Blog URLs

In hopes of making it easier for us to get to each others' blogs, here are all class members' URLs:

http://smashliteracy.blogspot.com

http://runningstartsenior.blogspot.com/

http://amberpryor.blogspot.com/

http://jaminkuhn.blogspot.com/

http://jeremys-english.blogspot.com/

http://imukuni.blogspot.com/

http://regrieth.blogspot.com/

http://essenceofhumannature.blogspot.com/

http://stevejecz.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-blog.html

http://amandamccammon.blogspot.com/

http://dazedartist-lifewithoutaman.blogspot.com/

http://lancerenglish111.blogspot.com/

http://robinzn.blogspot.com/

http://rachelsblog22.blogspot.com/

http://taylormarie20.blogspot.com/

Essay 1 Assignment

This first essay is an opportunity to practice looking for threads of connection between short stories. You will have read four stories by Kate Chopin (“Ripe Figs,” “The Story of an Hour,” “Desiree’s Baby,” and “The Storm”) and a story by Tobias Wolff (“Powder”). You can choose which stories you want to write about. You don’t have to write about all five, but you need to write about at least two. There are an infinite number of possible approaches to this assignment, but here are some suggestions:

• Assert a claim about the role nature plays in the works of Chopin
• Compare the roles of nature in the works of Chopin and Wolff
• Discuss Chopin’s portrayal of women, men, or their interactions
• Analyze gender differences between Chopin and Wolff (characters or styles)
• Describe a key similarity or difference between these works separated by a century

You aren’t limited to choosing one of these five approaches. You can certainly choose another, inspired perhaps by one or more of the critical strategies outlined in Chapter 18, but please notice that none of my suggestions asks for a summary or a statement of whether or not you like the works being discussed. Those are valid approaches for journaling because they can help point you to areas for further investigation, but they are insufficient for the task of analytical writing. Your classmates and I will have read the same texts, so we won’t need a summary of any of the stories. And since this isn’t an art appreciation class, we aren’t writing reviews. We want to see you assert a debatable thesis (preferably at the end of the first paragraph) about connections between these stories and support that thesis with evidence from them.

Please print the completed essay from a computer, using 12-pt font (Times New Roman or Arial), double-spacing the lines, and setting the margins at 1” all the way around. The essay should be two to three pages long (meaning it should conclude at the bottom of the second page or somewhere on the third page). Don’t forget to insert page numbers, a title that announces the topic or hints at your thesis, and a works cited page.

A working draft of this essay is due on Monday, September 29th. It need not be complete, but it must be far enough along for reviewers to comment usefully. A draft for initial grading is due on Wednesday, October 1st. When grading it, I’ll be looking for

• A clearly stated thesis, supported by relevant and properly cited textual evidence
• A coherent structure with introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion
• Paragraphs that are each unified by a topic sentence
• Sentences that are grammatically correct and properly punctuated
• An ability to read and accurately follow the instructions for the assignment

An A paper will have all of these things, as well as a thoughtful, engaged approach to the topic. A B paper will have all or almost all of the bulleted characteristics, but it may be overly simplified. A C paper will have most of the bulleted characteristics. A D paper will have few of the bulleted characteristics, and an F paper will have none of them. You may revise and resubmit the essay on Wednesday, October 8th for a grade that will replace the first grade.

Blogfolio Assignment

A blogfolio, as I'm using the term, is an electronic portfolio that offers many opportunities for creativity while demanding very few technical skills. It's very easy to make connections using blogs: connections between things you've read, written, seen, heard, etc. And since it's instantly published on the Web, a blog makes it easy for other people to connect with you and your ideas. The -folio suffix refers to the fact that, as with a portfolio, you are being asked to include generically-specified content in order to support assessment of your work.

While it may seem a bit heavy-handed, I'm going to require that you set up a new blog using Google's free Blogger application. I want us to be able to help each other develop these blogs, so I want us to be using the same tools. If you're already a blogger and/or you'd like to use another blogging tool, please feel free to make links to those other blogs in your 111 Blogger blogfolio.

This assignment represents the 25% eLearning hybrid portion of this course, so the blogfolio itself will count for 25% of your course grade, as follows:

• 5 posts on your own blog x 2 percentage points possible per post = 10%

• 5 comments on classmates' blogs x 1 percentage point each = 5%

• 1 final reflective post on your own blog = 10%

Every other week, you'll write a post that makes a connection between something you've read for this class and something else in your life. It could be something else you've read, a personal experience, plans for the future, or something I haven't thought of. You could embed images, links to other sites on the Web, audio clips, poems or stories you've written, or something else I haven't thought of. Just be sure to explain the connection for your readers. If the post is either on time or follows these instructions, it will earn a point. If it's both, it will earn two points. Posts are due before midnight on even-numbered week Thursdays.

On odd weeks, you'll post a comment on a classmate's blog. The point is to make connections, so your comment should be more than an evaluation of the post. It should make an explicit connection either to something else we've read in class or something else in your own life (or both). Comments are due before midnight on odd-numbered week Thursdays.

The final post should take the form of an essay that reflects on your development of a better understanding and appreciation of literature (the catalog's stated goals for this course). Focus on some aspect of that development in your thesis statement and support it by pointing to evidence in your blogfolio. The final reflective post is due on Wednesday, December 10^th. As with the other essays you'll write for this class, this final post will be graded according to how well it displays

• a clearly stated thesis, supported by relevant and properly cited textual evidence.

• a coherent structure with introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

• paragraphs that are each unified by a topic sentence.

• sentences that are grammatically correct and properly punctuated.

• the writer’s ability to follow accurately the instructions for the assignment.

Never Mind

It turns out there's a bus route that currently serves the proposed SpoPull ridership. It's $22 each way. That would add up pretty quickly. But I suppose it wouldn't end up being much more than the gas, rent, and utilities I'll be paying as things stand. And I would get to be home each night. Being only one week into this experiment, I suppose it's appropriate to collect more experiential data before giving up on the current arrangement. And I really don't have a choice, since I've signed a lease on the apartment.

So far, I feel Sunday afternoons taking on the old poignancy I remember from when I was a kid. Mom would be ironing her clothes for the week, vegetable smells from some stew simmering on the stove would be mingling with perfumed spray starch, and I'd be dreading going back to school. What was I dreading? Probably PE more than anything else. I wonder if PE teachers ever think about the trauma some of their students are experiencing. And I wonder if students in my English classes experience analogous trauma. Something to keep in mind.

What would have made PE better for me, less traumatic? Less individual performance. I don't remember dreading soccer as much. But softball was terrifying. Everyone watching to see if I'd fail to hit the ball--and I usually would. So I wonder what the analogous traumatic moment would be for a student in an English class. Oral presentation? Certainly. Having to read your paper out loud, or having your paper critiqued in front of the whole class. I don't do those things. I wonder what else scares my students.

The SpoPull Express

I start commuting from Pullman to Spokane next week. It takes a solid 90 minutes because I don't enjoy paying speeding tickets and higher insurance. Even though it will only be twice a week, and even though I haven't started, I'm already tired at the thought of it. Here's what I'm thinking: if a college student in Colorado can successfully blog a vice-presidential candidate from Alaska onto the Republican Party's ticket, maybe I can blog a commuter train from Spokane to Pullman into existence. I could get so much more reading and writing done on a train than I will be able to while driving a car.

I'm therefore announcing the formation of a planning committee to bring a commuter train line, the SpoPull Express, to the Palouse. This should increase my readership significantly. If you have information (or vast amounts of money) that would contribute to the effort, please chime in. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Go SpoPull!!!

Starting to Come Together

Today I wrapped up a draft of the curriculum for my Intro to Lit course. Because the course is a 25% hybrid, I decided to make that same portion of the course grade dependent upon composition of a blogfolio. I'm calling it that because I'm thinking of it as an ePortfolio that's entirely blog-based. I was so impressed with the combination of ease with which I could set up this blog and its apparent creative and connective functionality. In the course of researching ePortfolios and writing about them in my dissertation, I came to believe that ePortfolios can foster student engagement by virtue of supporting integration of identity aspects. But I also ran into a lot of corporate nonsense coming from folks evangelizing products they're either selling or trying to justify their own purchase of. Perhaps a blog provides the good without having to buy the bad.

Of course I realize that Google is a corporation. It isn't offering this great tool out of the kindness of its heart; corporations don't have hearts. Information about lifestyle, tastes, and surfing habits is being collected. But if I go into it with full knowledge of that, I'm not sure it's as terrifying as it initially seemed. I remember being nonplussed when an ad popped up in my gmail window that happened to be shockingly relevant to my research interests. Once the panoptic unease had settled, I started to think it was a fair trade: free software for behavior monitoring. I'm certainly capable of resisting advertising, even if it's very well-targeted. I've spent my life watching television, after all. In fact, as with television, I'd actually prefer it if the advertising I encounter on the Web were more relevant to my interests. As the poet/teacher Jim Bertolino used to wonder aloud, "Where's the harm in that?"

Newjobbin' It

Gearing up for a new job at Spokane Falls Community College, I decided it's time to enter the Blogosphere. My plan is to ask students to create and maintain their own blogs, writing about what matters to them, and commenting on classmates' blogs. School is, perhaps by definition, inauthentic. But I'm hoping the quasi-personal, semi-public writing spaces offered by blogs can be a borderland between writing-for-school and writing-for-life. Blogs have real audiences (however large or small) who are attracted to them because they discuss meaningful issues. I'm going to write about teaching English at a community college. I just hope Google has set aside enough bandwidth or whatever to accommodate the hordes of readers poised to beat a path to this new blog.