Blog #8

This blog should be a free write. I would like you to write a really, really long (4-5 paragraph) blog about this.

This is due by class time on 12/2.

In the syllabus, I listed a few goals for this course. They follow, here:

1. Comprehend, analyze, and articulate a well-reasoned response to a variety of texts, from student writing to published writing to academic discourse;
2. Evidence an understanding of how topic, audience, purpose, voice, and levels of formality interact and vary in different rhetorical situations, in academic disciplines, and discourse communities;
3. Utilize various invention, drafting, and revising/editing strategies to meet the purposes of different writing situations, materials available to the student, and length of time available for the task;
4. Engage a topic in which the student explores writing as a means of self-discovery and produces a text that is designed to persuade the reader of the student’s commitment;
5. Establish a voice appropriate to the topic selected and rhetorical context;
6. Clarify major aims, arrange material to support aims, and provide sufficient materials to satisfy expectations of readers;
7. Select, evaluate, and interact effectively with sources, subordinating them to the student’s purpose and creating confidence that the sources have been fairly represented and acknowledged with academic integrity;
8. Demonstrate a satisfactory control over the conventions of edited American English and competently attend to the elements of presentation (including layout, visual elements, format, printing, and consistent style of documentation) appropriate to the academic discipline or discourse community;
9. Ethically employ appropriate computer-generated technology to the production of a writing project;
10. Recognize the importance of writing as essential to inquiry, learning, thinking, communicating, life-long learning, and as a career skill.

How did you meet or are you meeting these goals? In which papers? What revisions are you still working on? Why? I suggest that you take a look at Michelle's example. Here's a link to her electronic porfolio:

http://www.students.niu.edu/~z111902/teachport/MICHELLE/index.html

Remember that her "guiding reflection" is focused on other course goals, but they are similar to ours. Follow through the whole portfolio to get a good idea of what I want you to do -- only you lucked out and you needn't compose an electronic portfolio.This course was equivalent to English 101 at WCC. Keep that in mind. Also, the links contained in Michelle's guiding reflection, itself, are different than those in the bar at the top of the page. For example, the link to Essay 1 at the top of the page takes you to a final copy of that paper. In the guiding reflection, there is a copy of the paper that has "reflection" as an actual part of the document. There are additional links there, too. It's just a really good portfolio -- she was also an adult, returning student with a "unique" past.

PLEASE CALL ME WITH ANY PROBLEMS OR QUESTIONS. THIS IS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT!