FYI: Advice on Overcoming Writer's Block

There are many books written on the subject of the occupational disease of the writer--writer's block. I sometimes wonder if the books are written to overcome a block and profit from it. Writer's Block is real, and finding yourself without an idea to get started or the right words once started happens to all writers. Follow the link below to some decent advice on tactics to overcome writer's block. I can recommend the advice to get physical and that of doing research, but nothing works so well as sleeping on the problem and having a routine where I write every day.

Steve

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/break-through-writers-block.html

FYI: Sleep and Drafting and Revising

If you find yourself stuck on a problem when drafting or revising, walking away and sleeping on it may be the best answer. This is advice from which I've personally profited over the years, and I've passed along to students with very little to back it up but my own experience that it works. Here's a link, via Lifehacker, which points to recent research which confirms. My Mother's advice to "Sleep on it" was right.

Steve

Sleep Boosts Creativity by 33% [Mind Hacks]

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on 9/28/08

A Harvard sleep researcher finds that if you sleep on new ideas and information, you're 33% more likely to make connections between distantly related points. Sleep helps you make tough decisions, and solve proble

Free: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, College Night

COLLEGE NIGHT @ THE VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

THEME: “EXPAND”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2 (7:00-10:00 PM)

FREE TO ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS (valid college ID required)

Come on out to the VMFA (on the corner of Boulevard and Grove Avenues) as they showcase some of their featured exhibits, review portfolios, and display student art on this FREE evening of art and entertainment! There will also be contests, music by Double Standard Crew, performance by Dim Sum Dance, and other fun activities. For more information on the event and even how to enter the portfolio review, please visit the website at http://www.vmfa.museum/college_night_expand.html.

Please note that students are allowed to bring a guest, free of charge as well. NO pre-registration for this event is required.

Readings for Friday, October 3rd

For Friday, please read print and bring the full text of the Declaration of Independence:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/print_friendly.html?page=declaration_transcript_content.html&title=NARA%20|%20The%20Declaration%20of%20Independence%3A%20A%20Transcription

Rhetoric in Advertising

One of the places where rhetoric touches our lives every day is through advertising. Some quick and dirty research on the question of just how many advertisements the typical American gets exposed to produced answers from 300-3000 advertisements per day (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=56750). Since numbers which vary this much point to research which still needs to be done, let's go with a low ball estimate and go with 250 ads per day. Even this conservative estimate translates into all of us being bombarded with advertisements.

If you don't think advertising agencies have done audience research, think again. If you don't think there's a host of rhetoric training behind most successful advertisements, think again. One of the reasons you are being trained in looking at basic rhetoric and learning to think critically about how others communicate with you is to learn when and how you are manipulated through rhetoric. However, now you have the training, there's a lot you can learn from such successful communication as advertisements.

Here's an example. Somewhere there's an essay with "weasel words" in the title. When I used to teach composition as a course in reading, I used to use the essay. It discussed words in advertising, such as, "virtually." The statement, "It has virtually no fat.," translates into, "It has fat." However, advertisers count on their audience being lazy and not taking or having the time to think through what they are saying.

Here is a link to a site which offers small businesses advice on the Truth in Advertising Act:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/adv/bus35.shtm

Boiled down, advertisers are required to have "reasonable evidence" to back up their claims. This is a pretty low threshold for determining what makes a true claim and what doesn't, and it counts on your and my willingness to accept claims as face value without thinking about how they are supported.

Truth in advertising leads me to a second example of how advertisements work. Nance and I decided to have bacon, eggs, and baked tomatoes with our scones and tea. It's a Sunday, so we have additional time to cook and enjoy. Nance breaks out the bacon package and comments that, "It has thirty percent less fat."

The claim is right there on the label, "30% LESS FAT." By the way, this is Kroger's high end, house brand of bacon; so, you can look for yourself. Her BS antennae go up and critical thinking kicks in. Nance has lived with me, so she has long since learned to think rhetorically and critically.

"Thirty percent less fat than what?"

She looks on the bag and in tiny, tiny print it says, "than USDA data for bacon." Knowing the USDA sets very, very minimalistic standards, having less fat than the fattest bacon allowed to qualify as bacon doesn't mean a lot; but, this qualifies as "reasonable evidence." Notice how Kroger has highlighted the claim and minimialized its support by crafting how the message appears. The large print and bold lettering draw your attention to the claim. They are counting on the fact you will never take the time to look at the small print and their "reasonable evidence."

Such advertisement is insulting to its audience. It suggests you are lazy
enough not to think about the claim itself and to know that claims are only as good as the evidence used to support them. Sloppy or manipulative claims say a lot about the assumptions their authors make about their audience, and they say a lot about their authors.

Yes, such claims work; otherwise, we wouldn't be exposed to them by advertisers. Remember, advertisers are in the business of making money. If their messages were not successful and didn 't make money, they would soon be out of business. However, you are now being trained to think critically, so you don't have to be taken in by sloppy reasoning and manipulative claims.

Over the next few weeks, as you look for examples of rhetoric to include in your two weekly analysis, you could do a lot worst than to pay attention to how advertisements try to work, the assumptions which are made about their audience, and what these assumptions say about their authors. One trick here is to learn to hear what advertisers are saying, instead of just taking an ad at face value.

One lesson you can learn from all this is that of making sure your claims and evidence stay up to high standards. You can bet, Nance will be looking at other sources of bacon. After all, we don't see why we should support a company who has such a low opinion of our ability to think. You might also learn that some members of your audiences are looking at your claims and evidence and trying to figure out what they say about their authors and their assumptions about their audience.

FYI: A Free Timer to Download

For years, I've been working with students who struggle with procrastination and getting started on a writing project. It is a problem with which I have always struggled; so, I know how hard it can prove.

My current struggle is to make time each day to write, read and think; but--depending on the project--sometimes it's still just getting started. One trick I've used to jump start my starting a project is that of setting a kitchen timer for ten or fifteen minutes, and telling myself, "I'll work until the timer goes off. When it does, I'll decide if I want to go on. If I don't want to go on, at least I've put in ten or fifteen minutes." Usually, just the ten minutes allows me to make enough of a start that I can continue. If worse comes to worst, I've wasted ten or fifteen minutes just sitting and thinking what a putz I am.

Of course, if you're a student, having the money, motivation, and time to buy a kitchen timer can prove a hindrance. The net to the rescue. Today, lifehacker, one of my favorite productivity blogs, posted the following article on a timer which the folks who work in Windows can download for free.

from Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick

Windows only: Stop wondering where the time went and start using a timer to be more productive. Cool Timer is a small timer application with three modes: countdown, stopwatch and alarm clock. You can customize the color scheme and size of the clock to make it easier to see it at a distance, and you can assign a text message to an alarm to serve as a reminder. Included are several basic sound files like a gong, alarm clock, etc. but you can use any WAV, MP3 or MIDI file you want. If you use certain countdown times and alarms frequently, you can save them for repeat use. If you're looking for a Linux solution check out Timer Applet, for Macs check out Alarm Clock 2. Cool Timer is a free download for Windows only.

Cool Timer [Harmony Hollow Software]

Steve

FYI: "Advice for Students: Start Planning Now for Life After College"

Over the years, I've played with an assignment design which would have students interview folks who have completed college and ask the question, "What do you wish you had done/learned in college you didn't?" I admit, I secretly expected folks to hear, "I wish I'd learned to write better. I have to write all the time now." I've never implemented the assignment, but I know for a fact there are opportunities and support in college which 95% of students never even think to explore. Think internships. Think career services.

I occasionally google and research such advice to current students. It's one way I try to make sure my courses teach knowledge, skills, and techniques which are useful both in and out of college.

For your consideration, here's such advice from a source I read everyday and whom I--mostly--respect, namely, lifehack.org:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/advice-for-students-start-planning-now-for-life-after-college.html

I especailly want to call your attention to the follow piece of advice:

7. Become a great writer.

No matter what field you hope to go into, and no matter what job you hope to have in that field, writing skills will get you further than almost any other competency. “Written communication skills are ESSENTIAL for most careers today,” writes Pollak. Look at every written assignment as a chance to develop better writing and editing skills. Ask for feedback from your professors. Take writing classes, either for credit or through adult extension. Join a writing group, or form one. Read writing books (Stephen King’s On Writing is a great one and highly readable). In short, do whatever you can to become a better writer – you’ll be putting yourself two or three steps ahead of the rest of your graduating class.

Using Google Documents to Communicate with Your Group

You've got one more piece of technology to learn how to use. Don't panic. I assure you, this new tech, google documents, will make your work with your group easier. It is no more difficult to use than the class discussionl list or google mail, which you are now using successfully. More important, you will find google documents one of the most useful writing tools available today.

Just as google mail allows you to access email from any Internet connected computer, google documents allows you to edit documents on any Internet connected computer. Not only does this greatly expand the number of machines and places from which you can do productive writing, having your work stored online creates a number of opportunities traditional word processors simply can't provide, especially in the realm of gruop collaboration and having easy access to your work from almost anywhere. Here's a video tutorial to explain:

http://www.teachertube.co/view_video.php?viewkey=0c1b9311cb8f40eb4f25

Because you already have a gmail account, all you have to do get access to the google word processor (google documents) is log into your gmail account. Now look in the top, left hand side of the page. There you will see a line of links which will read something like: "Gmail Calendar Documents ... More." Click on the link for Documents, and sign up for the new service. Notice the help link (top right hand line, next to your logon name). Following the help link will take you here:

http://docs.google.com/support/?hl=en

and allow you to read and explore your new, online word processor. Take some time this week to learn how to open a new documents and save it. Remember, with google documents your work is saved on the internet, not on your machince; so, to access it later, all you need to do is to log back onto google documents.

In the future, anytime you need to go to google documents you can get there through the method above or use the following link:

docs.google.com

Now, to do some useful work using google documents...

Choose someone in your group to set up a new, google document called "YourGroupName: Contact Information, Class and Section" If the author from your group needs help, they can contact me at 804-885-3727 or prof.brandon@gmail.com to step them through the process.

Once your group author sets up a document for your group's contact information, they are to add their name, telephone number, and email address as the first line of text. Then they they are to use the "share" menu to add everyone else in the group as a collaborator. They do this by clicking on the share tab and choosing the command, "share with others." A box will pop-up labeled "invite collaborators." To invite people as collaborators, all the original author needs to do is to type in every one's gmailaddress and hit the button "Invite Collaborators." SInce everyone has already been emailing their group, you've got everyone's gmail address in your notes or contacts. Google docs will send out email invitations to everyone invited to collaborate. Oh, whoever is the original author, make sure to invite me, prof.brandon@gmail.com, as a collaborator as well.

Once your author creates the document and adds the group, including you, and me as collaborators, each of us will receive an email inviting us to collaborate. If we accept this invitation by clicking on the link to the document in this invitation, we will be taken to the contact information document the original author created. Since we are now collaborators, we can make changes to the document, and these changes will be saved. Add your name, gmail address, and telephone number under that of the original author, and then look to right hand side of the page. There you will see "Save and Close." This will save your work and close the document. If you want to continue editing and playing around, just hit "Save."

If you now log back onto google documents, you will see the document your group is creating on your file managment page. Using google documents, creating a collaborative document is just this easy. Someone creates the document, and shares the newly created document with the other authors/commenters using email. The other authors accept the invitation to collaborate, and they can make changes or add and delete text, just like the person who created the document on which everyone is collaborating. Moreover, they can log into their google documents account from any internet collected computer, and have access to the collaborative document from most anywhere.

Notice that a whole new world of collaborative team work is now open up to you.

Don't panic over the new tech; explore it using the help page, and feel free to get in touch with the more tech savy folks in your group for help. If you find yourself still having trouble, get in touch with me sooner, rather than later, and I'll be happy to meet with you to step you through the baics of using google documents.

Over the course of the semester, you will be working with your group via google documents to practice some of the skills you'll be taught. For instance, this week you *could* use google documents to share your King revision with your group and to get comments back from them. This week you don't have to do this. In fact, until everyone gets through the step of feeling comfortable logging onto google docs, you shouldn't. This week, just get used to going to the service and--unless you are one in your group creating the document to collect group information--just keep an eye out for your invitation to collaborate, open your group's document, and share your contact information with your group on it.

Here's another video introduction to google documents:

http://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews_breeze/DocsSpreadsheets/index.html

Don't worry about understanding every aspect of the introduction. Just as with most of technology, you'll pick up what you need to know as you use it. You did this with gmail, google documents is, if anything, as straightforward.

As always, if you have questions, write or call. Remember, I am here to help.

Make Note: Kaizen and Process Driven Improvement

Note: Kaizen is one of the five major concepts you will learn in this course, so take notes.

At the end of World War II, the economy of Japan was in shambles. The Allies had won the war, but winning the peace looked like a more difficult proposition. Folks remembered what had happened in Germany following the peace of World War I. Germany was penalized. We'd provided no help in rebuilding the economy and let the post war German stew in its own juices. After all, they were the enemy? Right? Run away inflation, Hitler, and scapegoating of the Jews were the result. No one wanted a repeat in Japan following WWII, but no one understood how to rebuild a country either. What did we do? We looked for industrial experts. Japan's (and modern Germany's) position as world powers and economic power houses was the result. Helping your one time enemies and making them friends turned out to be a good way to win the peace.

At the conclusion of WWII, the current vogue in industrial management was time and motion study. During the war, specialists in the field had had a lot of practice, and the success of US industry in shifting toward producing the stuff of war was proof that time and motion study combined with the factory model of industrial production was a very, very powerful combination. Specialists in the field took the complex and seemingly simple and identified the steps involved. They then identified what steps had to be done and what was "wasted" motion. Through each of these understandings, they improved processes.

The QWERTY keyboard is a good example of how the time and motion study combine to make the human/machine interface more effective. The QWERTY keyboard was set up using early ides about time and motion studies. Wikipedia describes the history as:

The QWERTY keyboard layout was devised and created in the 1860s by the creator of the first modern typewriter, Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor who lived in Milwaukee. Originally, the characters on the typewriters he invented were arranged alphabetically, set on the end of a metal bar which struck the paper when its key was pressed. However, once an operator had learned to type at speed, the bars attached to letters that lay close together on the keyboard became entangled with one another, forcing the typist to manually unstick the typebars, and also frequently blotting the document.[1] A business associate of Sholes, James Densmore, suggested splitting up keys for letters commonly used together to speed up typing by preventing common pairs of typebars from striking the platen at the same time and sticking together.

The keyboard most of you use to interact with the computer was the result. The layout of the keys is designed to solve a problem in a human/mechanical interface--a problem which disappeared long ago. We continue to use the QWERTY layout, because learning to type using it requires a fairly heavy investment in time and energy, and it's the way things have been done for 150 years. Note there are better, more effectual ways to design a keyboard to ease the job of a typist getting English text into a computer, but we still use the QWERTY. Why? Answering this question goes a long way toward your developing a more complex idea of how processes work in human communities, so I'm going to take a moment to provide an answer before returning to the story of time and motion study, industrial management, Kaizen, and your becoming a better writer.

The short answer to why we continue to use the QWERTY keyboard is that it's the way most folks have learned to type. It took a long time for those of us who touch type to gain the skill. It works pretty well, that is, I can type faster than I can think and compose prose. To convince me to change over to a new method of text entry, you have to make the case (persuade me) the new method is worth the trouble of learning it. You have to make the case the new method will make my life sufficiently easier to warrant the investment in time and energy to make the change, you have to justify the capital investment needed to put new keyboards on most desks and retrain the workforce, and you have to overcome the "it's tradition" factor. The "it's tradition" factor is one reason that substantial changes in social practice happen along generational lines, that is, the young tend to have less invested in having learned a particular method of doing something, so they are less likely to resist a new, "better" method on the grounds the work doesn't have sufficient payoff. The young also have the task of establishing an identity different from their parents' and forming social communities outside of the family. The rebellion involved in adopting a new method of doing something, hence, has more appeal to the young. Catastrophe also sets up the conditions through which change will be accepted.

Loosing the war was one such catastrophe for Japan, so while they didn't exactly welcome Western experts into each factory, they saw the necessity of adopting new methods of industrial production. However, the problem involved in getting the Japanese to adopt the new methods of more effective factory labor design involved more than simply making the case that it worked, there was also a less obvious cultural conflict inherent in time and motion, process based industrial management. Those of us in the West had had centuries to adapt our society to the demands of the industrial revolution and, more importantly, to adapt industry and technology to the demands of society. One such compromise had to do with the place of the worker in a western factory.

In western factories, an individual does the same task repeatedly. They move one piece of a widget to another line. They attach one piece of the widget, and the next person down the line attaches the next. Such isolated sub-steps in a process work perfectly with time and motion study. Think about it. If you can identify a way for the individual to use less motion and effort to attach their piece of a widget, you can speed up the whole line. In a similar way, you can identify choke points, that is, points in the process where a single step or group of steps slows down overall production. Once identified, you can apply the know how of mechanical design to automate the task, break it down into more steps, or otherwise make it more effective, and you can make the whole line or the whole process more efficient.

In western culture, we've gotten used to "doing our job," that is, doing our bit of an overall project or doing our job on the line. The idea of single craftspersons doing all the steps involved in producing a product is the exception, not the rule. In the 1940s, the Japanese, however, were just coming out of feudal, crafts based society. Their workers were used to being involved in understanding products as wholes and not parts. They were also used to thinking of work as an end rather than a means. For example, think of Zen meditation practices built around specific kinds of work, like sweeping. Finally, they were used to thinking of communities and not individuals as the center of social and individual action. The upshot was that they adapted process based, time and motion study to the norms of their society. Kaizen was the result.

The notion of "low hanging fruit" is a classic metaphor from the industrial management philosophy of Kaizen. Kiazen also provides some useful language when teaching process, teaching process theory, running a writing program, or teaching folks to become better writers. The basic tenets are:

1. Use existing processes, tools, and infrastructure to "pick the lowest hanging fruit." [NB: Little if any additional investments in capital intensive remachining and work force training are needed.]
2. Use groups made up of management and workers to examine goals, products and existing processes. [NB Tap into the knowledge and skills set of those who do the work and those who have a larger picture, all the while helping to build a better community.]
3. Identify *small* changes in process which might provide a more efficient process or better product.
4. Use the group to identify which changes in process will be made.
5. Implement change(s).
6. Use the group to evaluate changes.
7. If the changes are deemed effective, maintain changes as part of a new process.
8. Rinse and repeat.
9. Pick higher fruits as the changes in process accumulate.

Kaizen is a merging of western process theory and Japanese belief about how work and the worker fit into community and life. Kaizen is accredited for the success and rebirth of the Japanese economy following WWII. They started with what they had--picking the lowest fruit--and used the power of community to create processes governed by the notion one makes small changes over time, changes accumulate, and better process makes better process.

Here's how all this fits into a writing class and your becoming a better writer. Think of yourself as a writer in the process of becoming. You want to use your existing skill and knowledge set about writing, how to write, and how to do things with words to produce texts which accomplish your ends. You pick the lowest hanging fruits, but you also know that your current process and knowledge set isn't the most effective. To borrow a metaphor from the QWERTY keyboard, your writing process does well enough, but it could be more effective at doing its job.

The Kaizen of the writing process begins here. You make a commitment to improving the processes, tricks, and techniques you use to produce effective texts. You articulate your process, and you then articulate a possible improvement in your process. You make the changes necessary to implement this one improvement, and you then evaluate the change. If the change you've made makes your writing more effective, both in terms of it accomplishing your purposes for writing and/or in making the job of writing easier, then you keep the change as part of your process.

You are already involved in this process.

Quite literally, you are discovering and beginning the Kaizen (the process of small continuous improvement) of your own writing and learning how to apply Kaizen to other aspects of your professional and personal life. Once you get your head around the fact that this class is about process and not product, that is, discovery of the process involved in creating a text and making your process more effective, then you're a long way toward getting the content of the course.

FYI: Point Royal, VA c. 1864

From Shorpys, comes a picture of Point Royal, VA c 1864. This is from Grant's Wilderness Campaign in the Civil War. The Civil War comes right at the end of the early American period you are studying.

Take a moment to look at the boats. The sort of tubby ones on the right are canal boats. These moved freight, tobacco, etc. from the interior of Virginia and other states around the fall line, and they brought manufactured goods back. The more streamedlined boats to the left and at the end of the pontoon bridge are steamships. Note they have the smoke stacks. The one at the left of the picture is a back wheeler, from which we get the term, "to back wheel." The one at the end of the bridge is a side wheeler. Ships like these pied the smooth sections of river and those sections below the fall line. The main reason Richmond is where it is and became the state capital is it was a river port, that is, a deep water port on the James River. It is where the commerce from the interior of Virgina met the commerce from the rest of the world. It provided canals around the falls, making moving freight and people much, much easier than by land. Note also, the only mechanical means of power in the 19th century wer either the water wheel or the steam engine. Most movement of people and freight until well after the Civil War was via either foot, horse, or--most often and if one could afford it--boat. The rivers were the equivalent of the interstates today, that is, the way people and stuff moves between cities and regions. Also remember, it took much more time than today to move between locations. The trip from Richmond to Lynchburg by canal took a day and half. One slept on the boat.

Steve

Cornell Note Taking System: Tips and Examples

From of my alma maters, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, comes the following handouts, tips, and example of the Cornell note taking system. It works; use it. Since I'm teaching the Cornell system as a genre of writing this semester, I'll be looking for folks to be using the system in their class notes.

From the UNCG website:

Good Note-taking

Lecture notes can be a critical tool for preparing for exams. The following handouts provide tips on how to recall more information from your lectures through active listening and purposeful note-taking.

Cornell Note Taking Method
Example of Cornell Method
Note Taking Tips
Taking Good Class Notes

Instructify, one of my favorite blogs, pointed me to these resources. (Please note the informal citation and acknowledgment of my debt to one else and their work.)

Writing Process Theory

Several years ago, those of us who teach composition rediscovered another idea the Greek and Roman rhetoricians had visited first, namely, that of trying to describe the various stages a speaker or writer goes through as they produce a text. The idea is to set up a series of steps *any* speaker or writer can use to produce effective rhetoric. The Greek and Roman version of this process was called the Canons of Rhetoric. The modern version developed from these canons is called "The Writing Process" or the "Process Theory of Writing."

Modern process theory encourages writers to see the value of breaking the task of writing down into a specific set of ordered tasks and devoting their full attention to each task. It teaches various strategies for tackling each task and encourages the writer to find the strategies which work best for him or her. The standard division is as follows:

Prewriting--I've mentioned this step in previous posts and in the syllabus. In this step, you do the work needed prior to beginning to draft your text. You decide on what topic you'll write on. You decide which audience you'll write for. You decided on how you will develop your topic. You figure out what you can say. You figure out the order in which to present your ideas and/or to develop them. One reason I have you writing in your individual, metadiscourse blogs is to help you make prewriting a conscious part of your writing process, and I'll be suggesting tactics for answering prewriting questions, doing an audience analysis, discovering what you can say, and organizing your writing.

Drafting--This step involves you in just getting the your ideas down on paper. Often it's the hardest step for beginning writers, and it's where verbal constipation can occur, that is, if you try to cram all the other steps in writing into drafting.

Revision--In this step you move through multiple drafts of your text looking at various aspects of your text. You make sure the text uses the right tone for your audience. You make sure it strikes the right balance between formality and informality. You think about changes to your organization. You look for places to add an example, evidence, an illustration, a story, or further evidence. You cut out places where you repeat. In short, you make changes to content.

Proofreading/editing--One edits another's paper. One proofreads one own. In this step, you look at grammar, usage, and spelling. It's here where you tackle surface level issues which don't have anything to do with content. Overtime, you develop a set of issues for which you know you have to look. Keeping an error log, that is, a list of your frequent errors in usage, spelling, and grammar is one of the tricks of the trade. It helps you keep an index of all the issues for which you have to look. Issues drop out as you figure out how to recognize and fix them, and they are added as your writing process changes, introducing more chances for new errors.

Review--In this step, you take your product or text, and you judge what you've done, what tactics worked and which didn't. In the Rhetorical Canons, there used to be a canon for rhetorical memory. Literally, this was your memory of tricks of writing and speaking which had worked in the past, tricks you could use in producing the text you're working on currently. By making it a conscious step to add to your rhetorical memory, to review your texts and their effectiveness, you develop a repertoire or a library of ways to write (and not to write).

This division makes the notion of the writing process seem very straightforward. "Follow these steps, and you'll produce good writing." It turns out, however, the division of writing into the steps above is useful as a rubric, but most real writers follow a more messy actual process. The upshot? Learn the terms of the writing process. Think about how they apply to the processes you use to produce texts. Become especially aware of places where you can make a simple change to your process by adding, say, a conscious step in which you figure out your organization prior to writing; but, don't try to slavishly follow rubric above. It can be done, but it's a recipe for frustration.

Paper One Assignment

American History 121-10
Fall 2008
Essay One Assignment
Due Wednesday Oct 1

Expand and revise one of your two short papers (on Revel or Rowlandson), answering the same question as before.

Your essay must be type-written, double-spaced in a legible font and format, and be between 1250 and 1500 words in length. (This will be about 4-5 pages in most fonts).

Use only readings assigned for the course. For long sources, use the translations provided and refer only to the sections assigned for the course. You may not use outside sources.

Your answer must refer to primary sources at least five times total. You may either quote or paraphrase the source, but the reference must be cited. You may use either parenthetical citations or footnotes to give the author. Like this (author, page #) or this.[1] You must also cite uses of secondary sources, such as the textbook and lecture, but they do not count towards the five uses of primary sources.

You do not need to include a cover page or a works cited page.

Essays must have a strong thesis in the first paragraph, answer the question correctly with reasoned argument, evidence an organized structure and be based on the primary source evidence. Egregious grammatical and spelling errors will adversely affect the final grade.
[1] Author, page #.

Steve Brandon: New Office Hours

Good morning. It's Tuesday, 23 September.

I finally found a couple of hours, and I made the move to my new office. It's 231 Massey, that is, the new Library and Technology Center behind Georgiadis on the Parham Road campus. Last week, I also began wearing a new hat--the English Program Liaison for the Academic Support Center on the Parham campus. All of the above means my office hours will begin meeting in new locations.

Monday and Thursday 12:30-2:30 Academic Support Center,
114 Burnette
Tuesday 12:00-2:30 231 Massey
Wednesday 12:00-2:00 Learning Community Faculty Center,
217 Massey

With the exclusion of meetings, etc., as much as possible, I'll be in Massey 231 Monday-Thursday, 8:30-11:00.

One last note, this week, on Thursday and Friday, 25-26 September, I'll be attending a VCCS conference; so, classes and office hours will be cancelled. Look for the work you are to do on the class blog.

Steve

A view of a Richmond street, c. 1860, muddy water, and Jefferson denounces slavery.

Two views of the street in from of the White House of the Confederacy from the 1860s. When viewing these, remember this is *the* major building in the South. Even it had a muddy street in front when it rained and dusty street when it was dry. There was no centralized sewage system, and the Richmond Pump house was completed in 1883. Prior to it's completion, there was no city wide water system in Richmond. People got water from wells or from the creeks, rivers, and canals into which the streets flowed..


Today I mentioned two quotations--one from Mark Twain on the virtues of drinking river water and one from Jefferson on his reaction to slavery. For good measure, I dug up a couple of pictures of Richmond prior to sewers, water treatment, etc.

The man they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink than the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this yaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to three- quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage of the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water - what you wanted to do was to keep it stirred up - and when the river was low, keep mud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.

The Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in his stomach if he wanted to. He says:

"You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow worth shucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the water the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't richen a soil any."

And they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippi water. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is low, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east side of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you get out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all thick and yaller the rest of the way across.
-Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi


Jefferson, a denouncement of slavery (1785):

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. If a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is to be born to live and labor for another or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him . Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Skipping classes?

All students "know" that attending class is important, but some still find more exciting things to do than attend class. Unfortunately, skipping (or simply missing) class can have some serious reprocussions:

1) You may miss important information that's not in the textbook. Make sure you borrow notes from another student. But, bear in mind, they might not have written down something important that you would have had you been in class. And, you're still expected to know all of the material whether you were physically there or not.

2) Each Instructor has their own attendance policy. And most Instructors will not take work late if you missed a class. Make sure that you know exactly what each of your Instructors requires of you. Missing a class could cost you a good rappor with the Instructor or even a couple of letter grades in the course.

3) Repeated absences doesn't look good. You may think that missing a class here and there isn't a big deal, but your Instructor sees it differently. If they are there every day and on time, they expect the same from you. By coming in late or not coming at all, you're telling them that what they have to say isn't important and their class is a waste of your time. That can be a problem should you have problems with the material and need their help. It can also cause problems if you ever need a letter of recommendation for a job or another school.

4) The college has a strict attendance policy that ALL of your Instructors are required to adhere to. JSRCC's policy is:
J. Sargeant Reynolds has recently revised the policy on student attendance. The policy revision requires instructors to document and report student attendance for all courses. Attendance in this course will be taken each scheduled class period. At the end of 15% (the add/drop deadline) of the course and again at the end of 60% (the withdrawal deadline) of the course any student having been absent for the last three consecutive periods or weeks, will be involuntarily withdrawn from the class. This action could impact your financial aid (if applicable).

• Students are responsible for their enrollment and attendance in a course and must comply with all institutional obligations and institutional deadlines. Students wishing to drop from a course should complete an Add/Drop form, and submit it to an Access Center or complete the transaction using the Student Information System (PeopleSoft) by the published Add/Drop deadline. After that, students wishing to withdraw from the course should complete a Request to Withdraw from Class(es), and submit it to an Access Center by the published Withdraw from Class with a Grade of “W” deadline.
• Students who do not submit the appropriate forms, or attend classes within the guidelines outlined in this policy may have an adverse transaction occur on their record, which may include involuntary removal from the course or a grade “F” given for the course. An exception to these actions could occur if the student has contacted the instructor and provided a valid reason for his or her extended absence.

What does this mean? It means that you can lose your financial aid if you miss too many classes!


So, what should you do?

1) Try not to miss class. It's important for you to be there to get material and so that the Instructor can check on your progress in the course. It also builds a good reputation with your Instructor and other students.

2) If you must miss class, email/call the Instructor and let them know. Also, check on the syllabus for each class that you miss to find out what the Make-Up Policy is. Some Instructors will penalize you points, and others may require documentation if you want to make up the work at all. And, if you still have questions - ask. That's what office hours are for! :)

-Prof M

Breaking a Habit

Zen Habits has just posted an article this week on "10 Unbeatable Tips for Overcoming Micro-Addictions". It's also great advice for trying to overcome or break your bad habit...

http://zenhabits.net/2008/09/10-unbeatable-tips-for-overcoming-micro-addictions

Timeline Help

If you are looking for some sites to help you create your habit timeline for Wednesday, check these out:

Time Line Maker - This site offers a free horizontal or vertical timeline creation tool. Just type in the dates (or markers you want to use) and then the labels that go with them. Make sure you save you page and print it.
http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/timelines/

Creating a Timeline in MS Word - If you prefer a more traditional program like Microsoft Word, here are some step-by-step instructions for using their program.
http://www.microsoft.com/Education/TimelinesWord.mspx

Bubbl.us - This site is great for creating mind-maps, taking notes in a mapping format (great for visual or kinesthetic learners), and for just brainstorming in general.
http://bubbl.us

Or for something really fancy, you can try Smart Draw. It has a free 7 day trial! (The same thing can be accomplished in other programs, so you don't need to buy the software - but, in case you wanted to see what's out there....)
http://www.smartdraw.com/specials/timelines.asp?id=45261&gclid=COG9nomF8JUCFQgRFQodixHGfQ

-Prof M

Description of Slave Punishment

From de Crevecoeur's Letter IX, Letters from an American Farmer...
 In order to avoid the heat of the sun, I resolved to go on foot,
sheltered in a small path, leading through a pleasant wood. I was
leisurely travelling along, attentively examining some peculiar
plants which I had collected, when all at once I felt the air
strongly agitated, though the day was perfectly calm and sultry. I
immediately cast my eyes toward the cleared ground, from which I was
but at a small distance, in order to see whether it was not
occasioned by a sudden shower; when at that instant a sound
resembling a deep rough voice, uttered, as I thought, a few
inarticulate monosyllables. Alarmed and surprised, I precipitately
looked all round, when I perceived at about six rods distance
something resembling a cage, suspended to the limbs of a tree; all
the branches of which appeared covered with large birds of prey,
fluttering about, and anxiously endeavouring to perch on the cage.
Actuated by an involuntary motion of my hands, more than by any
design of my mind, I fired at them; they all flew to a short
distance, with a most hideous noise: when, horrid to think and
painful to repeat, I perceived a negro, suspended in the cage, and
left there to expire! I shudder when I recollect that the birds had
already picked out his eyes, his cheek bones were bare; his arms had
been attacked in several places, and his body seemed covered with a
multitude of wounds. From the edges of the hollow sockets and from
the lacerations with which he was disfigured, the blood slowly
dropped, and tinged the ground beneath. No sooner were the birds
flown, than swarms of insects covered the whole body of this
unfortunate wretch, eager to feed on his mangled flesh and to drink
his blood. I found myself suddenly arrested by the power of affright
and terror; my nerves were convoked; I trembled, I stood motionless,
involuntarily contemplating the fate of this negro, in all its
dismal latitude. The living spectre, though deprived of his eyes,
could still distinctly hear, and in his uncouth dialect begged me to
give him some water to allay his thirst. Humanity herself would have
recoiled back with horror; she would have balanced whether to lessen
such reliefless distress, or mercifully with one blow to end this
dreadful scene of agonising torture! Had I had a ball in my gun, I
certainly should have despatched him; but finding myself unable to
perform so kind an office, I sought, though trembling, to relieve
him as well as I could. A shell ready fixed to a pole, which had
been used by some negroes, presented itself to me; filled it with
water, and with trembling hands I guided it to the quivering lips of
the wretched sufferer. Urged by the irresistible power of thirst, he
endeavoured to meet it, as he instinctively guessed its approach by
the noise it made in passing through the bars of the cage. "Tanke,
you white man, tanke you, pute some poison and give me." "How long
have you been hanging there?" I asked him. "Two days, and me no die;
the birds, the birds; aaah me!" Oppressed with the reflections which
this shocking spectacle afforded me, I mustered strength enough to
walk away, and soon reached the house at which I intended to dine.
There I heard that the reason for this slave being thus punished,
was on account of his having killed the overseer of the plantation.
They told me that the laws of self-preservation rendered such
executions necessary; and supported the doctrine of slavery with the
arguments generally made use of to justify the practice; with t
he
repetition of which I shall not trouble you at present.--Adieu.

Distribution of Salvery, 1790-1860, in Continential America

Slavery changes over time. Look at the two maps to the left. Notice how the "center" of slavery shifts with the expanding population of the United States to the south and west. This distribution of "cash" crops becomes one of the many reasons the regions of the North and South come to differ in how they view the Republic.

Steve

Definitions: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources

Primary sources are artifacts, data, personal accounts of a time period, etc. These are the sources which a professional group studies and from which they draw conclusions. Primary sources are your best source of evidence. King's letter or Franklin's speech would be primary sources for rhetorical study, as would any act of communication.

Secondary sources are the collection of conversations folks are and have had about the primary source material or evidence. The rhetorical analysis you are writing and reading are secondary sources because they are made up of observations and analysis of primary source material. Other secondary sources might be articles or a professional conversation or email exchange. For instance, two nurses and a doctor might discussion what conclusions they can draw from a chart recording a patient's temperature, blood pressure, and pulse rate over a period of time.

Tertiary sources are those in which someone comes along and summarizes and compiles the conclusions made in secondary sources. Textbooks are a tertiary source, so are encyclopedias, so are most of what a professor says in a course. The doctor might take her own notes, those of the nurses, and summarize the differing opinions about a patient. This summary would them be a Tertiary conversation or source.

In most courses you learn what is known about a field of study--tertiary information--and you learn how to take the data studied by the courses discipline--primary source material--and construct and participate in conversations about this data. In this class, for instance, you are learning to take primary source material and analyze it using the techniques of basic rhetorical analysis. In most courses, you also learn how to read and judge (think critically about) secondary sources. You also learn how to produce new primary source material. You might, for instance, learn how to collect primary source data. For an example of such collection, think of a nurse learning to collect primary care data like pulse, temperature, and blood pressure.

FYI: Richmond 1905, Main & 11th

One of the blogs to which I subscribe posts pictures from the past. Today's was of Main St. Richmond in 1905. This is well out of the Early American Framework, which--depending on the folks who argue the point--end Early American Studies either in the 1830s or 1860s; but, the picture was cool enough I thought I would share anyway.

Since this is so close to the downtown courthouse and farmer's market, I suspect on of Nance's and my out tings for the day will be to print the picture our and fine the viewpoint from where it was taken. (And, yes, one thing Tom and I share in common is history geekdom.)

Guidelines for Posts to the Class Discussion List

You should make sure you put a subject in in every email you write. The governing rule in all communication is to make communication easier for your audience. Each additional step or thought you require of an audience, the more likely they are not to grant you the privilege of a fair hearing.

On this same note, when sending your essay drafts to the class discussion list, and you compose your email in a word processor, take the time to copy and paste your text into the body of your email. Do not send an attachment which requires the extra step of being opened in an additional program. If you compose in a word processor, take the time to format your draft in a way which can be read easily. You should not assume everyone in your audience can open a Word document or, for that matter, any one word processor. The closest thing we have to a standard format is pdf, and even a pdf file requires an additional step to open. One way to avoid the copy and paste routine is to compose your drafts in gmail.

Finally, every email sent to the class discussion list should use full sentences and paragraphs. If you are sending an essay draft, it should have a title. Every email should be signed. Authors than responsibility for what they say with a by line or signature. Last but not least, take a moment to proofread your work at least once. Emails don't have to be perfect in every surface level feature. Emails are closer to spoken speech than, say, an essay, but again, if you make the effort to use a shared grammar and usage, then you make your audience's life easier.

Remember the advice Vonnegut gave to all writers, "Pity the reader."

For more information on how to compose effective emails, here are a couple of links:

http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol11/email.htm

http://www.43folders.com/2005/09/19/writing-sensible-email-messages

http://www.googobits.com/articles/356-the-essentials-of-writing-effective-emails.html


Steve

FYI: Tips on How to Criticize...

This week you are spending time criticizing your peer's King drafts, so I thought it would be a good time to share information on how to give excellent criticism. Learning to give constructive criticism is a skill which will transfer nicely from class to your life. At the end of the article, there's a link to follow which has some practical advice on how to accept criticism.

Here's the link:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-tips-on-critiquing-without-melting-down.html

Steve

Making Sense of Primary Evidence

George Mason has a US history survey online. A blog I read daily--instrutify--just shared a link to a page where folks discuss how to make sense of primary sources. Since we began discussing just this question yesterday in English, I thought I'd share the link:

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/browse/makesense/

Steve

Decision 2008 Campus Event: SDV Credit and English Extra Credit

I checked with Jena yesterday. Attending Decision 2008, writing about it, and discussing it online will not only help you qualify for extra credit in English, it will count as one of the campus events you must attend for SDV. If you will notice, you'll be just getting out of English next Wednesday, and you can go from English directly to the forum. Two-fors don't come along that often, so consider attending:

'Decision 2008” Interactive Forum

Featuring MTV’s Jose Tapia, former cast member of “The Real World- Key West”

WHEN: Wednesday, September 24 (12:00-1:30 PM)

WHERE: The Lipman Auditorium, Massey Library Technology Center (our BRAND NEW building at the Parham Road Campus)

Join Jose as he discusses with YOU topics and events that are impacting our country today (i.e. Iraq, same sex marriage, the economy, gas prices, global warming, abortion, health care, education, etc.). Jose will also share the 2000-2004 election statistics, breaking these numbers down to show age and gender demographics, with an effort to raise awareness in the political process and promote voter registration. From there, he will discuss the 2008 Presidential candidates and where they stand on the issues mentioned above in a NON-PARTISAN presentation, which includes a short film on the candidates.

Summary of Where We Are in English 111

The knowledge you are gaining in 111 breaks down into four essential areas:

1. How to Do a Basic Rhetorical Analysis
2. Knowledge of Your Writing Process and Writing Process Theory
3. Knowledge of How to Use Process Writing and Rhetorical Analysis to Make Yourself a Better Writer/Communicator
4. Knowledge of the Academic Discourse Community and the Research Paper Genre

We're now about a quarter of the way through the semester. You've been introduced to the idea of how to do a basic rhetorical analysis. You've been introduced to the terms involved and to the magic questions. You are gaining practice in looking at texts and the communication around you and learning how to recognize an author's purpose, noise, and the three appeals. You have also been introduced to the idea that writing is about struggling through the problem of your purpose, the needs and expectations of your audience, and your knowledge of how to craft a message.

The most important lesson you have learned to date is how to think systematically about the craft you are learning and how to use rhetorical analysis to pick up ideas and techniques you can use in crafting your own messages. When all is said and done, this is one of the four big lessons of the class, that is, 1) pay attention to the communication taking place around you; 2) use opportunities to analyze the techniques of rhetoric other authors are using; and, 3) use what you learn to gain new techniques and ideas for crafting your own messages.

Perhaps without realizing it, you have also been introduced to the truth of how one becomes a master at of the art of effective communication--that is, through a long, slow process of letting knowledge and skill accumulate one piece at a time. Periodically, you'll be lucky enough to experience a sea change in terms of how you approach the craft. The idea of using a system, like rhetorical analysis, to think about your own communication and that of others is such a sea change. However, most of learning to become a good writer or speaker comes from learning the habit of learning from others and viewing yourself as a writer, reader, and communicator in process. If you take nothing else from the class, learning to give yourself permission to start from the knowledge and skills you already possess and add to them over a lifetime is a lesson which makes the class worthwhile.

Over the next few weeks, you'll get to know your group, learn how to work with and learn from a group of colleagues, and begin learning how to understand the processes you use as a writer and speaker and, more importantly, how to control them. You will also be learning how to state academic and professional opinions clearly and how to back up with you say with evidence, explaination, and support others will believe.

Good work. Give yourself a pat on the back. Read the following post, and get back to work.

As always, write with questions.

Reading and Writing for the Upcoming Week.

Below, find a series of reading and writing tasks for the upcoming week.  As always, write with any questions.

1.  Yesterday, 17 September was the Constitution Day or, our Republic's birthday.  The author of the bill which created the day had this to say of it, ""On this occasion we celebrate the courage of the Constitution's drafters and recommit ourselves to making the United States a more perfect union."  In a writing course, it is good to remember and celebrate that the most sublime of documents goes through draft after draft, as the authors, like you, struggle to craft a document which meets their purpose, the needs and expectations of their audience, and can be put together within the limitations of their knowledge of the craft.  The first link below will take you to the speech by Ben Franklin, my second or third favorite author.  In this speech, Franking gets his fellow authors to finally vote to send the Constitution we know to the states for ratification, that is, he gets the authors to agree to let their audience read and judge the value of the text.  There is much one can learn from Franklin, the least of which is how to use humor to accomplish what logos can't.  The second link will take you to a short, PBS article on Ben Franklin, the citizen, pay particular attention to the story Franklin told Jefferson about editing.  In the story, Franklin is trying to help Jefferson feel better about the fact that his draft of the Declaration of Independence is being picked apart.

http://www.usconstitution.net/franklin.html

http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_citizen_founding.html

You should complete this reading by this Sunday, Midnight.

2. First, using the suggestions made by your peers for improvement, revise the draft of your King rhetorical analysis.  Second, start a page or file in your notes for the class called an "Error List."  In these notes, list the suggestions made by your peers on what you need to revise.  Over the course of the semester, you will use your error list notes to look for specific aspects of your writing on which you need to work and for which you need to revise and proofread.  Bring your error list and *two* copies of your newly revised draft to the next class.

3. Google these terms: "Semester at Sea," "UVA," and "plagiarism." To get an idea of the facts of the case, read a few of the articles your search turns up. Among the many links you will pull up will be a couple of articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education.    Read these articles and the comments which follow them.  These are comments made by professors and college administrators on the case.  Write a comment to the class discussion list in which you capture your reaction to this particular case of plagiarism and/or the professor's comments.  Post your response to the class discussion list.  Later, take a few moments to read some of the comments made by your classmates, and respond to their comments.  Your comments and responses should be written in the form of full sentences and paragraphs.  When thinking about the case, ask questions like: "Was the treatment of the students fair and/or just?"  "Why did those who expelled the students from the program believe their actions warrented being expelled?"  "What does it mean to plagarize, and why does the academic discourse community take plagarism so seriously?" You might also comment on the Reynolds Academic Honesty Policy, a policy you've agreed to read and follow in all your work at Reynolds.  How is the Reynold's policy similar to that of UVA, and how does it differ.  Your comments are due by next Wednesday, Midnight, and your response to the comments are due by next Friday, Midnight.

4. Starting now and for the rest of the semester, each week you will be required to write and post to the class list two rhetorical analysis.  In these analysis, you will look at the magic questions in your choice of texts, everyday communication, and from the reading for this or other classes.  For instance, this week you might do a rhetorical analysis of Franklin's speech.  You might also consider using some of your responses to comment on the rhetoric used in the elections.  This last is a good way to qualify for the extra credit offered for your participation in the election.  In these rhetorical analysis, you can answer each magic question or you can explore one of the magic questions in depth.  These rhetorical analysis should be 250-500 words in length, and they should be written in full sentences and paragraphs, not question and answer, format.  Your rhetorical analysis are due each Sunday by Midnight.

5. Each week, you must also read one rhetorical analysis for each of your group members.  Your job is to write back and note: a) what the author is doing well; and, b) make two suggestions on how the author might improve their analysis.  For right now, you are not allowed to comment on grammar.   Your comments are due each Wednesday by midnight.  Post your comments to the class list and use a good subject line so the authors on whose work you are commenting can find your comments easily.   


--
Stephen Brandon, PhD
Associate Professor, Composition and Rhetoric
J. Sargent Reynolds Community College
Richmond, VA 23221
steve.brandon@cherokeenation.zzn.com

Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, "It depends." And what
it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners
or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.
-Kenneth G. Wilson, usage writer (b. 1923)

History Reading Response, Due Wed. 24 Sept., Posted to Discussuion List

Choose one of the following three prompts and write a 500 word response to it:

1. Characterize Rowlandson's and Purtian opinion of the Native Americans. Provide specific examples from Rowlandson's narrative. Does her opinion change over the course of her captivity?

2. Characterize the Native American's opinion of Rowlandson and the Purtians. Does the Native American opinion of Rowlandson change over the course of her captivity? Provide specific examples from Rowlandson's narrative which led you to draw your conclusions.

3. Compare and contrast how de Vaca, Revel, and Rowlandson use pathos. What emotions do the authors what their audiences to feel? Provide specific examples of how the authors invoke audience emotion and how the authors then try to use the emotions to accomplish their purposes.

No office hours, Tuesday 16 Sept.

There will be no office hours today; however, I will see everyone bright and early tomorrow morning. Don't forget to bring the two copies of your draft.

Steve

FYI: Web based interface for class discussion list.

In addition to interacting with the class discussion list using your gmail account, you have the option of working with the list through a web interface. If Interested, point your browser to:

http://groups.google.com/group/thepursuitofhappinesslc

Writing Assignment: History, Due Next Wednesday

Post to the class discussion list a 250-500 word, written response to the following prompt:

What arguments does James Revel, in the ballad, "The Poor: Unhappy Transported Felon," use to convince his audience of the injustice of Indentured Servitude? What can you tell from the poem about Revel's audience? How do his arguments reflect his audience's beliefs and attitudes about what is proper for people of different social classes and races? What noise do you think Revel needed to overcome?

In your answer, point to evidence to support your claims. Take your evidence from the poem itself, that is, the primary source, not from the introduction to the author, found on pages 280-81 of the reading. This is a secondary source, and I want to hear your ideas and insights, not just an echo of someone else.

As you reference specific lines of the poem, use the line numbers to cite them. For example, "In lines 50 and following, Revel says, "But Justice stops us in our full career..." OR "In Part II, lines 12-14, Revel describes being washed after the Atlantic voyage so as to make a better appearance to those buying contacts."

Steve

Don't turn the King writing assignments into more than it is.

A couple of students have written and are tad panicked about the weekend writing assignments. As I have told them, they don't need to be; so, I wanted to take a moment and explain in more detail what I expect.

1. The assignment to post a draft of a 1000 word rhetorical analysis translates into *drafting* a couple of pages based on the notes you have taken of the reading. As you've tried to answer the questions which comprise a rhetorical analysis of the letter, chances are you've got MORE ideas than you can fit into 1000 words.

By definition, a draft isn't finished work. It needs to be revised. A first draft, which is what you are posting, needs to be revised a lot. Over the next week or so, we'll be going over what specific aspects of your paper you'll look at as you revise. Because it is a draft essay, you should strive to write in complete paragraphs and sentences, but again with a draft you can revise the organization; you can beef up the examples; you can decide if the opinions you express are clear and fully explained; and, you can notice you need to add a conclusion or better focus your introduction. These will happen after you get your first stab at the essay on paper. So? Remember: you are writing a document you *expect* to revise. Over the weekend, get your ideas down on paper and post what you get down. All I expect is you get 750-1000 words of your ideas into the form of sentences and paragraphs.

2. Here's an example of a longish version of what I expect for the second weekend writing assignment:

In "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," King uses a number of rhetorical moves to build his ethos, that is, to get his audience to trust him. For instance, he addresses his audience directly, repeats their position, and then offers his response or take on their position. Repeatedly, he says things like, "You deplore the demonstrations..." or "In your statement you assert our actions..." By repeating the position of his opponents, Dr. King proves to his audience that he has listened to them and gave a lot of thought to what they have to say.

My brother and I argue a lot about politics, but I tend to introduce my position by asking a question like, "Have you thought about...?" So, our arguments then to jump from the point he wants to make to that I want to make. If instead, I were to follow Dr. King and take a moment and say, "If I understand you correctly, you are saying..." Not only would by brother know I was listening to him, I could use the time I was summarizing what he said to think about my response. This is a rhetorical move anyone could use when they argue.

Take a moment and re-read the example above. Notice how it is structured:

In the first paragraph I make a claim about a rhetorical move I noticed in the letter. I explain what I think is going on in the move. I then provide an example, and I then explain part of the effect the rhetorical move has on King's audience.

In the second paragraph, I show how I might use the move King makes in my own everyday communication. I talk about how what I'm doing in arguing with my brother differs from what King does when arguing with the letter the clergy wrote. This is what I mean "by taking a rhetorical move you see King making in the letter and showing how you might use it in your own everyday discourse.

The second assignment has you thinking about the rhetorical tricks King is using. Then figure out how you might steal King's trick and use it for yourself. The trick here is notice something King is doing and to try and think of a similar situation in your own life where King's move will solve your rhetorical problem.

Since I'm betting this is the first time you've done anything like this assignment, all I am expecting is you take a stab at it.

Writing is about taking risks, trying, and learning from the try for next time. In fact, you can often learn more from a message which doesn't succeed than from those which do.

Last but not least, feel free to use the example above as a template for your own response.

Steve

Writing Assignments: Due Sunday, 14 September, Midnight.

1. Post to the class discussion list a *draft* of a (750-1000 word) rhetorical analysis of Dr. King's letter. Don't post your draft as an attachment file. If you use a word processor to write your draft, copy and paste the text into the body of the email you send to the list, and then take the time--if necessary--to format it for your email. Remember, one of your jobs as a writer is to take the time to make your audience's life easier. Assume they are lazy. If you make them work too much, they just won't read you. Do not format your analysis in the form of questions and answers, instead write it as an essay. Use the notes you have made in your project folder for specific examples and ideas you can include in the draft. You can discuss any or all of the questions, but I expect not only opinions but full explanations of your opinions, and I expect both opinion and explanation supported by examples from the text. Bring two copies of your draft to class on Monday. Please remember, you are writing a draft, not the final paper.

2. Post to the class discussion list one or two rhetorical moves you noticed in Dr. King's letter. You can pick and choose among the many techniques, ways of responding to an audience, the use of an appeal, a way to overcome noise, etc. employed by Dr. King to craft his message. However, limit your choice to one or two you think you could employ in your own writing and daily discourse. Before making your post, read those posted by your classmates. Don't duplicate any they have posted. In your post, explain the one or two rhetorical move(s) King made which you want to discuss. Provide a specific example or explain how it worked in the context of King's letter. Finally, describe an example of how and where you might use a similar move in your own everyday, informal writing or spoken communication. Keep your post short, to the point, BUT fully developed. Don't offer an opinion you don't fully explain or for which you don't provide a clear and specific example from the letter. The standard rules of grammar apply.

As always, write with questions.

Steve

Chance for Extra Credit: Voter Registration Drive at Reynolds

Freshman Writing classes have a number of attitudes we hope our students will adopt alongside of the skill set we teach. We want to encourage students to take risks with their writing and thinking. We want students to challenge what they hear and read, even what we say. We try to teach them charity, patience, and perserverance in their writing, reading, and research. However, the most important attitudes we teach are:

1) Learning to have confidence in one's self as a reader and writer.

2) Using this confidence to foster an interest and participation in public and profession discourse.

In short, part of what we do is try to help you become a better citizen by getting used to being informed, thinking critically, and participating in civic debate.

This year is an election year. I will offer five points of extra credit to any student who registers to vote, takes the time to discuss the election on the class discussion lists, and votes. As always, the rules of a reasoned, civic discourse will apply, but I have no problem with your practicing the rhetorical skills you are learning on this topic.

I do have a candidate of choice, but I'm old fashioned in my politics. As long as my fellow citizens have a reasoned opinion backed up with sufficient evidence, I will respect them for taking the time to become informed, participating in civic debate, and for the confidence they show in--as Lincoln said--"doing the work of the Republic." I will not, however, participate in the debate. I think it would be unfair to take a public position within a class discussion.

A copy of a voter registration card and the discussion itself will act as your evidence to claim this extra credit.

Finally, to make getting registered easier, see the information below on a voter registrationd drive currently underway at each of the Reynolds campuses.

The Student Council Association of JSRCC will be coordinating a Voter Registration Drive next week on all 3 campuses. Student Council officers will be sitting at tables in the cafeteria/commons areas of all 3 campuses at various times throughout the week (beginning the morning of Tuesday, September 16) with the necessary resources for our students to register to vote in preparation for the November presidential election. PLEASE ENCOURAGE OUR STUDENTS TO VISIT THESE TABLES AND REGISTER TO VOTE.

The FINAL day of the Voter Registration Drive is Friday, September 19.

FYI: Firefox Helps Reading and Research Online

I don't usually tout the value of one product over another, but at present the Firefox web browser has a few advantages which make it the best tool out there in terms of helping students write and research online. Most of these come from the fact that Firefox is open source and communities of programmers have written extensions and add-ons to the Firefox you can download. Here are two of my favorites:

Ubiquity

Ubiquity is still in the early experimental stage, but I suspect it will change how many of us interact and use the web. Why? Because Ubiquity helps your browser and online services like dictionaries, gmail, and Wikipedia understand the concept of "this." Install Ubiquity--it's free, and in Windows hit "Ctrl space" to call it up. Say you are reading an online assignment, and you don't recognize a word. Highlight the word; hit "ctrl space," and type in "define this." Ubiquity will go out to several online dictionaries and show you the meaning, pronunciation, etc. Say you are reading Dr. King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," and you come upon the tidbit that King was associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. You want to know what wikipedia has to say about the organization. You highlight the name; hit "ctrl space," and type "Wikipedia this." Since everyone on campus is now connected with gmail, you can even use Ubiquity to email a highlighted section of a web page to a contact. The command you would type in would be "gmail this to contact." You get the idea, Ubiquity helps you access online resources on the web page where you are at.

zotero

Zotero bills itself as a "free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources." It was developed at Virginia's own George Mason University under a grant for the Mellon Foundation, and the grant was aimed at making doing small or complex online research more efficient. Using the program, you can save entire web pages or sections of them. Pull down online academic articles, pdfs, images, etc. Annotate what you save, and Zotero will keep track of your notes and the citation information for everything you pull down; moreover, it will produce citations for the information you save in multiple styles, and it will export this information to Word and OpenOffice documents. Finally, Zotero is quickly becoming a default standard for managing online research, as it has been adopted and taught to students by hundreds of institutions and universities--from MIT, Standford, and Berkeley to UVA and Salt Lake Community College. These colleges even how online web tutorials on how to use zotero

FYI: Study Tips for Tests

One of my other Learning Community classes is taking their first test in Biology today, so I put together a resource post on test skills, memorization, flash cards, and how to study with a study group. Enjoy.

I know this is a tad late for the first round of tests, and I apologize; but, it will be here to help you next time, and--if your current study tactics don't produce the results you desire--you will be more motivated to read this post and try out some of the ideas.

One of my favorite sites for student skills remains studenthacks.org; and, many colleges have online tricks and hints on how to improve your study skills. All you need to do is to do some quick online research by googling "study skills." If I was back in school, I would be reading studenthacks everyday and adding it to my feeds. Disregard the advice on how to write a decent term paper in 24 hours; otherwise, enjoy. Here are a few links on how to prepare for tests:

Test Skills

As I told you in class, one of the advantages of being in an LC, where you get to know a group of students with whom you take multiple classes, is the possibility of setting up a study group. You should also note there are study rooms in the new Massey Building--the one with the library--set aside especially for LC study groups. Since most of you are new to college, you don't know just how helpful a study group can prove in terms of a higher GPA, but here are some tips on working with a study group:

Group Study 101 - How to Avoid Goofing Off

Last but not least, one of the traditional Canons of Rhetoric is teaching rhetors how to use their memory better. Most rhetoric used to be spoken, and up until the advent of cheap paper, paper notes were expensive; so, folks needed tricks and techniques for remembering the speech they were to deliver. The first link below is from studenthacks, and it covers a number of posts on memorization. The next link is a discussion of how to set up and use flash cards, and the last is a link to an online flash card generator.

Memorization

How to Review Using Flashcards

An Online Flash Card Generator

SDV Blog/Announcements

If you get a chance, check out the SDV Blog! www.collegesurvivaltactics.blogspot.com

Also, don't forget to work on your Activities assignment. I've posted several suggestions for the assignment in Blackboard!

-Prof M

A few reminders:

Just a reminder that:

1. 10 September is the last day to withdraw from classes with a refund.
2. 15 September is the deadline for financial aid applications for the Spring 2009 session at Reynolds.
3. The Academic Support Center is home to the college’s tutorial programs. Faculty and peer tutors provide one-on-one and small group tutorial conferences for J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College students.

Free tutoring (see our Guidelines) is available to students at JSRCC who are currently enrolled in the JSRCC credit courses they list on the REQUEST FOR TUTORING application form.

The link to the Academic Support Center webpage is:
http://www.jsr.vccs.edu/jsr_asc/

Free tutoring.