Due Monday, November 17

Using one of your sources for the research paper, identify the following elements and describe them in paragraph form.

• Title/Author
• Thesis/Major Proposition
• Claim/Minor Proposition #1
• One Example of Evidence (Include Type, e.g. fact, statistic, expert opinion, anecdote, etc.)
• One Example of Appeal (Include Type, e.g. logical, emotional, ethical, authoritative)
• Claim/Minor Proposition #2
• One Example of Evidence (Include Type, e.g. fact, statistic, expert opinion, anecdote, etc.)
• One Example of Appeal (Include Type, e.g. logical, emotional, ethical, authoritative)
• Claim/Minor Proposition #3
• One Example of Evidence (Include Type, e.g. fact, statistic, expert opinion, anecdote, etc.)
• One Example of Appeal (Include Type, e.g. logical, emotional, ethical, authoritative)
• Refutation
• Conclusion

Due Monday, November 10

1) Please post your tentative thesis for the research project in the comment section below.

2) Post suggestions for two other students as to how they can make their theses more effective and persuasive.

Due Wednesday, November 5

Post a comment of 250 words minimum in response to the following prompt:

The first four entries in Chapter Six of NextText touch upon intersections between the arts and sciences, between biology and history, between poetics and genetics. What do you see as the relationship between art and science? Illustrate your ideas using examples from the readings (pages 520-541).

Due Monday, October 27

Post a comment of 250 words minimum in response to the following prompt:

Chapter Five of NextText explores the idea of making and remaking history. In the introduction to the chapter, Kress and Winkle write:

...the field of history is wider and more complex; it includes biography, autobiography, graphic narrative, and texts written from competing theoretical perspectives (for example, feminist, conservative, libertarian, etc.). At base, all histories relate and interpret information about the past. Interpretation is critical because once historians move beyond simply providing a chronology of dates, they begin to shape our understanding of events by creating a narrative, a causal chain...History, then, is not a static field; rather, it is an ongoing dialogue with the past that is always informed by the present.

Discuss how three of the following Chapter Five selections illustrate the idea that history is subjective and constantly changing.

• Clayborne Carson, "Malcolm X" (405)
• Sarah Vowell, "1776: A Musical about the Declaration of Independence" (413)
• "Frontlines: Dispatches from U.S. Soldiers in Iraq" (420)
• John Hodgman, "The States, Their Nicknames and Mottoes, and Other Facts Critical to Safe Travel" (432)
• Anne Scott MacLeod, "Rewriting History" (440)
• Ian Mortimer, "Revisionism Revisited" (450)
• Robert Brent Toplin, "Judging Cinematic History" (457)
• Lynn Neary, "The Mixed Reviews of the Museum of the American Indian" (464)
• John Leo, "Googling the Future" (471)
• "A Portfolio of Graphic Novels" (476)

Research Exercises

Please visit the New Century Handbook Companion Site to complete the exercises for today's lab.

Due Wednesday, October 15

Part I: Post a comment of 250 words minimum in response to the following prompt: Jessi Hempel and Paula Lehman refer to the generation of students in college right now as the "MySpace Generation." For this response, serve as a representative of your generation and respond to some of the ideas in Chapter 3 of NextText. Are the writers accurate in their portrayals of the relationship you and your peers have with technology and online communities? Refer to at least three of the essays in Chapter 3 in your response.

Part II: In a separate comment, write a brief response to another student's post, expanding, questioning, or clarifying his/her ideas. Indicate the post you are responding to by referencing the student's name.

Due Monday, October 6

Post a comment of 250 words minimum - in paragraph form - in response to the following questions about the New York Times editorial you have chosen. Make sure to identify the author, title, and date of the editorial.

• What is the editorial writer's thesis?
• What do you think the writer hopes to achieve (the purpose) by publishing this editorial?
• Describe in detail how the writer makes his point.
• Do you locate any logical fallacies in the editorial?
• What would the writer's opposition argue?
• Do you agree with the writer?

The Right Word

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." - Mark Twain

Due Monday, September 29

Post a comment of 250 words minimum in response to the following prompt:

Choose two of the selections included in the Memoir section of NextText Chapter Two (pages 154-171). Discuss/describe the relationships that are being portrayed in each memoir and compare how the two authors approach the idea of "family" - what does it mean to them? How is this meaning demonstrated?

Good Writing: A Definition

"Good writing [is] making what is completely obvious only to you completely obvious to everyone else. With words." - Jason Kottke

Due Wednesday, September 17

Post a comment of 250 words minimum in response to the following prompt:

In "We're All Cousins and Other Web Revelations" (page 141 of NextText), Michael Schuyler - like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in "My Yiddishe Mama" (page 135) - traces his family history. However, the two pieces have different approaches to the topic and are written for different audiences. Compare the two essays, identifying - among other observations - how audience affects the style and tone of each.

Due Monday, September 15

Post a comment of 250 words minimum in response to the following prompt:

Chapter Two of NextText looks at the American family through the disciplines of sociology and public policy. How do you define "family"? Is family primarily determined through biology or something else? Do you think the American family is facing worse problems now than in the past? In your answer, refer to at least two of the essays found in pages 86-118 of NextText.

Narratives (The Beginning)

As you prepare your first paragraphs for Essay #1, our narrative assignment, give some thought to how these examples begin. Notice that often a good narrative begins by showing rather than telling.

"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher." - Edgar Allen Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher"

"Carla heard the car coming before it topped the little rise in the road that around here they called a hill. It’s her, she thought. Mrs. Jamieson—Sylvia—home from her holiday in Greece. From the barn door—but far enough inside that she could not easily be seen—she watched the road where Mrs. Jamieson would have to drive by, her place being half a mile farther along than Clark and Carla’s. If it was somebody coming to see them, the car would be slowing down by now. But still Carla hoped. Let it not be her." - Alice Munro, "Runaway"

"When I was in fourth grade, my class took a field trip to the American Tobacco plant in nearby Durham, North Carolina. There we witnessed the making of cigarettes and were given free packs to take home to our parents. I tell people this and they ask me how old I am, thinking, I guess, that I went to the world’s first elementary school, one where we wrote on cave walls and hunted our lunch with clubs. Then I mention the smoking lounge at my high school. It was outdoors, but, still, you’d never find anything like that now, not even if the school was in a prison." - David Sedaris, "Letting Go"

"Oscar de León was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about. He wasn’t no player. Except for one time, he’d never had much luck with women. He’d been seven then." - Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the fire; the steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book; the three chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece. Yes, it must have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for I remember that I was smoking a cigarette when I looked up and saw the mark on the wall for the first time." - Virginia Woolf, "The Mark on the Wall"

Announcement: September 8 Readings

A student asked about the readings listed on the syllabus for September 8. Since we haven't discussed the September 3 NextText readings yet, please read only the New Century Handbook pages that are listed for September 8. Of course, reading ahead is always encouraged.

Due Monday, September 8

Any homework assignments are due by the beginning of class on the date listed in the subject line. You will know the post includes a homework assignment because 1) it will be announced in class and 2) it will have a subject line like the one above.

Read the prompt carefully. Sometimes you will be asked to only respond to the question(s) listed, and sometimes you will also be asked to respond to another student's comment.

Click on the word Comments below and choose Name/URL for your identity. Enter your first name and last initial.

For September 8, please post a comment in response to the following questions:

1. What training in academic writing have you had before this course?
2. In your previous experience, what were some of the most valuable skills that you learned or most relevant tools you acquired?
3. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of the writing process?
4. Which types of coursework do you find most helpful to learn new concepts (specific writing assignments, group work, class discussion, oral presentation, lecture, etc.)? Why?
5. Which types of coursework do you find least helpful? Why?
6. Please briefly describe a memorable writing assignment you have previously completed. What made it memorable?
7. What do you hope to learn in this course? Which skills or tools would you like to take with you at the end of the course?

Washington Post Registration

User ID: aw111fall08@woodbury.edu
Password: woodbury

New York Times Registration

I've created a New York Times ID and password for the class. (The site requires registration.) To read some of the articles to the right, use this log-in:

Member ID: aw111fall08
Password: woodbury

Welcome!

This will be the home site for our AW111 class where you can:

• read posted articles related to writing
• complete your post/comment homework assignments
• locate the articles for your synthesis essay assignment (#3)
• communicate with your classmates and instructor

You can write to me anytime at christine.daley@woodbury.edu with questions.