What Is Writing? An Introduction to College Writing in the 21st Century SPRING 2015

• This week, I am asking you to make two separate posts for your Group Assignment.  Please post GA4.1 and GA4.2 as comments to this post.
• Group Assignment 4.1: Based on the questions below, please write three to four sentences describing your feelings and thoughts about Revision.  I’d like you to first think about this word and what connotations it has for you.  Can you recall any particular experiences when you have had the opportunity to re-see something, e.g., see something in a new way or from a new perspective?  What was that like?  Could that experience inform your understanding of revision in writing?  Why or why not?
• • Group Assignment 4.2–Revision through Rewriting:  Please choose one paragraph from the first draft of your literacies narrative essay and answer the following questions:  What is this paragraph about?  What is the purpose of this paragraph?  As written, how well does this paragraph fulfill its purpose?  What questions might a reader have about this paragraph as it is currently written?  After answering these questions, please re-write your paragraph FROM SCRATCH.  Then, post 1/ the original paragraph, 2/ your answers to these questions  and 3/ the re-written paragraph

You are a reader going over a writer’s work to help them improve the writer’s draft.

You are giving the writer a reader’s perspective!

I know there has been some confusion regarding where to post the Group Assignments.  MinKoo suggested using the “Discussion Board” tool on the Open Lab, but because that is based on the BuddyPress system/toolkit and not the WordPress system/toolkit, I believe this may further add to our collective confusion.  Therefore, I have decided to continue to ask you to post your Group Assignments by replying to a post I have made.  Here is a link to Week 1 Group Assignment 1.1, here is a link to Week 1 GA1.2, here is a link to Week 1 GA1.3, here is a link to Week 2 Group Assignments (GA2), here is a link to Week 3 Group Assignments (GA3).  Please use these links to access the post and complete the group assignments by REPLYING TO THESE POSTS.

With regard to the group work you did yesterday in class, I had wanted each group to make a blog post on our Open Lab course site documenting some of the work that the group did yesterday in order to facilitate our discussion of 1/ Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me,” 2/ Litt’s essay “The Reader and Technology,” and 3/ questions about assignments and the open lab.  Regarding 1, I know Maricel was going to post her excellent set of questions in relation to Toby Litt’s essay “The Reader and Technology.”  I was hoping MinKoo’s group (Group 3) would post something about how they all plan to get the Week 2 and Week 3  assignments finished and any questions they have about either or about the Open Lab.  I’m not sure that I had a clear understanding of what Group 2, the group talking about Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me,” was going to post.  I believe I may have asked them to post something about what specific writing strategies used by Alexie in his essay each group member may use in his/her personal narrative essay.  For now, I’ve set up three posts where we can collect responses to the following topics:  1/ Toby Litt’s essay “The Reader and Technology”, 2/ Questions About Week 2 and 3 Assignments, and 3/ Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me”.  If you feel like posting something from your in-class group work yesterday, please feel free to.  However, THIS IS NOT REQUIRED.  IT IS OPTIONAL.

Please post your thoughts, observations, and questions about Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me” as a reply to this post.

Please post your questions about our weekly assignments as a reply to this post.

Please post your thoughts, observations, and questions about Toby Litt’s essay “The Reader and Technology” as a reply to this post.

Please print out and read thePersonal “Literacies” Narrative Essay Guidelines.  Then, do some brainstorming!  (See the HANDOUTS section of our Course Open Lab site if you want to learn more about approaches to Brainstorming)  Afterward, post a reply to the BRAINSTORMING A PERSONAL NARRATIVE ESSAY blog post in which you write one paragraph describing HOW you brainstormed for this assignment and a second paragraph describing YOUR SPECIFIC APPROACH/FOCUS for this essay.  Regarding HOW you brainstorm:  Did you write a letter?  Do some reading and free writing?  Draw a concept map?  Record yourself talking?  Take a walk?  Some combination of all of the above?  There are many different ways of brainstorming, and I and your classmates are interested in knowing what your process consists of.

Your second paragraph will describe the RESULTS of your brainstorming.  Do you now have a sense of what will be the FOCUS of your personal narrative essay?  If so, please write a paragraph describing what you plan to write about.  If not, that is also fine.  Just describe the outstanding questions that you have as a result of the brainstorming process.  You may be a writer who needs to start writing a draft before you know what the focus of your essay will be.  In that case, drafting is part of your brainstorming process, so please make a note of this in one of your paragraphs about brainstorming!

Applications are now being accepted for the new NIH Bridges to the Baccalaureate program at City Tech.

The primary goal of the program is to support under-represented students, earning associate degrees, in pursuing graduate degrees in the bio-medical or behavioral sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry or psychology) at Brooklyn College. Students are eligible to apply if they are enrolled at City Tech as Freshman (must have started their undergraduate careers at City Tech) in the AS programs in LAS, Chemical Technology, Unclassified (UC) or Unclassified Health (UCH) with:

Dear Students,

I know it has been a while since we last saw each other, so I wanted to re-post some information about submitting assignments.  RJ assignments need to be completed weekly, but you will not submit these until the end of the semester.  GAs are due Tuesdays by 10 am.  You will complete these via our course Open Lab website.  RWAs are due Thursdays at 11 am.  You will submit these via Bb, in class, or using both methods.  For THIS WEEK, you NEED TO BRING a copy of RWA2 to our Thursday class session.  You can also, if you would like to, submit it via Bb by using the following link:

https://bbhosted.cuny.edu/webapps/assignment/uploadAssignment?content_id=_19679912_1&course_id=_1102033_1&assign_group_id=&mode=cpview

Finally, thank you to all of those students who submitted RWA1 via Bb.  This assignment was due Thursday, February 12.  While I generally do not accept late assignments, I will make an exception for RWA1 since we did not meet in person last week.  However, I cannot accept RWA1 after Thursday, February 19.

I’ll look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

All best,

Prof. Rodgers

• GA2.1:  Please read through the introductions that your classmates have posted on GA1.1  and make sure that you are acquainted with everyone enrolled in the course.

  GA2.2:  Please read about some guidelines for writing and sending college e-mails, which you will find here.  
  

• GA2.3: Read about PARAGRAPHS in your English Handbook.  Then, post a reply to this post that includes:  1/ One paragraph about what you have learned about paragraphs.  2/ Two to three outstanding questions about paragraphs.  
  

  EXTRA CREDIT:  Reply to my Week 1: Keywords Blog Post by contributing your own definitions of one or more words on the list!  While you can cite part of a dictionary definition in your definition, please make sure the definition you post is mostly your own and based on your understanding of the term.