last blog post from me... probably

Thank you for your honest feedback in class today--I really appreciated it! I wish I had more time to respond to each concern and question, and if you'd care to have a further discussion, I'd love to :)

Anyway. Good luck studying for the final. I encourage you to work in your groups and study together, especially with punctuation and the RA section. I will see you in our classroom next Wednesday at 2:30PM. Be on time. You don't have to bring paper; I will bring it. Just bring a pen/pencil and your brains.

...and food. I am willing to offer a few extra credit points to boost your final grade if you bring food for the class. I would rather not have a bunch of junk food... an excess of sugar during a final might not produce the most desired results. But I'll leave that to your discretion.

I'm willing to answer any questions about your Issues Paper grades, but as I've said with the other papers, wait 24 hours, read through my comments and the rubric carefully, and then we can talk.

IF you are taking a couple extra days to finish your MMA, make sure to get it to me this week. After this week, no can do.


Also, see you next Wednesday! Good luck with finals!

just because i love you

I've mentioned this to a few groups, but I thought I'd put it on the blog so everyone would know. Your MMA portfolios are absolutely, no exceptions, due on Wednesday at the beginning of class. However, I realize that you haven't had a lot of time to work on this assignment, so if you need an extra day or so to complete the webpage, that's okay. Just let me know on Wednesday if you'd like a couple more days to work on it.

Again, portfolios are due Wednesday, but if you need more time to finalize the webpage, that's not a problem.

We're going over the study guide for the final exam on Wednesday, and plus other fun stuff, so don't miss! Not that any of you would; you're all awesome. 

ALSO, I almost forgot. For your very last blog post, you will write a couple of paragraphs in response to the following questions:

• Did you like the blogs? 
• Did you like posting assignments on your blog instead of turning a paper copy in during class?
• Have you enjoyed reading your peers' blogs? Was it useful to you to see everyone's responses to the assignments? 
• A lot of these are yes/no questions, but make sure to explain your answers. Basically, I just want to know how you liked the blogs and if/how they were useful to you in this class. 

As per usual, post before class on Wednesday. 

friday's class

On Friday during class we will meet in the library, room 2233. I'm giving you the whole class to work with minimal interruptions from myself. I will be there, however, to answer any questions you may have. Please make good use of this time!
I'm excited to see your websites! I hope things are going well. If you have any questions, email me or remember them for Friday. Check the syllabus and course schedule to make sure you're aware of what's coming up the last week of classes.

I'm going to try and come Friday with a study guide for the final exam. As we mentioned in class, the final is absolutely mandatory. We will be meeting as a class during a scheduled time to take the test. (I put the date/time on the syllabus, but check the BYU website to make sure we're all on the same page.)

Also, I've been meaning to tell you this, but one of your final assignments for the class is to complete the student ratings for this class online. You've probably been getting emails about it. The due date is on Friday the 13th (next Friday), but I'd like you to get them finished by the last day of class.

See you on Friday!

blog prompt for wednesday AND an interesting article about cats

I didn't have a chance to properly defend my love of cats in class, mostly because I was being attacked by several dog lovers who didn't give me the opportunity to speak. What did we say about addressing your counterarguments fairly?? Have we learned nothing??? Well. Click here for a delightful article about why cats are awesome. It does say that most cat lovers are weird, but you already know how weird I am. I've accepted it.

I do want to say, however, that I also love {some} dogs. Some dogs are too jumpy and hyper and clingy and stupid, but others are wonderful. One of my favorite pets growing up was a dog. But I've been bitten on three different occasions by dogs, and they were all rabies-infested ugly muts in Uruguay. I think that's what tipped the scales for me. Dogs can be awesome, but I am more devoted to the feline species.

BUT that's irrelevant to your blog post for this week. I'd like you to select one of the websites you posted on your blog last week and analyze it according to the design principles we discussed in class today {contrast, color, composition, proximity, alignment, repetition, rule of thirds, etc.} You can pick either an effective or an ineffective website to analyze.

Please do an in-depth analysis. I want you to think hard about this one. If after learning some design principles you decide that one of the websites you chose was actually ineffective {or the other way around}, you are welcome to change your mind and tell us why in the post.

Happy blogging! And good luck putting together your websites.

i.p. portfolio/ multimodal info

Here's what you need to include in the I.P portfolio:

• Cover sheet
• Rubric
• Final draft (STAPLED!!)
• Annotated bibliography (the one I commented on)
• Outline (again, the one you gave to me)
• First draft (same as above)
• Peer reviewed draft (printed with the comments)

Okay, and here's the info for the Multimodal Argument:

Website builders:

• Google sites
• Wix
• Weebly
• DevHub
• SnapPages
• Webs
• GetShopped
• Webnode

Online tools:

•Pixlr.com (free photoshop)

•TinEye.com (reverse image search)

•Harmony Drawing Tool (draw online)

•PhotoshopLady.com (tutorials)

•Color IQ Test

•Goo.gl (shorten URLs)

Any questions, just email me! I will get back to you Monday morning. Try to meet with your group before class on Monday (if you can't over the weekend or Monday morning, try to meet sometime on Monday). You should have a website started by Monday at some point. 

yay! new design!

what do you think?

intro to multimodal argument (friday)

On Friday we'll begin the very last unit of the semester! Crazy how time flies (when you're having fun, right?) Okay, so you do have some reading for Friday: Supplemental Guide, pages 55-60. Easy enough! 

Also, please send your peers their papers today, so they have sufficient time to revise. As I mentioned in class, go over the paper and make any other comments you want to, correct grammar, etc., and then write a 150-200 word end note detailing your suggestions for their paper's improvement. Use the rubric as a reference for this end note, so you are hitting all of the important points in your review.

BY THE WAY, I was a little disgruntled to find that many of you merely googled "ineffective websites" instead of finding them on your own. Shame, shame, shame. 

I think that's all. See you Friday!

prompt for wednesday 03.28

Okay. For Wednesday's blog post, you'll do a couple of things:

• First, I want you to look at the problem you identified in your previous blog post, and tell us how you solved the problem. Paper revisions are about solving problems, so I want you to make sure you are actually taking the responsibility of resolving these issues. 
• Second, I want you to list (and give links to) four effective websites and four ineffective websites. For the next unit, we will be focusing more in-depth on visual rhetoric, specifically websites. I want you to start thinking about what you think is effective/ineffective about websites. Does it accomplish what it's trying to? Is the information organized in an intuitive, logical manner? What makes you want/not want to revisit a website? Obviously, we haven't talked about any sort of design principles in class, but I want to know what you know right off the bat. 

Sound fair? Buenisimo. See you in class on Wednesday! (HBLL 2232)

for friday

Hello all! Here's what's going to happen Friday:

I'm going to email you a couple of Issue Papers to read over. You will read the papers alongside the rubric and tell me what grade you would assign each of the papers based on the rubric. Then we'll discuss them in class. I'm trying to track down a couple of examples so you have a good range and a lot of examples to work with. So you should be getting a paper from me within a few hours.

Make sure to comment on your classmates' blogs! Oh, and thanks for your participation in the debate today. I had fun! And I think it was a productive activity.

Alrighty, I will see you Friday!

....and one more thing

The Steven Church reading is up on the website: http://ers.byu.edu/

Have fun!

for wednesday

Amigos,

Good luck with your IP rough drafts. To offset the amount of work you'll do, the blog post won't be too intense. Just paraphrase the following paragraph WITHOUT patchwriting:

“We do not in everyday life reflect much on how one people’s ‘myth’ may be another people’s religion or episteme. What ‘we’ label ‘myth’ from other cultures then translates into the ‘that’s just a myth!’ formula that implicitly sustains the value of our own beliefs. Thus trivialized—though in different ways—both outside and within Western culture, ‘myth’ in common English-language usage today is the object of exoticizing amusement or dismissal; it is deprived of its associations with history, knowledge, and vision—what has made myth culturally valuable and has most fascinated scholars of myths and traditional narratives” (Bacchilega 25).

Also, at the end of the blog post, I want you to think of something you've struggled with in the Issues Paper writing process and tell us what it is. Then when you comment on your peers' posts for Friday, you can help each other out by responding to the problem. 

Make sense? 

stuff

Okay, class. I saw at least ONE of you at the Steven Church reading, but if you came, I hope you enjoyed it. I'm emailing some of his essays to you just in case you are interested. Check on the website, too, and they should have his reading up in a few days. I am now weirdly obsessed with him, as I told you in class, so if you read some of his essays and watch the reading series recording, I'll be happy. You know, just a few things you can do to get on my good side :)

Also, if you love his style of writing (personal essays, etc.), you'll love the other authors I told you about in class:

• Scott Russell Sanders
• Brian Doyle
• Eduardo Galeano

Just do a search for these authors in the English Reading Series website (link above), and you can watch their readings. Fun stuff. Extra credit in class and extra credit in life. 

Remember, Monday's class is in the library, room 2232. You'll want to work on your papers over the weekend and get as much done as you can, so during class you can ask questions and get a lot of work done. With the Issues Paper, it's best to work on it at least a little bit every day, even on the weekends. Make sure, wherever you are in your writing process, that you have access to your draft through email or flash drive or something, so you can build off of what you already have. 

I will do my best to get your Annotated Bibs and Outlines graded over the weekend, and we can address any concerns you may have next week. I have been meaning to be more clear about this, but the breakdown on your Issues Paper grade is a little different than with other papers. The IP is worth 300 points. 50 of these points are for the prewriting process. Your Annotated Bibs are worth 20, your outlines are worth 15, and your first full drafts are also worth 15. So whatever grade you receive on these assignments does affect the overall grade of your Issues Paper. So the final paper itself will be worth 300 points. Does that make sense? 

Okay! Just so you know, I'm running away for the weekend to grade and do other stuff, so I doubt I'll bring my computer. So if you email me with questions, I'll get back to you on Monday morning. 

Phew! Long post. 

for wednesday: annotated bib and other exciting things

Here's the part when you love me:

• You don't need to do a blog post for Wednesday. I mean, you can if you WANT to, and if you do, you can write whatever you want. But you're not required

Okay, so make sure you have a printed copy of your annotated bibliography (don't post it--print it and bring it to class). 

Also, I wanted to say that for this paper (as with the RA), there is only one required instructor conference. I'm going to make a few changes on the course schedule for this unit, so I'll give you an updated schedule in class on Wednesday. So you'll have the updated day for this required conference. With that said, if you want a GOOD GRADE on this paper, you will probably want to make the extra effort to meet with me at least one other time (or more). I am giving you freedom to email me about meeting. I want to help you with these papers, but I want to give you enough independence with this paper that you come in when you're struggling or when you feel like you need the most help.

Again, review the Issues Paper section in the Supplemental Guide. This unit is complicated and there simply isn't time to go over everything in class, so you'll need to do reading on your own. I'll give you more examples of Issues Papers to analyze and use as examples, but for now, just use the one in the SG. 

See you on Wednesday! Good luck with your research.

for monday

Hi y'all. Okay, first things first. Some of you have had questions about the Issues Paper in general (structure, purpose, etc.), and while I am happy to answer questions, 90% of the surface level questions can be found in the Supplemental Guide. Please take time to read over the Issues Paper section two, three, four times until you understand what the assignment is!

As you can tell from my email, I want to meet with each of you about your research. This doesn't mean, however, that I want to do your research FOR you. I want you to come with a list of your current sources that we can discuss. Show me the work you've done, and come to me with additional questions. I am here to help, but you need to do your part. Know the assignment, do your research, and bring any additional questions to me and I'll be happy to help.

Do your reading for Monday! Get as much done with the Annotated Bibliography assignment as you can this weekend. And have a good weekend!

for wednesday

It was so good to see you all today! I missed you. I hope that Monday's class was helpful to get you started with research. For Wednesday, you need to check the syllabus for reading. Also, here is the prompt for this week's blog post:

• What did you learn about research from Monday's class? What are you still confused about? 
• I want this to be a well-developed paragraph. And by well-developed, I mean more than a couple of sentences. Make your paragraphs look healthier than some of your proposal paragraphs looked! Remember, I'm grading you on these!

I think that's about it. I only have one more thought:

Let's be lifesavers, people! (:

Hasta Wednesday

here's everything you need for the week

Okay, this is the last you'll hear from me this week. I'm off to CHICAGO to the AWP National Creative Writers Conference. Should be an adventure. I will, in all sincerity, miss all of you. 

Here's what you need to know for the rest of the week:

•Wednesday’s blog post {list of 20 interests/things you would be interested in writing about or are that interest you in general}

•Check syllabus for reading

•Friday’s blog post {Issues paper proposal: 2-3 well-developed paragraphs describing your issue, your initial stance, your research question(s), and any background research you’ve done, and why you care about this topic.}

I will do my best to give you feedback on your proposals by Monday (I'm flying in Sunday night, so I'll get as many as I can done Monday before class). Monday, in the library, we will be learning research skills, so it will be beneficial for all of you to have a topic squared away. 

•Come to class both Wednesday and Friday {Paige will take roll}

•Monday: we will meet in the library {HBLL room 2231} 

Have a FANTASTIC week! Enjoy Paige; she's a rockstar. 

also, one more thing

Make sure to check your syllabus for Monday's reading!

ESSENTIAL info for monday

As you are finishing your papers over the weekend, make sure you comb through your whole paper for grammatical and punctuation errors. Because we reviewed commas extensively, I will be a little less lenient about comma errors as I'm grading these papers (especially as they apply to the rules we reviewed in class). I'll email you the ppt. we looked at in class, but make sure you review the rules in the handbook if you have any other questions. The handbook is there for your benefit, so I'd like you to consult the handbook before talking to me (not because I don't want to talk to you, but because I'd like to get you used to utilizing the handbook in the writing process).

As you are turning in your RA portfolios on Monday, here are the exact specifications for what is required in your portfolio:

1. Cover sheet
2. Rubric
3. Final draft
4. Rough draft from peer review
5. Rough draft from instructor conference (or conference notes, if I didn't make specific marks on your paper)
6. A small paragraph telling me if you received papers from your peers for the peer review and how helpful each review was. 

That's it! NO REFLECTION WILL BE NECESSARY. A couple of you typed a reflection for the Op Ed, and this will be unnecessary for this paper. 

I will be in class on Monday. Please don't be late to class because I will collect the papers right at the beginning of class, and any paper that is not turned in right at the beginning will be considered late. 

Have a good weekend! Good luck finishing your papers.

PS. Staple your papers. Amen.

tomorrow

this is what you should have for tomorrow:

1. one clean, hard copy of your most recent draft (your "final" draft)

also, a few things of interest:

get more sleep, because NO ONE is this cheerful at 3:17 in the morning writing papers. even me.

also, considering how many of you listed both star wars AND lord of the rings in your favorite movies, I thought you would appreciate this.

the end. see y'all tomorrow!

as promised

I warn you, this is going to be a ridiculously long list.

1. Return of the King (I love all the Lord of the Rings movies, but this one is my fave--extended edition all the way)
2. Anne of Green Gables & Anne of Avonlea
3. The Mummy (laugh all you want)
4. Much Ado about Nothing
5. Chocolat
6. Stranger than Fiction
7. Anonymous (see why I want you all to watch it? there are some scandalous parts in it, I must warn you)
8. Persuasion (the Ciaran Hindes/Amanda Root version)
9. Pride and Prejudice (both the one with Colin Firth and the shorter one with Kiera Knightly)
10. Sense and Sensibility (both the Emma Thompson one and the newer BBC version)
11. Dan in Real Life
12. Singin' in the Rain
13. Strictly Ballroom
14. Italian Job
15. Princess Bride
16. Sherlock Holmes

You asked for it!