On hiatus

Zen Mama's teaching blog is currently inactive. Check out her ongoing weblog at http://www.hoardedordinaries.com or her Fall 2005 teaching blog at http://doc-d.blogspot.com/.

The final best o' the best...

There are four winners in today's final Best of Blogs voting: one runaway first-place winner and a three-way tie for second place:

• Sergeant Hanh from Dropshots
• Losing Me from This is my life
• Seeing the world as it is from The world through my eyes
• Remember that kid from Tons of thoughts

Thanks for all your hard writing work this semester: I hope you had fun experimenting with blogging, and I hope at least some of you continue to put yourself, your thoughts, and your experiences "out there" in the blogosphere....

Blogging & magic

In today's final excerpt from his book Writing with Power, Peter Elbow talks about writing "magic," the notion that when you work on a piece of writing, sometimes something "else" takes over, imbuing your words with an almost supernatural power. Maybe you find a new idea popping up out of nowhere, or maybe you find yourself writing with an eloquence you never knew you possessed. Or maybe the wall of writer's block suddenly crumbles as you find your writing taking on a life of its own, words effortlessly bubbling from your fingertips.

I hope you've experienced at least an occasional moment of magic over the course of the semester, even if that "magic" simply consisted of you pulling an idea for a free-blog out of your posterior under the duress of a writing deadline!

In commemoration of today's final required blog entry, I want you to look back at what you've blogged these past three months, starting with your first hesitant posting and then covering the range of research-, free-, and in-class-blogs you've published since September. In looking back at these posts, what sort of "magic" do you see? What (if anything) have you learned from your experience writing & publishing frequent online posts? Looking over what you've written, is there anything about the writing or your experience of writing that surprises you? These are the questions I'd like you to address in your final required in-class blog entry. From here, it's up to you to decide whether you want to continue this crazy writing experiment: I hope, though, that some of you will have found yourself bitten by the "blog-bug" and will continue writing in this online forum...

(If you need additional proof that blogging is the way of the writing/publishing future, consider the fact that "blog" has been named the Merriam-Webster Word of the Year for 2004. That's a pretty impressive accomplishment for a funny-sounding four letter word!)

Post-Thanksgiving best o' blogs

Today we have a three-way tie for first place in our weekly best o' blog voting:

• Fans from Dropshots
• A free blog from Y?
• Stopping traffic?!? from The World through My Eyes

Enjoy!

Finding voice in someone else's writing

"Voice" is the intangible personality or presence that gives power to a piece of writing. Voice is what makes your writing sound like "you" and no one else, and it is the quality or tone that either grabs a reader's attention or leaves a reader cold. Writing without voice sounds dry and detached; writing with voice sounds alive and engaging as if the words themselves have reached out and touched you.

One way to find your own voice is by writing frequently: this is one of the potential benefits of blogging. By writing (and sharing your writing) frequently, you can, over time, discover the "true voice" that lurks behind your words.

Detecting your own voice, however, can be difficult. We're sometimes too close to our writing to judge it objectively, and we sometimes can't tell whether a particular piece will speak powerfully to readers. This is why getting feedback on our writing is so helpful. Often our readers can find our voice more accurately than we ourselves can.

Today I'd like you to work with a partner to help one another find your blogging voice. In pairs or groups of three, I want you to read someone else's ENTIRE blog from the most recent posts to the very first one. (To do this, you'll have to use the archive links in the blog's sidebar.) As you're reading, I want you to right-click and open in a new window the permalink to a handful of entries (between 1 and 3) that you think demonstrate the strongest voice. In other words, as you are reading, make note of

• the blog's best entry
• the blog's most powerful entry
• the blog's most genuine or "real" entry

When you've determined (and right-clicked) the handful of entries you think are the best, most powerful, or most "real," post a comment on the blog's MOST RECENT entry. In this comment, copy and past the permalinks to the handful of entries you selected, and tell the writer why you think these entries are particularly note worthy. Then, I want you to tell the writer how you would describe their voice: what sort of authorial tone or "personality" do they present to their readers? (For example, do they have a humorous voice, a trustworthy voice, a sarcastic voice, a witty voice, a confessional voice, a conversational voice, etc.)

Peer Review of Popular Version of Research Paper

< style="font-family: arial;">In groups of three or four, take turns reading your papers out loud. After the writer has finished, listeners should answer the following questions aloud while the writer takes notes.

• <>What audience is the writer addressing? Describe this audience as specifically as you can: what is the age, gender, economic level, personality, etc. of the “typical” audience member?

• In what ways does the writer cater to the taste, knowledge, vocabulary, etc. of the intended audience? In what ways is or isn’t the tone of the article appropriate for the audience?
• To what extent does the article’s introduction grab the audience’s attention? Would members of the intended audience be motivated to read further? Why or why not?
• How does the writer establish credibility? In what ways does or doesn’t the writer sound well-informed and believable?
• In what way does the writer refer to outside research or expert testimony? How smoothly does the writer incorporate such evidence into his or her discussion?
• What did you learn from this article? What are you curious to learn more about?
• If this were your article, how would you revise it?

Schedule changes

I've made some changes to the course calendar for the next couple of weeks, so please make note of them:

Week 13: Nov 23 & 25

• Tue, Nov 23: DRAFT of POPULAR VERSION OF RESEARCH PAPER DUE: bring 4 printouts of your popular revision of your research paper to class for peer review
• Thu, Nov 25: no class/Happy Thanksgiving!

Week 14: Nov 30, Dec 2

• Tue, Nov 30: Read "Power in Writing/Introduction," "Writing and Voice," and "How to Get Power through Voice" (WWP pp. 279-313). Write FreeBlog # 11
• Thu, Dec 2: Read "Breathing Experience into Words," "Breathing Experience into Expository Writing" (WWP pp. 314-356). Write FreeBlog # 12

These changes will give you more time to work on revising your Popular Version of your research project after getting my feedback. Apologies for any confusion!

Blogging for bucks?

Apparently even corporate interests are jumping on the blogging bandwagon as a way of attracting traffic to their websites:

http://boston.craigslist.org/wrg/49371014.html

Who knew that blogging could be profitable?

This week's best of the best...

This week we have four top-rated blogs: one first place winner and a three-way tie for second place:

• Born on Halloween from Dropshots
• That girl from This is my life
• Kids from The world through my eyes
• Sigh from Tons of thoughts

Enjoy!

Research peer review 2

Hello, and welcome back from our unofficial ENG 202 hiatus! Today in class we'll be doing a second peer revew of your Research Essays. For this review, please find a NEW partner to work with: a classmate who hasn't already given feedback on your research draft.

Switch drafts with your partner, then answer the following questions in writing. (You can write these on the back of the draft itself or on a separate piece of paper: please sign your name.)

• What was your personal response to this essay as you read it? Give a "play by play" account of your experience as a reader: at what points were you interested in the essay, at what points did your mind wander, at what points did you ask questions about the research findings, at what points were you lost or confused, etc. Be as specific as possible: "I got lost around paragraph 3, but by paragraph 4 I realized you were trying to say X."
• Summarize the essay. In your understanding, what one main point is the essay trying to say?
• Describe your impression of the writer's relationship with her or his audience: what is the writer's tone, how formal or informal is her or his voice, and how is or isn't this tone & style appropriate for the essay's intended audience.

When you've finished answering these questions to the best of your ability, go back & number the draft's paragraphs. (If there are long paragraphs that cover more than one topic or main idea, feel free to divide those paragraphs.) Once you've numbered the paragraphs, on a separate sheet of paper make a list that states IN SENTENCE FORM the topic or main idea of each paragraph. (The paragraphs might already have topic sentences that you can copy, or you might have to come up with your own.)

Once you have a list of the topics covered in each paragraph of the essay, answer the following questions in writing:

• Where are there "gaps" or "holes" in the ordering of these topics? What could or should be added to fix these gaps?
• Where are there unnecessary or tangential topics that interfere with the "flow" of the essays? What could or should be done to eliminate these unnecessary diversions?
• In what ways could or should the paragraphs be re-arranged to make the essay flow more smoothly, logicially, or efficiently?
• Lastly, which of the points or topics raised in these individual paragraphs are the most pertinent, valuable, or important? If you had to pick the three most important points, what would they be?

When you are done, return the draft and your comments to your partner.

Intro/conclusion peer review

For class today, you should have posted to your blog a revised version of your research intro & conclusion; these paragraphs should be written in either a formal "journal" style or a more popular "magazine" style.

In groups of 3 or 4, read your groupmates' revised into & conclusion paragraphs and post a signed blog-comment responding to the following questions:

• How well does the intro paragraph "contextualize the background" by establishing common ground between writer and reader? In what ways could the intro do a better job of drawing in a reader by giving necessary background information?
• How well does the intro paragraph state the problem or question that the writer's research addresses? In what ways could the intro be revised to introduce the research problem or question more clearly?
• How well does the intro paragraph sum up the writer's response or "answer" to the research problem/question? What research claim does the intro state, and how could the intro be revised to state this claim more clearly?
• How well does the conclusion re-state the essay's research claim (the response or "answer" to the stated problem or question)? How could the conclusion be revised to sum up this claim more clearly?
• How well does the conclusion raise a new significance or application of this research claim: in other words, how well does the conclusion move "above and above" the introduction? How could the conclusion be revised to offer something better, more significant, or more practical than the general claim made at the beginning of the essay?
• How well does the conclusion of the essay echo or even complement the introduction? How could the conclusion be revised to "tie up" the essay in a more artful way?