools. It is a good example of the basic question/answer style.

http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2005/09/22/kozol/index0.html

The next example is written in a narrative style. This interview is with Sacha Baron Cohen; you may know him as Borat. Rolling Stone claims this is the only interview of Cohen out of character.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/sacha_baron_cohen_the_real_borat_finally_speaks

One Ring Zero

Next week, the UD Arts Series will host a visit from the group One Ring Zero. Founded by music majors from Virginia Commonwealth University, One Ring Zero melds music, including an unusual range of instruments, and literature, featuring collaborations with writers such as Myla Goldberg, Dave Eggers, and Jonathan Lethem.

They will appear live in concert on Friday, September 21, at 8pm in the KU Boll Theatre. Student tickets are $5.

For more information about One Ring Zero, you can check out their website at http://www.oneringzero.com/

I encourage you all to take advantage of the cultural opportunities college has to offer. (And before you ask, no extra credit, enlightenment is a reward far greater than extra credit.)

AP

Blog 7: Don Quixote, Dickinson, Daniel Deronda, and . . . Dan Brown?!?!?

The following link will connect you to an article by Michael Skube about the reading habits of incoming college freshmen and how those habits affect their educational experiences.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081800976.html?referrer=emailarticle

Using the information from the Brief Guide as a guide, respond to Skube's article.

Some questions to consider:

Do your agree or disagree with Skube's assertion that college students are not reading enough? Why? How has your reading of the article been shaped by your own experience?

DUE Sunday, September 23

Blog 6: "The Creative Class" Summary

Post your completed summaries of "The Creative Class." Make sure you state what you believe to be the thesis (in a separate statement if necessary) and verify that your summary includes the five qualities of a good summary.

DUE Sunday, September 23

Re: Peel An Apple In Your Head

Even though I don't respond to blog entries individually, I DO read them. I must say, I was very impressed by the responses to the "Peel An Apple" blog. The responses were thoughtful and creative. You have set the bar high for yourselves. Nice work.

For those of you who haven't done so already, I encourage you to read the work of your classmates. You can learn a lot from each other.

AP

Blog 5: MLA Schmemelay

Are citation systems, such as MLA or APA, useful or simply a device designed to torture students with maximum efficiency?

You have two choices here. You can spend a page extolling the virtues of the existing formats (MLA, APA, etc.) or you can design your own citation system. If you decide to do the latter, your system must provide all the information you feel is necessary to give an author credit for their ideas. (You can't just say that students should be allowed to do whatever they want or that intellectual property is a load of crap.)

For those of you who groan about the tediousness of MLA, here's your chance to do it better. If you decide to take up the challenge, provide us with an example of what an in-text citation would look like and what your Works Cited or "Stuff I Used In The Paper" page would look like.

I'm looking forward to seeing these responses.

DUE Sunday, September 16

A Note About Posting

This past week, quite a few of you posted your blog responses to the front page. This means that all of the students who sign on after you must scroll through several students' comments to access the original assignment.

To respond to the blog, click on "comments" directly below the individual assignment. On the right side of the screen will be a box for you to type or paste your response into. When you're finished, click "publish comment." It will take a few minutes for your comment to appear with the rest.

If you have an announcement unrelated to the blog, feel free to post that to the front page so it is more visible.

For those of you who posted to the front page this week, I copied and pasted your responses under my own username and deleted them from the front page. (And before you ask, you will still get full credit.)

If you have any other questions or technical difficulties, e-mail me.

Hope all of you are having a good weekend! Happy blogging!

Blog 3: Library Databases

Access the UD Library or OhioLINK databases. Choose one database that interests you, one that we didn't look at in class (Academic Search Premier, Academic Source Complete, African American Studies, Searchasaurus). Try to pick one that relates to your anticipated major or an assignment you have due in another class.

What is the name of the database? What types of material does it contain or specialize in? How user-friendly or intuitive is it? What are the advantages or disadvantages of the database? Is it visually appealing? Does it use images or offer a search of digital images? What special features does it contain? Are you likely to use it in the future? Which groups of students might best make use of this database?

DUE Sunday, September 9

Blog 2: Peel An Apple In Your Head

Duration: 20-30 minutes
Props: none
Effect: concentrating

In general we consider ourselves capable of reproducing everyday reality with a certain degree of exactness. Familiar objects or places, food, repetitive actions are easily summoned within our minds. We imagine that we can switch on the screen of our mental cinema (so to speak) and project upon it-- with a degree of precision-- all these well-known images. We perhaps experience greater difficulty in summoning up noises or, especially, smells. And reliving the sense of touch (a light caress, a kiss) is probably harder still.

And it may be that, in spite of everything, our confidence in being able to reproduce external reality in our heads faily easily and efficiently is to a large extent misplaced and illusory.

To test how difficult it is, try peeling and apple in your head. The exercise seems simple. You visualize the fruit, the knife, the incision, the peel, and there you have it. And yet . . . To insure that your image bears some relation to reality, you must first choose a variety of apple, visualize its exact size, color, texture. Your apple must be of a particular variety, but it must also be a particular apple, with its own range of colors, some parts darker or lighter than others, and with its own marks, stains, tiny wrinkles-- all these have to appear to you with absolute clarity. Imagine the knife: is its handle made of wood? Plastic? Metal? Shiny? Is the blade smooth? Dull? Sharp? Is it a kitchen knife, the family silver, or a fancy Henckel?

And now, how will you proceed? By trying to peel it in one go, producing a perfect spiral of peel, by turning the apple in one unbroken rhythm? Or by cutting it into quarters and peeling the skin off of all four? In each case you must visualize the movements with clinical precision and photographic accuracy. The goal of the experiment is reached when the documentary film of peeling unrolls in your mind shot by shot, image by image, second by second. Without a single stop, a single rubbing-out or mistake. No blurring and no hesitation. Above all, no blanks and no repetition. And you are not allowed to splice together two sequences.

You won't manage it, or not without considerable practice and mastery. Most probably you'll lose the thread. The apple changes color or form, its characteristics become unstable, the peel doesn't fall as it should, the knife goes askew, the movement becomes jerky, the images jumpy, difficult to join seamlessly to each other. If you repeat the experiment several times, you'll notice an improvement in the result. Progress is possible, albeit slow and sometimes painful. If nothing else, it's a good exercise in concentration. But this experiment underlines first and foremost how essentially unfaithful the mind is in reality, how difficult it finds retaining or reproducing that reality correctly, and how presumptuous it is when it imagines it can.

-from Astonish Yourself! 101 Experiments In The Philosophy Of Everyday Life by Roger-Pol Droit

Complete this mental exercise and then write about the results. Do you reach the point where you can peel an entire apple in your head? How much do other thoughts invade the visual narrative-- that Biology test, that Poli-Sci paper, that argument with your roommate? Where do the breaks happen? What does your apple look like? And your knife? Where do you imagine you are when peeling this apple? How many times do you cut yourself? Most importantly, what do you learn about the power of your imagination and your brain?

DUE Sunday, September 9

Keith Scanlon for Freshman Apprentice on the Red Scare

Hey everyone,

I'm Keith Scanlon and I am running for a position for the Red Scare. But, I need your votes!!! So, please come and join the election meeting this Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 9 o'clock in KU room 331. I hope to be your Freshman Apprentice for the Red Scare. Hope to see you all there.

Thanks,
Keith

Blog 1: Hello, My Name Is . . .

I decided to host only one blog for both of my 101 sections. This is for two reasons: (1) My sanity (2) This allows all of you to view the work of a much larger number of your fellow students.

I wanted you to use the first blog entry to introduce yourselves. Tell us all a little bit about yourself. Or, if you're not comfortable sharing information about yourself with the world wide web, make up a great story. Sometimes, the things we invent about ourselves tell more than the reality.

Some questions you might want to start with if you're at a loss: Where are you from? What are you majoring in? Name three words that best describe you. Do you come from a big family? Small family? City? Countryside? What do you expect to get out of the coming year? How did you decide on UD?

Be creative.

DUE Sunday, September 2

Blog Assignment

Academic and professional writing are not solitary activities. We dialogue with the writing of fellow students, professors, published authors, critics, and other experts. We pull apart texts and repurpose them to suit our needs. We alter our voice to reach a variety of audiences. We seek approval and, often, a grade. This interaction is much like what happens with writing on the Internet—through blogs, forwarded e-mails, MySpace, e-Bay, and even spam—making the Internet a perfect place to practice prewriting. The writing is casual and the response is in real time. Rather than keeping a traditional journal for this class, we will be writing an exploratory class blog.

Two weekly directed topics will be posted every Sunday by 9pm. You will respond to both topics by 9pm the following Sunday.

Your responses should be approximately one page long. If you need to gauge page length, type your response first in a word processing program (such as Word) and then copy and paste. Your page should be posted as a comment in response to the topic rather than as a separate post on the front page.

Do not worry about spelling or grammar. I will not be grading based on content, simply on completion of each entry.

You will be responsible for keeping copies of each of your responses, either saved to a disk, your hard drive, or printed pages. If there is a question as to whether an entry has been completed, you will be responsible for providing a copy. You will use the ideas generated in these entries for future papers. You also want to save the writing of fellow students that is especially pertinent or insightful to cite as a source for your papers.

Be aware that your writing will be visible to both your classmates and the entire Internet community; use caution when writing personal stories or giving out information about yourself.

You will not be reminded of entry due dates in class, so you must remember to check the website every week. If you have trouble accessing the site, please contact me via phone or e-mail immediately.

___________________________________


This blog should be more than just a journal, but a place to use writing to communicate. Feel free to post items on the front page that may be of interest to your classmates, such as on-campus events, interesting articles, or even requests for help with schoolwork. (I reserve the right to remove any items I deem inappropriate.)