Weeks 16 & 17: The End

Class,

Your final ENG 215 assignment requires you to try something new. Instead of completing a draft of an essay that's to remain in word processor form, you'll be writing with attention to multimedia presentation.

How do you finalize an essay that reads with the interest and charisma of modern blog writing? One way to create that type of interest is to include visual data. Think, as you write, about what kind of images you could use that would add texture, information, and persuasion to your essay. After finalizing a draft on a word processing program, you'll copy and paste the text into a blog post, then re-format it to look professional and persuasive. Choose, also, a voice and style that works in the context of a blog post. Skim popular blogs on the internet to become acquainted with blog writing about news or issues, as a way of becoming familiar with strong ways to craft your essay. Focus on editing. Your post should be worthy of publication before it's uploaded to the blog.

Your full assignment instructions can be located under "Tuesday, November 30th" on your calendar. To clarify the instructions, I have several more points. For one, since blog writing is rarely (if ever) double-spaced, you ought not leave your text double-spaced when copied from word processor to post. Do cite your research in Works Cited, but choose formatting that looks good on the webpage. For instance, you might choose to use a smaller font or a different font to distinguish the text of the essay from the citations. Also, be sure to cite your image sources. Since a minimum of 3 sources and 3 images are required for this assignment, it's likely that you will have 6 citations or more. If you have any other questions for clarification, send me an email and I'll be happy to reply.

By tomorrow night, everyone should post a completed rough draft of your final essay. On Wednesday or Thursday, you can offer peer review to your group members so they can continue to edit their work.

Anytime after Thursday, and until Tuesday, December 7th (there's an error on your calendar that says Tuesday is the 8th), you are welcome to post your final essay to your blog. By Tuesday the 7th, remember to visit Blackboard's Discussion Board to post your HW assignment for the final day. Besides posting your final essay project to your blog, you will post a reflection letter and an appreciations letter to Discussion Board. The former will be a note to yourself, and the latter will be a note to the class. Details appear under "Tuesday, December 7th" on your course calendar. You may also have received a course evaluation form via email; filling these out will give the university a sense of my effort this semester. Please take the time to submit the course evaluation, and thanks for that.

As you finish out the semester, I'd like to thank you for sharing your wonderful writing with me. I hope your practice of expository academic writing in this course gives you confidence with writing in future courses. I also wish you the best of luck with finals.

Happy Holidays and enjoy a well deserved Winter Break!

Sincerely,
Professor Patel

Week 15: Mining the Blogs

Hi class

Welcome to the final unit of the course!

All semester long, you've crafted blog posts about various interesting topics. Only three of these posts were revised into complete essay assignments, though many more posts had tremendous potential to be further developed. The final project gives all of you an opportunity to retrieve yet another of these blog posts and revise it to completion.

To begin, you'll receive the opportunity to thoroughly read the blogs of two classmates. (View the "Unit 4 Peer Groups" listing on our class blog site to learn about who you'll be working with.) After reading your group members' blogs in their entirety, you'll be able to leave precise, helpful feedback in the form of "Greatest Hits". Your "Greatest Hits" posts for each team member will reflect, for them, their strengths of writing. You can also let your group members know what questions you still have in regards to their favorite posts. These "Greatest Hits" posts will help your group members recognize their accomplishments, and might help them as they seek to choose a single post to develop for the final project. Both of your "Greatest Hits" posts should be three paragraphs long (5-6 sentences per paragraph) and should reference at least three specific posts by title.

You yourself will also get to read the two "Greatest Hits" posts presented about your blog by each of your group members. In reading these posts, reflect on your strengths as a writer, and on your opportunity to develop any one of your posts for the final assignment. Seeing what peer readers enjoyed reading might help you to learn about which post to choose as a rough basis for Project 4.

You have no assignment due on Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Enjoy your time off!

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Next week, you'll continue work towards accomplishing your final project.

By this evening, everyone should have received an email with feedback about their final drafts of Essay 3. Grades for Essay 3 have now been posted to Gradebook on Blackboard and are available for viewing.

I appreciate your hard work as we complete the semester and look forward to reading your final writing. Good luck! I'm available if anyone has questions or concerns.

-AP

Week 12: Style and Persona

Hi Class :-)

I hope you're doing well as we approach the final stretch of the semester! I appreciate all of you for your effort and progress, and will continue making myself available via phone or during in-person appointments as needed.

Many posts from last week struck me as exciting for various reasons, but I'll point out just a few Greatest Hits:

As a historical account, Amara's post, "The Growth of Phoenix", reads clearly and objectively. I like the informative tone: http://amararodriguez.blogspot.com/2010/10/growth-of-phoenix.html

Read, also, Jessica's post, "Living in a Material World", which is a fair-minded analysis of the positive and negative cultural outcomes of living in a materialistic society. It already has the shape and organization techniques of academic essays, which makes it a great candidate for revision:
http://jlchee.blogspot.com/2010/10/26-october-2010-page-418-1.html

April's post, "American Italians", contains some heartfelt informal reflection about a topic of personal importance, which makes it enjoyable to read: http://aprilpage333.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-italians.html

Similarly, Tasha's "Can't Buy Me Love" is an enjoyable reflection on material culture:
http://tashasfinalenglishclass.blogspot.com/2010/10/cant-buy-me-love.html

Both April and Tasha's posts show the type of brainstorming-style reflective writing that, though it is not perfect for the purposes of academic argument writing, could reveal a seed of purpose to begin new writing. As pre-writing, it's both valuable and constructive.

This week, you'll continue reading and responding on the topic of Capital Economies.

Though the readings for this week come from disciplines that are related to the subject of economics, you'll notice that the writers to try to engage with a wide audience of readers - even those of us who aren't necessarily familiar with the language and purposes of Economics. Your first article, "Wall Street's Quant King: David Shaw's Secret Formulas Pile Up Money", describes a scenario that educates all kinds of readers about the shared qualities of computers and finance. Just as the writer, James Alley, is careful to be accessible and interesting in his use of tones, language, and information, you too should consider elements of style that make your content more interesting.

In writing, we often talk about a rhetorical concept called "ethos". Ethos refers to the writer's authority, and is descriptive of the way a writer conveys their thoughts. Developing a trustworthy, likeable, and accessible ethos - or persona - allows for a reader to feel that the writer is, in fact, an authority on the subject at hand. Without adequate ethos, a reader can easily dismiss a writer as incorrect, even if their claims are well-reasoned and their points speak truth.

In this week's readings, you'll get to see how writers make topics in math, economics, and computer science seem important and interesting to even readers like me, who are easily bored by such topics. ;-) You can learn a lot about the craft of writing from these articles. View how writers construct text in ways that make their topics approachable. Since all of you will be writing an essay about a topic in Capital Economies, you would do well to pay close attention to what you like about someone else's writing on the topic so you can apply similar techniques in your own work.

Continue to read, post, and develop your ideas this week. I realize the semester is getting busier and busier, but some of you are actually posting work that's less accomplished than previous writing. I encourage you to at least review and meet the basic guidelines for online class homework, even if you do find yourself strapped for time.

I look forward to reading your thoughts.

AP