College Comp 4.2: First Sentences

Posted on September 14, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Attendance
  • A Few Pointers
  • First Sentences
  • Your Questions
  • Homework

A Few Pointers

Office hours today: 1:15 to 1:45. I can meet later if anyone wants to schedule an appointment.

The Weekly Writing Report done right

Digital writing and paragraph breaks. (ragecage, Denver5280)

Make it clear who is thinking and what you are summarizing. (SpontaneousAbyss)

First Sentences

20, maybe 30 words. That’s all you get. That is your opportunity to grab someone’s attention before they close your tab or click the next link. The first sentence, and before that your title, present a limited opportunity to capture an audience before they move on.

I want to focus attention on an essay’s first sentence. First, I’ve collected some resources designed for fiction writers. While this might not be a creative writing class, I believe we can benefit from thinking about how their craft can relate to constructing enticing non-fiction prose.

First, from an article over at A Tate Publishing Blog, I pulled three criteria:

  • excite a reader’s curiosity, particularly about a character or relationship
  • introduce a setting
  • lend resonance to a story

These criteria are the goals for an effective first paragraph, but I think any of them additionally apply to a first sentence. I want to break the idea of setting down into three more distinct notions: time, place, and mood.  Time and place are fairly straight-forward when it comes to fiction, but mood is more complicated. I want to think move in relation to Heidegger’s sense of our “being-in-the-world“]. The post then gives two questions to ask of a first sentence:

  • Does it convey an interesting personality or an action that we want to know more about?
  • Can you make it more intriguing by introducing something unusual, something shocking perhaps, something will surprise the reader?

Given my favorable disposition to Peter Brooks’ psychoanalytic treatment of hermeneutics, I boil that second question down to “suspense”: does the first sentence pose a question we want answered?

From a creative writing handbook, I pulled two more criteria for evaluating good sentences:

  • Flashes a picture in your mind, using concrete details
  • Puts you right in the middle of something happening

Not every first sentence has to be shocking. But it does have to at least have a kind of gravity, something that pulls a reader in, something that makes them want to read more. 

Next, let’s read the short article Killing the Babies and Captivating First Sentences” over at footnoteMaven. I like this article not only for its title, but also for its pragmatic advice. When revising, fM focuses on identifying the most compelling sentence in a piece, and then finds a way to “rock” that piece up to the very beginning of a document.

For non-academic writing instructors out there, this makes for an excellent exercise. Come to class with a document that contains every first sentence your students have written for a particular project. Have the students select their three favorites from the list; additionally, have them mark off the three sentences that need the most work. After tallying results, have students apply fM’s theory to whichever piece of writing received the most critical votes–can they, looking through the entire paper, find a compelling sentence that could be crafted into a more engaging opening? And, then, can they use this principle on their own writing?

And, of course, I hope the critical attention such an activity fosters is applied to every sentence they write.

But I don’t want our attention to end with the first sentences–I also want to stress the importance of writing relevant, informative, and intriguing titles. In academia, titles come in two general flavors, MLA (humanities) and APA (science). MLA titles tend to have two parts, the gag line followed by a colon and description of the project. APA titles, on the other hand, tend to be a bit more conservative and usually forgo the gag line. For instance, here’s a journal in Rhetoric and Composition that uses MLA format, CCC. And here’s a list of the top downloaded articles at a journal that uses APA format, TCQ. The point here: put more time into thinking about the title of an essay. 

Here’s a collection of the first sentences from the first round of medium.com essays:

I’ve recently become much more interested in the notion of independence days.

The war on terror is widely known among the American people in a very broad/ unclear sense. 

Depending on the model used when developing a game, in-app purchasing options can make or break a company and a person’s patience. 

Since the beginning of time, people, by nature, have been trying to gain advantages over one another. 

How long has it been, really? 

Diabetes hasn’t been around as long as many other diseases but it has become a very popular one in today’s time.

Why did you decided to come to college?

Since the rise of the Capitalist economic model beginning in the 1600s, the quality a states’ economy has been dictated by the ability of people to accurately balance the worth of goods against the price being paid for them. 

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College Comp 4.1: Quotation, Paraphrase, and Plagiarism

Posted on September 12, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Attendance
  • Weekly Writing Questions
  • Plagiarism
  • Avoiding Plagiarism
  • Homework

Weekly Writing Questions

As of 10:43 this morning, only 10 people had shared the weekly writing report with me. This is bad. What’s up?

If you need instructions for sharing the writing report with me, then check Friday’s class notes.

Loving some of the nicknames: ragecage, scholarlydude, spontaneousabyss. Good stuff.

Plagiarism

I’m fairly confident that you can all provide me a short, concise definition of plagiarism. Let’s check.

That said, I want to make sure you recognize the boundaries of plagiarism. To do that, let’s start with TheVisualCommunicationGuy’s infographic on plagiarism.

What I hope the walk-away of that exposure is that plagiarism isn’t just a matter of taking someone else’s words without credit, it is also a matter of taking someone else’s thought. And plagiarism isn’t always a matter of giving credit, it is also a matter of acknowledging influence or similarity. That is, ideas are never created out of nothing, as if one writer or thinker owns them in their entirety. However, thinkers have a responsibility to acknowledge what other thinkers and thoughts they have come across while developing and refining their own ideas.

I think this is especially important because of the nature of this class. For the next 10 weeks, you won’t necessarily be writing in academic places that call for MLA or APA citation. In fact, it would be quite strange to see APA citation in a League of Legends forum post or even in a popular article on medium.com. MLA and APA citation strategies are generally reserved for academic genres and audiences, where readers have rigid and demanding expectations regarding a source’s lineage and integrity. In short, those audiences are likely going to trace down sources and check accuracy.

In the online environments you will be writing in, citation isn’t necessary as strict–but it is no less important. And citation is often driven by two things: attribution (the name of the source, acknowledgement that you have read it) and links (hence why I have put so much emphasis on hyperlinking early in the course). Start paying attention to the articles you read online and you will see these strategies at work. Just because there isn’t a parenthetical doesn’t mean there isn’t ways of acknowledging the material we use.

I want to put particular emphasis on another part of the infographic–the idea of “common knowledge.” This is one of the trickiest parts of acknowledging the influence of ideas. As the graphic indicates, no one needs to cite the fact that the Earth is round. Unless, that is, you are writing a paper on the history of cartography. Then, in fact, it might be necessary to cite a number of sources that helped develop this idea. In his 2004 post “The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus,” David Sterns argues that several different philosophers and scientists discovered the Earth’s roundness at different points in history: the ancient Greeks, then the ancient Romans, and then the council of King Ferdinand’s court who approved Columbus’ journey to the “new world.” As Sterns notes, this council was quite aware of the theories proposed by the Greeks and Romans.

That previous paragraph was meant to show how I expect you to attribute sources this semester. It introduces a source, David Sterns’ post, using what I call the “magic sentence,” so called because it packs a lot of contextual information into very few words.

Avoiding Plagiarism: Providing Contextual Information and Attributing Sources

Essentially, I consider handling sources a 4 part process. There’s the signal, the quote/evidence, the summary, and the analysis. While we’ll be using this specifically for direct quotes today and this weekend, this is essentially the underlying structure for most (academic) argumentative paragraphs: a claim, followed by evidence, and analysis. 

  • Signal: who, what, where, when. Note that what/where can be a reference to a kind of media [article, book, poem, website, blog post], a genre [sonnet, dialogue, operational manual], or location/event [press conference, reporting from the steps of the White House]. The signal helps create ethos, establishing the credibility of your source, addressing their disposition toward the issue, and positioning them within the context of a particular conversation. 
  • Quote/evidence: in-line citations use quotation marks and are generally three lines or less. Block citations do not use quotation marks and are indented from the rest of the text. Generally, quotes present logos of some kind–be it in the form of statistics or argumentation. Of course, quotes can also be used in an attempt to engender pathos, or a strong emotional reaction. 
  • Summary: especially for block quotations, you need to reduce a block of text to a single-line. You need to put the quote in your own words. Because language is slippery, and your readers might not read the quote as you do. So, offering a summary after a quote– particularly a long one (which many readers simply do not read)–allows readers an opportunity to see if they are on the same page as you. 
  • Analysis: Reaction, counter-argument, point to similar situation, offer further information, use the bridge, “in order to appreciate X’s argument, it helps to know about/explore/etc. This is where the thinking happens. 

Here’s an example; let’s say I was writing a blog on the struggles of newspapers to survive the digital transition, I might want to point to the October 15th, 2009 NYT’s article dealing with the Times Co. decision to hold on to the Boston Globe.

In his recent article, Richard Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has decided to hold onto the Boston Globe, at least for now. Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has been trying to sell the newspaper for the past month, but, since it hasn’t received what it deems a credible offer, it has decided to pull the paper off the market. He writes:

Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University who has closely followed The Globe’s troubles, said it might be better for The Globe to remain with the Times Company than to go to a new owner that might do more cutting or replace top executives. “But the company has its work cut out for it in terms of rebuilding credibility with the employees and the community,” he said.

Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has been involved in bitter labor disputes over the past year, as advertising revenues continue to fall: this move, as Kennedy notes above, could be a solid first move in rebuilding an important relationship with one of America’s oldest, and most significant, newspapers. However, I think we still need to be a bit skeptical here: the fact that no one even proposed a reasonable offer for a newspaper that only 15 years ago commanded 1 billion dollars, the highest price ever for a single newspaper (Perez-Pena), does not bode well for the future of the industry. Like many newspapers, the Globe was slow to adapt to the digitalization of America’s infosphere. Time will tell if recent efforts are too little too late.

If you look above, I first contextualize the quote–not only supplying where/when/who it came from, but also providing some sense of what the whole article discusses. Then I focus attention toward a particular point and supply the quote. After the quote, I first reiterate what the quote said (providing a bit of new information). This is an important step that a lot of writers skip. Always make sure you summarize a quote, so a reader knows precisely what you think it says. Then, in the final part of the paragraph above, I analyze the material. I respond to it. In this particular case, I am somewhat critical of the optimism that underlies Perez-Pena’s piece.

A few other small points:

  • Notice the first time I reference an author, I use there first and last name. After that, it is sufficient to only use the last name.
  • Notice that I don’t have a citation after the direct quotation: the reason here is that it is obvious where the quote came from thanks to my signal. This is an electronic source, so there is no page number citation, were it a print source I would have to include that. NEVER USE A PAGE NUMBER IN THE SIGNAL TEXT.
  • Notice in my analysis that I make a parenthetical to the author–its because I pulled the price of the Globe purchase in 1993 from his article. I don’t directly quote it, so no quotation marks.
  • Finally, there’s two kinds of quotations, in-line quotations and block quotations. Each have there own rules for academic papers (the dreaded MLA and APA guidelines). We will deal with those later in the course. In terms of blogging: quotes longer than 4 lines need to be blockquoted. Blogger has a button to help you do this. Blockquotes don’t receive quotation marks.

The First (Best?) Step Toward Avoiding Plagiarism: Crafting Quality Signals

Today I want to focus a bit on the first part of what I introduce above, crafting a quality signal that introduces a reader to a source (be it a quote or statistical evidence). Here it is:

Shakespeare’s Renaissance tragedy Romeo and Juliet documents the titular characters’ intense love and foolhardy demise. Shakespeare’s play leads us to question both the sincerity of young love. 

I came up with this sentence while prepping high school students to take placement exams, hence the literary material. But the semantics of the sentence make it useful for virtually every kind of writing. I especially want to highlight the importance of the verbs in this sentence, because choosing the proper verb often reveals both our appraisal of the source and our thinking on the questions it raises. 

[Author]’s [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [plot summary]. [Author] [verb] [theme/purpose]. 

Ok, so in reality I have two sentences here. But, when dealing with non-fiction works, they can often be combined into one:

[Author’s] [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [purpose]. 

As I indicated above, it is the verb that is the silent star of the show here. Consider for a minute the following example:

Malcom Gladwell’s 2005 book Blink exposes how subconscious part of our brain think in ways we are not consciously aware. 

Exposes. How does the meaning of the sentence change if I use the verb:

  • suggests
  • argues
  • questions whether
  • supposes 
  • explicates
  • details
  • offers a theory of
  • explores

Each of these verb choices subtly alters the way I approach the work discussed. Exposes suggests something secret and perhaps mysterious is being uncovered. Suggests suggests that an amount of doubt surrounds the issue. Supposes implies that I am hostile or at least quite skeptical toward the idea. This subtle indicator allows my an opportunity to softly align or distance myself from the source I am using. Good authors do this all the time to subconsciously prepare readers for their arguments. 

After reviewing the first round of essays, I want to go back and revisit my previous advice for handling a source. As an example, I want to revise a portion of Jess’s essay on gun control. She writes:

“Even gun owners who have never used their guns for self-defense find solace in the fact that the gun is there if needed.” I found this relating to my situation and completely accurate to how I feel about my gun being in my home quoted by Norman Lunger in Big Bang: The Loud Debate over Gun Control.

There are many different scenarios where a child is killed because a gun was left loaded, and not hidden well by an adult and an accident death occurred. But is that really the guns fault for being loaded, is it not the adult’s fault that left it in a non-secure location that was accessible by a child? As mentioned an accident in Big Bang: The Loud Debate Over Gun Control by Norman Lunger “In Florida, two young boys found a shotgun under a bed in their grandparents’ home. A six year old pulled the trigger, and a five year old fell dead.” It seems these things happen too often and how can they be avoided.

Part of what is missing here is that I don’t have an orientation to Lunger–is this a source with which Jess agrees? Or disagrees? Part of my confusion lies from the fact that, while I understand the particular passages, I don’t have any context for them, I don’t understand the purposeful argument of which they form a part.  

Previously, her essay documented her own reasons for wanting a gun: after a terrifying attempted burglary, she wanted a weapon for home protection. She then might use this kind of transition:

Based on my own experiences, I find myself relating to Norman Lunger’s idea that “even gun owners who have never used their guns for self-defense find solace in the fact that the gun is there if needed.” Lunger, in his contemporary [time] examination [genre] Big Bang: The Loud Debate Over Gun Control [verb] [argument/purpose]. 

Without more familiarity with the book, I cannot fill out the rest of the sentence. 

Here’s a second example, from G-Lo’s post on marriage and Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages:

In the book, The 5 Love Languages, by Gary Chapman he makes it clearly evident of common mistakes that men make when trying to show their partner in life how passionately they feel for them. He illustrates our mindset that we think that we, as men, are doing so well in our efforts to please our wives but yet cannot figure out why they aren’t thanking us daily for being so wonderful. That’s because a lot of us have been oh so wrong.

The key to our puzzle is unlocked in this book. “The problem is that we have overlooked one fundamental truth: People speak different love languages,” is a clear statement made by Gary Chapman. What he is saying is that everybody feels love in different ways. This famous and successful marriage counselor describes the five “love languages” as words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.

Here we have a bit more information to work with. What I would like to do here is 1) to make the transition into the quote less wordy and 2) tighten up the summary and response to the quote. So:

Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages makes clear the common mistakes men make when trying to show their love to their partners. […] 

Chapman identifies the key to our puzzle, writing that “the problem is that we [men] have overlooked one fundamental truth: people speak different love languages.” By speaking different languages, Chapman, a famous and successful marriage counselor, means that everybody feels love in different ways. He describes five different ways, or languages, that we must familiarize ourselves with: affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. 

Notice how I am able to describe Chapman in a parenthetical phrase. Notice, too, how detailing the purpose of the work helps us to understand G-Lo’s relation to it. If done properly, I don’t have to use words like “clearly evident” or “clear statement” later. I don’t have to say that I find his writing clear if I show how clear his writing can be. 

One last example: 

On another note, most universities and businesses try to be as racially fair as possible. If I am going to give credit somewhere, it would be here. America does try to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to hiring or acceptance letters. But their efforts to be unbiased towards race has slowly affected their ability to hire or accept applicants fairly.

For instance, there was a case study done by Duke University involving the application process of certain employers: 

Here there is a transition, but I think we can make that transition stronger:

 A recent case study by John B. McConahay, a social psychologist from Duke University, supports my suspicions toward how “kind racisim” affects hiring and acceptance rates:

Hey, a Quiz!

I’ve put up a quiz on Canvas. I want you to craft signals w/ summative paraphrases for each link there.

Homework

Get started on your next weekly writing report by reading a few articles in your area and drafting a response.

Tom Clynes’ 2016 Scientific American article “How to Raise a Genius: Lessons from a 45-Year Study of Supersmart Children” reveals how recent research counters the long-held beliefs that genius was either the result of dedicated effort or socio-economic context. Rather, Clynes reports the results of a 45 year longitudinal study by Julian Stanley of John Hopkins University. Stanley’s research, called SMPY (“Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth”), “suggests that early cognitive ability has more effect on achievement than either deliberate practice or environmental factors such as socio-economic status.” The impact of this work shouldn’t be underappreciated, since it problematizes notions that everyone can, through hard work or social policy, reach the top levels of achievement and success.

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College Comp 3.2: Weekly Writing

Posted on September 9, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan

  • Weekly Writing Expectations
  • Weekly Writing Report Form
  • Workshop Volunteers
  • Setting Up Tech
  • Homework

Weekly Writing Expectations

For the next 10 weeks, I expect you to write 750 words a week. There’s some more specifics:

  • You must write at least 2 separate posts/comments per week (note: in the course of your reading and research, you might stumble upon a topic that requires a longer post; let me know. I am willing to let you write longer posts when warranted)
  • At least one post must be at least 300 words
  • You must leave at least one substantive comment on a recently published piece of writing by someone else (substantive comments are at least 100 words)
  • You must direct quote at least one source a week. Quotes need to be set up using something close to my quotation format. Additionally, you need to paraphrase one other source per week. Responses to quotes should use a They Say, I Say bridge
  • It must be clear that you have done substantive reading every week
  • When writing in online venues, you need to hyperlink to readings and sources

My experiment is whether we can use University writing courses as a way of improving the level of discourse online. These requirements are designed with that aim in mind: “encouraging” you to engage and make meaningful contributions to online discussions.

Weekly Writing Report Form

Every week, you will complete a Google Doc that let’s me know what, where, and with whom you are writing. Let’s look at the link together.

To get started, copy and paste that document into a new Google Doc. Then share that document with: insignificantwrangler@gmail.com.

Workshop Volunteers

Every Friday will be reserved for workshopping your writing-in-process, drafts of material that you are planning to publish. Workshop pieces should be at least 350 words and can (should?) run up to 500 words or more. NOTE: you get freedom to write longer pieces when you workshop, don’t worry about how this impacts the weekly report.

Everyone will have to volunteer for workshop at least once this semester. I will reward extra credit to those who volunteer more.

Every Wednesday night, you will be asked to read and respond to the week’s workshop pieces on a Canvas discussion board.

Right now, I am asking for two initial volunteers to have drafts of next week’s writing to me by Wednesday’s class. You can email me a copy of your writing and I will email it to the class.

Setting Up Tech

By the end of class today, you should have set up where you will be writing–whether it is a tumblr, a blogger blog, a Google+ account, a medium.com account, a reddit account, etc. For those who need it, I can help you navigate any of these interfaces. Make sure you know how to post a hyperlink AND quote text in replies before you leave class today; those are tech minimums moving forward.

Remember that you can create pseudonyms for these accounts.

If you have your tech set-up, then I’ll ask you to use the time in today’s class to start writing.

Homework

The first report needs to be filled out by this Sunday. I asked you to read both They Say, I Say and to read in your discourse community. Put that material to work and get writing.

If you need help for the first week’s writing, then you might try crafting a post that introduces yourself to your community. A lot of forums have this kind of writing space (search around to see if there’s any place for new people).

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College Comp 3.1: Reviewing the Proposal Projects

Posted on September 7, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Attendance
  • General Proposal Review
  • Williams and Bizup on Style
  • Revision Exercise on Canvas
  • Homework

General Proposal Review

Having read and responded to almost all of the proposals, I have a few general statements and suggestions:

Williams and Bizup on Style: Actions, Characters, and Verbs

I’ve got a short hand out on active verbs and clear subjects, pp. 28-30 and 34 from Williams and Bizup’s Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace.

Revision Exercise

There’s a quiz on Canvas we’ll do in class.

Homework

First, please remember that we are meeting in Ross 1240, a computer lab, for Friday’s class. I will help people set up Google+ sites, Tumblr site, etc. And we will do writing in class. Also, we will set up the Google Docs for turning in your weekly writing reports.

Second, please read They Say, I Say chapters 1 and 2 for next class.

Third, please locate and read one or two pieces (or listen to a podcast) that could contribute to your first week’s writing report.

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College Comp 2.3: Nuts, Bolts, and Workshopping Proposals

Posted on September 2, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Attendance
  • Next Friday’s Class (Sept 9th)
  • Google Drive / Google Docs
  • Using Google Scholar and the UNC Library Page
  • Bonus Points: Podcasts
  • Workshopping
  • Homework

Continue reading →

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College Comp 2.2: Duffett and Fan Studies

Posted on August 31, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s plan:

  • Attendance (11:18)
  • Think/Pair/Share (11:45)
  • Review Quiz Questions / Duffett Reading (12:00)
  • Homework (12:05)

Think/Pair/Share Discussion

I’ll give you five minutes to write an answer to the following question:

Based on your reading, how can we describe the link between fandom and identity?Why should we pay attention to what we like (to do, to watch, to read, to listen to, to collect)?

Continue reading →

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College Comp 2.1: Proposal Project Description

Posted on August 29, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan

  • Attendance
  • Proposal Assignment
  • Proposal as Genre
  • Homework

Reviewing the Proposal Assignment

Vitals:

  • Length 700 to 1000 words (essentially, 3-4 pages)
  • MLA or APA format with Works Cited / References list and citations where appropriate
  • Submitted as a shared link with comment permissions via Google Docs
  • Due next Monday at 10:00 am

Note that it is strongly encouraged that you visit office hours to discuss your project with me before submission. My hours are M & W 1:00-2:00 and Friday 10-10:45 in Ross Hall, 1180D.

Let’s take a look at the short project description:

In the proposal project you will articulate to me which fan community you will join. This includes identifying active places on the Internet at which people are writing and commenting and identifying a few of the major personalities that drive this community. This project will also identify the kinds of writing you will need to do: what kind of writing does this community value? Are you going to be writing on reddit? Or a specific community forum? Could you compose a faq for this community and solicit feedback from community members? Could you write some reviews? What major events will provide you with material to write about? We will discuss this project more during the first week of class.

The proposal project is meant as an exercise in invention, in generating ideas that you can execute in the coming weeks. Writing on deadline every week can be more difficult than it might seem; this stage of the semester is meant to help you develop a wealth of materials that you can revisit in future weeks.

Grading Rubric:

  • Sufficient Research: [51%] while I can’t put an exact number here, I’ll be looking to see that you have done your homework, so to speak, and that your paper reflects reading and research into the topic by explicating the names, sites, terms, activities, etc central to your topic. This should include numerous citations (both quotations and/or paraphrases).
  • Arrangement: [13%] Following below, I’ll be looking to see that your proposal reads like a proposal and follows the genre conventions we identify in class
  • Edited Prose: [13%] I expect that you will have carefully edited your prose for correctness and clarity. Also, since we are dealing with digital documents, I will be checking that links are properly hyperlinked.
  • MLA or APA format: [13%] I will be checking three things here. First, I will be looking to see that your proposal is formatted according to MLA or APA guidelines. Second, I will be paying attention to how you format subject headings. Third, I will be paying particular attention to how you use direct quotes and/or paraphrases (checking the parenthetical, quotation marks, commas, etc).

Genre and/as Proposal

First, let’s talk about the term genre. Then we’ll talk about some of the fundamental parts of any proposal. Finally, I want to flesh out what my specific expectations are for the arrangement of this proposal.

I would like your proposal to have 3-4 sections (depending on whether you are doing an academic or a public project):

  • Project Description
  • Preliminary Research
  • Publication Venues
  • Potential Production Schedule

The first section should be a Project Description. In a few paragraphs, this section should give me an idea of what you want to write about this semester: the general topic, the people who are interested, your background in the topic, your expectations, etc. It might speak to why this project is important, why it is worth doing. It might also flesh out your previous experiences in this community and your qualifications for doing the project. The second section should be Preliminary Research. This section should give me concrete specifics about the community. Who are the important people writing on this subject? And/or, where are the important places people write about this subject? Make it clear what places you will be reading for ideas. I’m not looking for a mere bulleted list here, but rather a section that flushes out some of the key nodes in the discursive network you are engaging.

For those *not* working on an academic project, I will need a description of *where* you’ll put your writing, along with some links and description of examples of what writing you will emulate. For instance, if I were going to write about baseball, I would point to mlb.com blogs where users regularly publish, and fangraphs.com as a place where I could publish comments. If I were going to write about comics, then I might point to CBR Forum as a place I could join and publish each week. If I were going to write about Destiny, then I might have more of a challenge, since the Destiny Forums doesn’t have too much longform writing. Neither does the reddit forum dedicated to the game. So, while there’s plenty of news, people to interact with, and an upcoming expansion (review fodder), I would probably start my own blog on blogger.com to write longer pieces and leave comments, or links to my post, in other places. [Note: blogger is really easy to use and I can set up a blog with you in about 10 minutes. Tops.]

The final component of the proposal is your Production Schedule. This can be developed as a list or a table–but it should give me a week by week plan for what you might write. You should at least cover weeks 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Give me a sense of what you imagine you will be doing. Do you want to do 3 weeks of short writing and then one long piece on medium? Do you have an idea for a longer post/question you might make on reddit? Perhaps you want to spend a week telling a story about why you care about your topic? Perhaps you want to spend 3 week writing a 2000 word guide for people who are new to the activity, which you can then post to a bunch of different spaces in hopes of gaining feedback? Do you want to read a book on your subject and post a review to amazon.com? Are you going to try and write a post that asks other people what you might read?

I have developed a proposal template that you can use to begin the project. Note that it is not in MLA or APA format.

Again, let me stress that you have freedom to design a project that interests you. My central concerns are that 1) you read things every week and 2) you develop the ability to summarize, synthesize, and react to those readings productively. I know this happens more if you are interested and engaged in what you are writing about. Don’t develop a topic because you think I will like it. Develop a topic because you think you will like it.

Homework

Read Duffett, 1-5 & 15-23. Complete Duffett reading quiz on Canvas before you come to class.

Work on your proposal. You will need to print two copies of your proposal for Friday’s class.

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College Composition 1.3: Possible Projects

Posted on August 26, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s plan:

  • Attendance
  • That’s not an embedded link
  • Reviewing project possibilities
  • Homework

Project Possibilities

The majority of class today will be a discussion about possible projects. While I was impressed by the range of topics, and think there’s quite a few with real potential, I was quite surprised so many of you pitched “topics” and not “communities.”

Homework

Complete fandom research assignment; submit link to Google Doc to Canvas.

Here’s some instructions for getting a shareable link via Google Docs.

For homework, I want you to start drafting your project proposal. The final proposal is a 600-1000 word document. I will talk a bit more about the format of the proposal next week. Here’s what you should do over the weekend to prepare.

First, you should identify 2-5 places on the Internet that readily publish material on your topic and allow comments. Check the dates and frequency of publication. If possible, click on author’s names to see how much they post. Google author names to see if they publish in other places. Etc.

For each of these places, find one or two recent articles. Read them enough to provide summaries of them.

After this research, write a few sentences that identify the controversies of this community. What’s the disagreements? What keeps people writing?

Then try to think about something this community needs, something you could research (note: this might not be possible for every community). But you should be thinking about what your contribution will be. Summarizing and comparing is a good start, but what can you bring?

Take a stroll down Amazon.com with your topic. Take a stroll down the UNC library search field with your topic. Take a stroll down Google Scholar with your activity. Find interesting stuff you could read and summarize for your community.

Search for big events coming up for your community. Put together a calendar.

Finally, begin generating your own schedule for writing. . For weeks 4-12, imagine what you might read and write every week. Of course, I won’t hold you to this exact calendar–I want you to respond to what’s happening in your community and to have the freedom to follow any interesting lines of thought. But, you do need to prove to me that you can sustain the project for ten weeks.

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College Composition 1.2: Identifying a Community

Posted on August 24, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Attendance (11:17)
  • Naming Finals (how to get on a prof’s good side)
  • Clear up quiz confusion, troubleshoot Canvas (11:20)
  • Review sentences (11:30)
  • Syllabus (11:45)
  • Proposal Project (12:05)

Continue reading →

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College Composition 1.1: Intro to Argument via Pokemon Go

Posted on August 22, 2016 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s plan:

  • Attendance (11:17)
  • Canvas (11:22)
  • Reading #1 (11:32)
  • Discuss Reading #1 (11:42) in groups using questions
  • Reading #2 (11:52)
  • Discuss Reading #2 as a class using questions
  • Homework

Attendance and Canvas

Let’s make sure everyone is here.

Let’s make sure everyone knows how to find Canvas. You can log into Canvas by going to https://canvas.unco.edu.

Timothy B. Lee’s “Pokemon Go is Everything that is Wrong with Late Capitalism

I’m going to give you about ten minutes to read Lee’s short piece on Pokemon Go.

When folks are done reading, I will ask you to get into groups of three or four and use the questions below to discuss the article.

Rhetorical Analysis Questions

As an introduction to rhetorical analysis (or how arguments are perceived and treated by audiences), I want you to think about the following questions.

  • What is the central claim Lee makes? Ultimately, what does this article want to change or make someone do differently? [who is the audience?]
  • What evidence does Lee offer to support this claim? What kinds of evidence (statistics, experiments, testimony, hypotheticals, deductive reasoning, anecdotes, etc)?
  • Are there any claims in the piece that are unsupported?
  • If you could ask the author one follow up question, what would it be?

In technical terms, the first two questions above concern logos, or how we offer rational arguments. The third question gets at ethos, or how the intellectual, social, and spiritual communities to which we belong inform how we perceive arguments and influences what we consider evidence. Or, put more simply, who we are affects what we hear and think.

Farren and Millsap’s “Pokemon Go Represents the Best of Capitalism

Since this is a response to Lee’s article, I want to add one more question:

  • What is the central claim Farren and Millsap make? Ultimately, what does this article want to change or make someone do differently? [who is the audience?]
  • What evidence does Lee offer to support this claim? What kinds of evidence (statistics, testimony, hypotheticals, deductive reasoning, anecdotes, etc)?
  • Are there any claims in the piece that are unsupported?
  • How do they summarize Lee’s piece? What part(s) of his argument do they respond to? What part(s) of his argument do they ignore?
  • If you could ask the author one follow up question, what would it be?

Homework

Before next class:

  • Read They Say, I Say preface and introduction
  • Post a 3-5 sentence response to either article read in class to Canvas using a template from They Say, I Say (#1 Pokemon Go They Say, I Say response)

If you need them, then you can get instructions for posting to Canvas here.

I will go over the syllabus in detail on Wednesday and introduce both our semester-long project and the first major assignment.

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