Blog Assignment #4

Read the two essays assigned from Writing from Sources. (I'll hand them out in class, but you should also buy the book if you haven't already because I'm asking you to read Chapter 5 in it as well.) By Wednesday's class, respond to both essays in a paragraph or two on each essay. Don't think to hard about your responses. What you're really trying to do in a "zero draft" is to decide what essay you want to write about in WA#2 based on how much you have to say on each essay and how strongly you feel about the opinions expressed in each of the essays.

As you read, consider the writers' arguments and how you might support them if you agree and how you might refute them if you disagree.

We'll be using your comments as the basis of class discussion on Wednesday and Friday, so please post by sometime on Tuesday.

Tom B.

P.S. Will someone please let me know if the book is still not available at the OWU bookstore?

The following isn't an assignment. It's just a passage from Lewis Caroll that I thought you might find amusing:

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. 'What road do I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' asked the cat. 'I don't know' Alice answered. 'Then', said the cat, 'it doesn't matter.'" -Lewis Caroll

Blog assignment #3

Blog Assignment #3

Simple enough, folks:

Post the draft of the first assignment sometime before your conference on Monday. The sooner you post it, the more time I will have to review it and the more good I will do you. Also, it'll do you some good to see what others are writing, so make sure to check out the drafts of other students.

You can bring the draft of the assignment to your Monday conference in two forms. Either bring along two hardcopies or email me the text as a Word file.

Good luck, have fun, and may the Muses be with you.

Tom Burns

tlburns@owu.edu

Blog assignment #2

Blog assignment #2: Pick one of the topic options for Essay #1 and reflect on the prompts. Please do so by Monday so that we'll have something to talk about in conference.

Note that you don't have to read the assignments in Nickel and Dimed to blog. Just reflect on the prompt questions. There's no need to write a formal draft here. Reflect on the topic as randomly and gently as you want but in as much detail and complexity as you can.

In fact, you are NOT writing a draft, and you shouldn't think of it as one. The prompts are meant to spur your thinking, not produce an organized set of thoughts.

Note also that your answers to the prompts might reveal the kind of research and thinking you need to do to proceed to the drafting stage. They will tell you as much about what you don't know as they do about what you know. Your responses might reveal an organization, as well, but they might also reveal holes in that organization that you need to fill.

Hello, students,

For your first blog assignment, I'd like you to consider your own writing process. Just what do you do when you write? How do you start? When do you start? What do you at subsequent stages? How does your approach to the writing process help or hinder your ability to write effectively (and on time)?

Check out the first three chapters of the Handbook. Is there anything there that can help you be a better writer? Or is the whole mess just a bunch of English teacher BS that you've heard a million times before? If you argue the latter, you'd better be ready to justify your claim. :-)

Tom Burns