Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

Portfolio Requirements

Zack De Piero
ENG 201 – Advanced Composition – Summer ’15

Portfolio

·      Hard copy due: Wednesday, August 20^th by 3pm (our last class)

·      E-portfolio option due: Friday, August 22^nd by 3pm

Revision Document

·      I want you to create a revision document that clearly details some of the most important decisions that you’ve made.  Consider: what changes did you make, and why did you make those changes?  How have those changes impacted your new, revised paper?  You are free to do this however you’d like, but take a look at this 4-column matrix for a suggestion.  Please examine 10 changes that you’ve made in substantial depth.

Text from my initial WP submission: (a phrase, sentence, paragraph, idea, move, punctuation, piece of evidence, etc.)	An observation or question I received from De Piero or a classmate:	The change(s) I made to what I initially wrote: (ie, the change[s] I made to column 1)	How this change impacts my paper:
	“Attack of the page-long paragraph!  Try to chop up your paragraphs into bites…”		..
	“What’s the connection between these two sentences?  How do these ideas connect?

Metacognitive Reflection (5-6 pages)

·      This is your chance to take me through your personal Advanced Composition journey.  What was the experience like for you—from reading to reading, assignment to assignment, draft to draft, lesson to lesson?  How has your approach to writing, thinking, and/or researching evolved?  What did studying this stuff mean to you?  Has your stance towards “writing” shifted or changed, and if so, how?  And why?

·      Not satisfied with those questions?  No problem!  Here are some additional questions that can guide your piece:

o   Think back to a previous time (last month, last quarter, high school, etc.): has your perspective on what writing is changed at all?  If so, how?  Do you now see anything differently?  (Including yourself as a writer?)  If so, what?  Explain!

o   What have you learned in ENG 201?  About the study of and practice with genres?  About rhetoric?  About writing processes?  How, exactly, did you learn what you learned?  What “worked” for you, and why?

o   How might you be able to apply what you’ve learned in Writing 2 to future writing, thinking, and/or researching contexts?

o   What does “genre awareness” mean to you?  What do you think about “moves”? 

o   What are some of your favorite strategies, tips, or tricks?  Why?

o   Did you have any difficulty processing any of our course concepts?  If so, could you speculate on how or why? 

o   What questions are you left with?  What didn’t quite “sit right” with you?  What hasn’t processed?

Submission

·      If you’re submitting an “old school” hard copy portfolio, you’ll need to turn it in during our last class meeting on August 20^th. 

·      If you’re creating an e-portfolio (online), you can submit it to me two days later—by August 22^nd.  Shoot me an email at zack.depiero@gmail.com and attach all the necessary documents, along with the link to your Weebly site.

·      Note: whichever option you choose, I need to see my comments on your final rough draft.  (Why?  So I can see if/how you addressed them!)  You may need to adjust your printing settings and/or convert your MS Word doc into a PDF (“inserted comments” appear in most PDF versions).  If this is a problem for any reason, let me know.

"Moves!"

I.  Can't.  Wait.  To.  Teach.  This.  Lesson.
#omfg
#truestory

Whether you realized it or not -- and whether I, the writer, realized it or not -- I made some "moves" right there.  I tapped into my pop culture resources and used some informal conventions of the modern "millenial" generation to (1) reach you, my target audience, by writing a somewhat unusual teacher-to-student "hook" in the beginning (2) let you know that I'm honestly juiced up to teach this lesson... perhaps my enthusiasm for this will be contagious, and (3) let my hair down for a change.

Some other moves I made right there?

• put the key buzzword in boldface for added emphasis
• #'d that list so you realized that there were only a few things you had to get through
• #'d that list so that my punctuation (commas) would come across more clearly -- the #s allowed me to separate each "thing" without using commas.  By using #s, I can save my commas within each item/thing so you (probably) wouldn't confuse them as an additional unit/thing
• used the "rule of 3" (a cheap trick that most readers seem to enjoy)
• finished the list with a joke.  If I started that list with my "long hair joke," would it have been as effective?  Probably not -- punchlines usually work best at the end.

OK, so your paper/project is coming up, and you can base part of your argument and analysis on your informant's textual (written) moves -- what they're doing, how they're doing it, and whether you believe that it was effective.

By studying this, my hope is that you'll be able to detect writers' moves more clearly and, in doing so, consider adapting what you find to be effective.  Think of this as a way to open up your tool kit.

Ever hear of two musicians "jamming out"?  Well, this is essentially what you're doing as a (good) reader.  You're listening to what the writer/musician is trying to communicate, and if you like what they've done, feel free to "borrow that lick."  (But remember: if you're borrowing their ideas/research, you need to attribute that work to them in a citation!)

Blah blah blah.  Here are some videos that can help us start thinking about "moves."

#thisissocool

Readings for HW

Since the portal is down and you can't access the readings, I've uploaded them to my Google Drive and you can find links to them below.  Two access the first two links, you need to be logged into your Gmail account -- the same one you're using to post your personal blog.

1. Everything's an Argument: Rhetorical Analysis
2. Everything's an Argument: Finding Evidence
3. Bunn's How to Read Like a Writer 

Remember, the draft of your interview questions is due next week (June 25th) and these readings that I've assigned -- and each assignment, i.e., the artifact analysis -- are all designed to help you think through each step of this course paper/project.

The course is picking up full steam now, so it's super-important that you get/stay on the ball and successfully complete all of your work.  

Professional Email Request and Artifact Analysis

To recap today's lesson: polish up your professional email request to your prospective "informant" (the person you'd like to interview for our course project).  Some good ideas:

• try to establish a polite, formal tone
• be super-clear about what it is that you want from them
• anticipate any questions that they might have (this might require clarifying terms that they're not familiar with, i.e., "artifacts")
• get to the point as quickly and concisely as possible
• consider using the 3-tier structure (opening/intro, body, closing) that is outlined in Ch 8
• include a "signature" at the bottom

Remember, you might get a "Sorry, but I can't help you" response from them, so it's very important that you email them as soon as possible (like, tomorrow!) just in case you need to find/contact a new informant.

Your next assignment (due June 18th) is the artifact analysis.  Basically, you're analyzing the artifacts that you've found -- any types of documents (hard copy or digital) with written language -- to determine the conventions of its genre and its rhetorical features (audience, purpose, tone, context, argument).   Use our upcoming reading on "Rhetorical Analysis" as your guide.  There a ton of questions in there that can get you thinking about how to take a long, hard look at these documents. 

To get writing artifacts for this project, there are basically two ways you can get them:

• publically (online or available/free in someone's store... or a museum, even) 
• privately (your informant would have to email them to you or give you a hard copy)

Ideally, you want both, but both aren't necessary.  

Please know that I'm not looking for perfect sentences, sharp transitions, and well-structure paragraphs in this assignment; I'm just looking for your ideas.  Don't put any added pressure on yourselves.  Use your first-order thinking, and you'll do just fine.

Here are some videos that can probably help you think through your artifact analysis.  I hope you dig 'em!

Art Museum "Audio" Tours and Saturn Devouring His Son

I'll explain in class.

Deconstructing Artists' Statements

Over the next two weeks, we're going to be working with artists' statements.  This serves a couple of purposes: it'll give you (I hope) insight into a real genre that you'll likely need to produce when you enter the professional "art world," and it'll give us additional practice working with a genre and its conventions (which is the foundation of this composition course).

For this week's assignment, I want you to deconstruct ("break down") three different artists' statements.  You can find these in a few places: online, in a book, from someone in town (ie, at an art boutique, perhaps), or maybe even a faculty member at Brooks.

Once you find a few, take a look at what textual "ingredients" make them up.  How have these things been put together?  What are the common features that they each have?  What are the patterns?  In other words, what makes an artist's statement an artist's statement?

I'd also like you to note any substantial differences you see.  What sets each of these artists' statements apart from each other?

Then, I'd like you to evaluate what you see.  What do you like?  Dislike?  Why?

Analyzing these artists' statements -- and seeing how your classmates have done their analysis -- will help you to produce a more thoughtful artist's statement the following week.

Confused About Your Blog Posts? Read This.

I wanted to shoot everybody a reminder about what I want you to post on your blogs.  There are only really two things:

1. Your reaction to the weekly readings.
2. Your assignments.

Some weeks -- where there's an asterisk (*) next to what's listed in "Writing Due" -- I also want you to post two ~150-word responses to your classmates' blogs.

That's all.  As I've mentioned in class a few times, your blog reactions (to the readings) are a chance for you to "write to learn" (as opposed to "learn to write.")  It's a chance for you to exercise some exploratory first-order thinking.  No sweat.

Horror Movies: More Practice with Genre and Conventions

Scenario: all of a sudden, you're sitting in the middle of a movie theater, watching a horror movie.  How do you know you're watching a horror movie?  What features/things about this movie make it a horror movie?

 After you jot down your predictions, let's put our hypotheses to the test!

The Shining

Psycho

Thinking About Genre Through Country Music

I wanted to post these videos to help you (re)consider the following questions which can, hopefully, help you to think about the relationship between genres and their conventions:

• what's the "glue" that binds these songs together? 
• what about them makes them fall into the “country music” category?
• at what points do they bend/blend into other genres (such as folk, blues, and bluegrass)?

"Your Cheating Heart"

Lyrics

"Coal Miner’s Daughter"

Lyrics

"Whiskey River"

Lyrics

"I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow"

Lyrics

Our Syllabus

This is on the Brooks portal site under "Course Content" (I'm pretty sure it is, at least... I'm still getting used to it), but here's a link to our syllabus!

Google Doc Link for Your Blog Addresses/Info

ENG 201rs,

Here's the link where I'd like you to upload your blog information.

Z