Okay, first of all, thank you for giving me a free pass to skip the video portion of last week's announcement.
That extra span of five or six hours that I could re-route from drafting, recording,
editing, captioning, and uploading a video was really clutch, and I really appreciate
your patience and understanding.
Alrighty, so for this week… so far in our class, we have learned about Internet-mediated communications;
we have broken the ice and introduced ourselves; we have reflected on audience
and context in our revisions; and we have brainstormed a dynamic list of topics
that are meaningful not only for ourselves, but also for our audiences, and especially
in a contemporary context.
That is nothing to sneeze your nose at: well done so far--sincerely.
This week, we are going to synthesize all of those skills, delve even more deeply into
audience analysis and statements of significance and exigence, and refine our initial explorations
into more solid and sophisticated plans.
That is, this week there's another Blackboard discussion post.
Essentially, as you can tell from the assignment sheet itself, I want you to choose one of the topics
that you've been considering writing about and formally propose that one topic in our class discussion board forum.
Whereas I intended the brainstorming lists to function more privately, I do want the
publicity of these proposals to function more as a sort of accountability mechanism:
try to add as much detail as you can to fully shape this project to your classmates and
to convince them that it's an important topic to explore.
Now, there are a few requirements, a checklist of moments to include, which you can observe in the assignment sheet.
And of course I want you to respond to each other--for full credit, do remember to respond to at least two other people's posts.
In your responses, it might be a good idea not only to praise each other...
(By the way, I really appreciated the general sense of support and encouragement that y'all
selflessly offered last week in the discussion board forum. It was really cool to see that.)
… but also to ask questions that will help the writer of the paper clarify any ambiguity,
expand with more detail, push for deeper senses of significance and exigence, and refine the
purpose and organization of the paper.
With all of that said, I've already posted more than one example that you might read in advance and on which you might model your own post.
Go ahead and check those out.
Finally, if you need any extra help or opinions, or if you want to strategize with me about
which topic might be the best, please ask me, especially if you feel stuck, and of course
I'll be happy to offer my opinion.
As you can probably recall, I didn't choose topics for you in my response to your brainstorming
and invention lists; I only reacted to all of them, pointing out their strengths and potential
for further development and refinement.
Because I want you to feel liberated to write about what speaks to you the most, and I didn't
want to abuse my teacherly authority to influence or pressure what ultimately is your decision.
So if you have a gut feeling about which item on your list rocks, and you are certain you
know what you want to talk about--just DO It.
Okay.
So this week--all about proposals, which will eventually transform into your paper's introductory paragraph.
The next few weeks?
We will move on to the nerdy research part of the writing process, both secondary research
(which includes finding, scrutinizing, incorporating, and citing all kinds of different sources in your paper)
and then primary research (which is knowledge that you will go out and conduct [on] your own).
I promise I will try to make this research stage as useful and interesting (maybe even entertaining?) as possible.
Each week we'll take these incremental steps, and before you know it, you will have a 12-page paper all done and an ENGL 102 in hand.
Keep up all of the the good work, everyone, and I'll see ya next time.
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