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A class weblog for English 110, North Dakota State University. Kevin Brooks, Instructor.

Monday, September 29, 2003

I just found a review of two new books about Elvis. This review is pretty academic, although he doesn't use the specific criteria approach, and doesn't even seem to review the books much. You might be wondering, "What the...?!", but I point this review out to suggest the really wide range of possibilities within the genre.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Here are the tasks you need to do in exchange for pushing back the due date on the draft:

1. Write a filter-style entry on the weblog about one source related to your review. A filter style review should contain a URL and a brief account of why this link is relevant to you.

2. Don't come to class on Friday, but take the survey about weblogging, and stop by my office if you want to pick up your review or talk about the academic review.


3. Come to class with a good draft of your review on Monday--5 points per page for the draft. Be detailed in your analysis, and systematic in your application of the categories. Include material from at least one secondary source.

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

You can find sample notes for Wed.'s class on the course website. Hope these help.

Kevin

Monday, September 22, 2003

Dartmouth College has an extensive essay/guide called What is an academic paper?". This piece defines many of the important features of academic writing, and does so in contrast to the habits and strategies of writing for high school. A must read!
We are talking about editing in class today; you can find lots of guides online. A nice succinct guide is the "11 Rules of Writing." You might need some explanation of a few rules.

Friday, September 19, 2003

I was looking for some notes online and found a pretty nice breakdown of the writing process, essay/paragraph types, topic and thesis statements, etc. from Rockvalley College (great name!!). The site endorses the 5 paragraph theme approach to writing rather than a genre approach to writing (the approach our textbook supports), but most of the other material will match up pretty well with Call to Write.
Just a reminder: I asked everyone to share one piece of advice from Chapter 16 in Call to Write--the chapter on research. So far, Becky, Amy, Brandon, and Michael have all offered good advice. Please add to our collective knowledge asap.

Let me add my two cents: "Perhaps the most important point to make about notes is that they need to be complete and accurate. You can avoid the last-minute hassle of running back to the library to check a fact or a statistic by making sure you record it accurately in the first place" (555-56). And of course, if you filter a website in a weblog, you won't lose track of the link!!

Sunday, September 14, 2003

I have added students' individual weblogs to our class blog-roll--that's what bloggers call the long list of people they link to. If you would rather not have your last name listed, or if I have mis-spelled your name, let me know and I can make the change.

For those of you not on the list, let me know if you have an individual blog to share.

If any of you want to learn how to make your blog roll, just ask me or check the "support" section of blogger.com.

Friday, September 12, 2003

When you first hear auidoslave most people think either sound garden has replaced everyone but cris Cornell or rage agenist the machine has gotten a new lead singer. Well that’s actually what happened. For how eccentric the lead singer and the band are they came together to make a fairly really good progressive rock band. Most of the songs no the album are less draggy and make more sense than sound garden and there not the communist rap rock that you might expect from rage.
But when you look at the big picture with vocals form Cornell and the mad scientist guitar you expect form tom morello. It makes a huge impact that leaves the listener want more.
Just a reminder: I would like everyone to publish their reviews via a commercial site (amazon.com, bn.com, or a music site that allows readers to publish), OR, I would like you to start a personal weblog, post your review there, and put a link in this class weblog.

You can easily start your own weblog in Blogger. If you want to add a comment feature to your individual entry, go to QuickTopic.com and sign up for an account there. Discuss QuickTopic

Monday, September 08, 2003

Thanks for all the postings so far, everyone. I'm going to have some things to say about "literacy" in class, but I want to address the most common question I saw in the postings about technology use: what is a MUD or MOO?

To read a good comprehensive description, check out what Samantha Blackmond has written. Samantha is an English professor at Purdue University, she blogs, she teaches first year composition, and she uses MUDS and MOOs in her classrooms.

A quick answers is that at MUD (Multi-User Domain) and MOO (MUD + Object Oriented) is a bit like a chat room--people go to MUDs and MOOs to chat. But they are also much more than chatrooms--you could build yourself a fantasy dorm room in a MOO, add objects to your dorm room, decorate it any way you want, and invite friends from around campus or around the country to visit your pad for a conversation. The room would be entirely textual--your friends would have to read about what your place looks like, rather than see it--but think about what a different experience it would be to chat in space like that, rather than an undecorated, de-personalized yahoo chat space.

MUDs and MOOs have had a cult following since they emerged in the mid 1990s, but they have never taken off and become mainstream web technologies. They take a lot of work to build, and they aren't very visible. Weblogging has been a much hotter phenomenon because it is so easy to do and because they are more visible.

I noticed that most people IM and/or Email, but neither of those forms of communication leave a visible record on the web. People who like to build MOOs or weblogs are interested in putting themselves on the web--they want to share their hobbies, interests, lives, etc. I understand that not everyone likes to do so; if you want to stay private, these web applications probably aren't for you.

Thursday, September 04, 2003

I have written "The Call to Blog" as a kind of philosophical / rhetorical guide to weblogging, but if you would like a more specific "how-to" document, check out Blogging 101. Blogger looks different when viewed on a PC, rather than a Mac, but I hope everyone can find their way around Blogger from either type of machine.

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

There are at least two different ways you can use weblogs in this course. One way is to post your short writings and other entries right here, in the class blog. Advantages: one-stop posting, everyone sees all of what you wrote. Disadvantage: the class blog could get big really quickly, and you don't have your own space for writing.

The other way to use weblogs in this class would be to set up a personal weblog (in Blogger, Xanga, or via some other host), post most of your entries there, and then just add a quick link to this weblog. For example, I wrote a long entry in my personal weblog about the different kinds of entries that are common in weblogs: personal blogs or diary-like entries, notebook entries, and filter entries. If those categories seem self-explanatory to you, you probably don't need to read the full entry. If you aren't sure what I mean by those categories, follow the link.

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