Welcome to Writing and Rhetoric I.  I am so excited to have you all in class!  We will be using blogs for the Informal Writing Assignments.  I have reposted the guidelines below.  I will be commenting on your writing through the blogs and this allows all of you to view each other's writing and comment on what you found interesting.

Informal Writing

As part of our day-to-day work, I will ask you to do numerous informal papers. As I have mentioned briefly in the syllabus, what I want from you in all these pieces is to show that you are doing your best to consider, think-through (with or against) the ideas that we are considering, whether the ideas presented in readings or the skills, principles, and concepts that we are attempting to understand and apply in group or individual in-class writing. Ideas aren’t really understood until you can explain them for (and to) yourself, so these papers are very important; they also give you opportunities to practice reading and writing skills in a “low stakes” situation (I won’t be grading your writing skills, just your efforts to think about and discuss the ideas, which will only be graded credit/no credit). I will give you feedback on the specific writing skills that we are practicing, but that will have no bearing on whether you get credit (unless it looks like you aren’t putting in the thought or effort). There are no length requirements for informal writing, but it is very difficult for you to show that you are thinking through ideas unless you write enough to do so; it is possible to be pithy and cram a great deal of thought and meaning into a brief paper, but that usually requires a lot of skill, and it is very clear when a brief response contains lots of thought and when it doesn’t, so it will benefit you to explain your thinking thoroughly with examples and anecdotes from your own experiences, which should make your writing as long as it needs to be.

In-class group and individual writing will be assigned during class, but reading responses will follow a regular pattern.

Reading Responses

Part of learning how writing works involves learning to read like writers. Writing is always a remix of other writings that the writer has read, analyzed, and broken down to use for her or his own purposes, which means good writers are good readers, analysts, summarizers, and remixers who can read something, understand its overall point, purpose, and underlying reasoning, and then explain and use it in writing. This is why we will learn about writing by reading writing scholarship, which will give us plenty of practice with reading and writing skills. (I hope you leave this class as practiced and critical readers who can understand and breakdown the reasoning behind everything you read.) To help us practice these skills, I will ask each of you to write up written responses to each class’s reading that includes each of these elements:

1.     Complete one pre-writing exercise if reading is from Writing about Writing. (Thus, if there are two or more options, pick one.)  These should be completed before you read the article/essay.

2.     A summary of each reading that explains what the authors are trying to do (purpose), who they are trying to do it to or through (audience), what their overall point is (argument), and the underlying reasoning they use to try and prove that point (reasons). The objective here is to make this summary as brief, yet complete, as possible. To help you, you could use the following paradigm: “In his/her/their article ____(’Title’)_______, _____(Author(s))______ attempt(s) to ______(purpose & audience)___. He/She/They argue(s)________(Overall Point)______ because _______(reasons)________." Writing such summaries will allow you to practice breaking down a reading in order to understand not just what it says, but how what it says leads to what it is attempting to do. Texts (written, visual, audio, etc.) attempt to do things to readers, and reading analytically involves not just being able to list down everything the text says, but to be able to explain what it tries to do. Good summary does not list (first it says x then y) what a document says but instead explains what it tries to do.

3.     After the brief as possible summary for each reading, I will ask you to put the reading in conversation with other readings we have read during the semester. Which readings is this one similar to? Which readings does it differ significantly with about major ideas? This work should help you improve your ability to synthesize (put together into an overview summary) the conversation among different texts. This work requires you to begin to map or sort texts into groups of similar ideas and to articulate how the various groups or regions differ from each other generally and not just at the level of individual texts.

4.     After your summary and synthesis work, type thorough and thoughtful responses to the specified questions from Writing about Writing or about readings from Readings on Writing as indicated on the schedule. (I expect you to complete all of the assigned questions.)

5.     Finally, add a paragraph on your own thoughts about the reading: Was it interesting? Why? Do you think it will be helpful to you? Why? How do the ideas compare to your own experiences? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Etc.

To get credit for responses, your response needs to include each of these elements and show that you made a thoughtful effort to complete each part. All responses must be posted to your blog (or as otherwise indicated) by midnight the day before class. So for example, the response for Monday’s class must be posted on your blog by midnight Sunday night.  This will allow me and the other students to review the posts before class.