The class blog is a fundamental space for our online community of writers and thinkers. Here we will respond to and ask questions of our course texts, practice the conventions of a particular digital writing form (the WordPress blog), and get to know each other’s personalities, ideas, and words. As such , your posts will appear on the front page, at the very center, of our course website.
These posts are intended to push the way you read and think about our course texts, which include published writing, your own writing, and the writing of your peers. They should show that you have done the assigned reading as well as some hard thinking about the reading, illustrated in the original ideas and insights you offer. These are not simple summaries. Take chances in these posts. Try out new opinions. Pose provocative questions. Explore the possibilities of this kind of digital writing. I challenge you to write with sounds, to embed an image, to attach a short movie. To encourage you to play with the possibilities of your words and ideas, these posts will be informal and relatively short (250 words or approximately 1 double-spaced typed page). But remember, these will appear on a public website, so proofread and pay attention to your audience: me, your classmates, and any others who stumble onto this course site.
I will comment on each of your posts and evaluate them with a 2 (Good/Excellent), 1 (Satisfactory), or 0 (Missing/Incomplete).
We are using WordPress – instead of Sakai – because this easy to use, free program is becoming an increasingly important way for academics to share their research, test out their ideas, and develop the public relevance of their work. (Here are a few of the academic (-ish) WordPress blogs I follow: La Frontera, Keep Learning, and The Professor Is In.) I hope your experience with WordPress here will be useful beyond this single course.
To help you navigate your way through WordPress I have created this tutorial handout – “Navigating WordPress” (forthcoming) – and you can always email me with questions or concerns.
Post Topics, Comments, and Due Dates
Embracing the improvisational spirit of this online course, I reserve the right to revise or repave these specific topics with others, and I encourage you to invent and suggest alternatives for yourself and/or your peers.
* Remember, if you include media elements in your posts, identify them. Are they your original creation? If not, who created them, when, and where did you find them?
P1: About Me (M, 6/9)
Introduce yourself as a WRITER. Be creative; write a top ten list, post a self portrait, critique something you wrote in the past. Consider your audience: your classmates, instructor, and any public readers who stumble onto the site; show your personality; write in your own style; have fun!
P2: Lessig, Remix, and College Writing (T, 6/10)
Explore a specific connection (or disconnection) you see between Lessig’s idea of “remix” and college writing. Put another way, why do you think I asked you to read this talk for a college composition course? Do not write what you think I want to read. Write honestly. If you don’t see a connection, explore that fact. Just be SPECIFIC. Avoid generalizations. Point to precise moments in Lessig’s argument. Quote those moments. Compose this post as an example of Lessig’s “remix” by including and using other texts (books, essays, websites, videos, music, images, etc.) to develop your thoughts.
P3: Harris, Howard, and Lessig (W, 6/11)
Explore one specific difference you see in the ways Lessig, Harris, and Howard seem to be defining “critical reading and writing.” You may focus on two of these authors or all three. Include quotes to point your reader to specific moments in the things we’ve read. Which author do you find yourself saying “YES” to the most? Why?
P4: Critical Reading and Writing in Your Digital Terms (R, 6/12)
Now I want you to offer your own definition of what “critical reading and/or writing” means (you may focus on reading, writing, or both). You may reference one or more of the authors we have read in the course, or you may venture out completely on your own. This definition must integrate written words with other media elements. You might design a meme, create a video, upload audio, integrate your words with images. In other words, “write” for a digital audience.
Comment on your peer group members’ “Critical Reading and Writing in Your Digital Terms” posts (M, 6/16)
Write a kind of review of your peers’ original definitions of “critical reading and/or writing.” This review should briefly summarize what you understand their definition to be, point to SPECIFIC strengths of the definition, and ask a SPECIFIC question or questions of the definition, its implications, blind spots, application, etc. Be generous in your review. This is a space for you to encourage your peers’ thoughts, not for you to negate them or prove your own IQ.
P5: Stephey, Knobel, and Lankshear (T, 6/17)
Stephey’s “Lawrence Lessig: Decriminalizing the Remix” and Knobel and Lankshear’s “Remix: The Art and Craft of Endless Hybridization” both review – or put another way “come to terms” – with Lessig’s concept of “Remix.” However, they are different genres written for different audiences and purposes. Considering the audience, purpose, and genre of each, which do you think most effectively comes to terms with Lessig’s “Remix” and why?
P6: Coming to Terms (W, 6/18)
In a paragraph or two (NOT A LIST), come to terms with the argumentative essay you have chosen to read. The only requirements for the essay you select are that it interests you and argues a point or, in other words, expresses an opinion. You may select something from a magazine or blog that you read regularly; search academic journals using a database like JSTOR; or skim the opinion section of a newspaper for inspiration. Do not just start Googling random things; I fear you won’t get quality results that way. More than anything, make sure you are actually interested in the essay!
Borrowing from Harris’s chapter on coming to terms, you should 1) define the writer’s project in your own words (your understanding of what the author is trying to DO not just a summary of what they wrote – try to do this without looking at the essay!); 2) quote or paraphrase the key (short) passages from the essay (you must, of course, also say something about these quotes or paraphrases to explain why they are so important); and 3) evaluate the uses and limits of the essay. Remember, as Harris writes, when you come to terms “you are not simply re-presenting a text but incorporating it into your own project as a writer. You thus need not only to explain what you think it means but to say something about the perspective from which you are reading it. In coming to terms with the work of others, then, you also say a good deal about who you are as a writer, about your own interests and values” (15).
Comment on your peer group members’ “Coming to Terms” posts (R, 6/19)
Write a kind of review of your peers’ first attempts to come to terms with the essay from their field. You should briefly summarize your understanding of the essay from their efforts to define the project of the essay. You should also ask SPECIFIC questions that highlight for your peers what they might have neglected to include in their reviews of their essays. As always, be generous. This is a space to encourage your peers not to negate them.
P7: Research Question (T, 6/24)
Now that you have critically read several potential sources for your Argument Synthesis Essay, venture a possible research question, an inquiry worthy of more research that comes out of your reading in the field. Explain how you came to this question and explore its value for the field in general, you as a writer, and your readers.
P8: Forwarding (M, 7/7)
Select a source (from your current research for this class) that forwards the work of another writer or thinker. Select a SPECIFIC forwarding moment, and analyze how the author makes that move. Using Harris’s vocabulary, summarize the forwarding movement and then explain if the author illustrates, authorizes, borrows, or extends the other source? (Remember that these moves might be woven together, so perhaps you will be discussing multiple moves.) Do these terms really embody how the author seems to be using his or her sources? Can you pose a new term that you think better explains the move and by extension forwards Harris’s own definition of forwarding? Work really hard at this last question!
P9: Countering (T, 7/8)
Select a source (from your current research for this class) that you plan to counter in your Argument Contribution Essay. Practice that counter in a short paragraph; you might argue the other side, uncover values, or dissent to borrow Harris’s terms, but be SPECIFIC. In another short paragraph, describe the attitude you take toward the text you have just countered. Point to specific language you use in the counter. Then reflect on how you might revise, nuance, or refine your use of this source – counter with greater generosity, respect, commitment, force, whatever.
P10: Exemplary Digital Essay (M, 7/21)
Post a link to an exemplary digital essay. Explore what makes this essay so exemplary. Think about issues of audience, purpose, and genre; the interplay of word and media – the digital-ness of the essay; and of course the content (a flashy essay does not an exemplary text make). What might you borrow and extend (dare I use the term forward) from this essay as you think about composing your own? Make us excited about this piece!
English 110 Online: Critical Reading and Writing 