Monday, April 24, 2006

Portfolio Conference Schedule

Monday, 4/24
10:10 Leanne
10:20 Johnna
10:30 John
10:40 Justin
11:20 Brian

Tuesday, 4/25
1:00 Brianna
1:10 Ashelyn
1:20 Brittany
1:30 Josh
1:40 Taylor
2:00 Paul
2:20 Denise

Wednesday, 4/26
9:30 Andy
9:40 Jessica
10:00 Jeff

Party Goody list

Evaluations: Paul
Cups: Johnna
Napkins: Brianna
OJ: Brittany
Soda: Ashelyn
Pretezels: Andy
Donuts: Brian
Cookies: Jessica
snacks: Justin
snacks: Jeff
chips: John
snack food: Leanne
Chips & salsa: Taylor
snacks: Josh
Chips & dip: Denise

Monday, April 17, 2006

Portfolio Assignment


The purposes of the portfolio is to showcase the work you have done in this course and celebrate the progress you have made as a writer. To this end, your portfolio should have two parts:

  1. Two significantly revised assignments. There are two restrictions on how you may choose assignments to revise: at least one assignment must be a group assignment and at least one assignment must be a Unit Project. To significantly revise these assignments, you should plan to spend around 2 to 3 hours critically re-thinking the assignments. Simply fixing picture display problems or correcting spelling errors is not a significant revision. The feedback Ms. Morgan provided on your assignments can be a starting place for revision, but you may seek feedback from your groupmates, fellow classmembers, and friends. In addition, you should identify opportunities for revision on your own.
  2. An Address to Ms. Morgan discussing the changes in your process as a writer over the course of the semester. In this address, you may (but are not required) to discuss how collaborative authoring has changed your individual process, how using new media has shaped your conception of audience, or how you understand "writing as thinking". Of course, you may discuss the revisions you made in the portfolio assignments to develop your ideas. The Address may take on of the following formats:
  • a 500 word alphabetic letter (Images are optional.)
  • a 2-minute podcast
  • a 60 second digital video

You should spend between 1 1/2 and 2 hours prewriting, planning, composing, and revising the Address.

The portfolio will be graded using this rubric.

Both parts of the portfolio should be posted into your blog by 12:00pm on May 1. Links to all assignments must work for the portfolio to receive credit.

Those kind souls releasing their work should have a signed copy of the authorization form to Ms. Morgan by the last day of class, April 28.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Portfolio Syllabus

Mon. April 24 The Assignment/Pre-writing Activity One and Two
HW: Revise Portfolio Selections

Tue. April 25 Portfolio Conferences

Wed. April 26 No Class- Portfolio Conferences
HW: Revise Portfolio Selections, take Evaluation Survey , Gather Party Goody duty

Fri. April 28 Last Day of Class in FPG 3102- Attendance is Mandatory. (No excuse will be accepted.)
Evaluations
Party Goodies Due

Monday, May 1 Portfolios due posted in blogs by 12pm

By 5pm that day, final grades will be posted in Blackboard.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Unit 3 Project DW

The Dreaded Paramedic Method

Cut the lard from your project's introduction by dividing the paragraph's amongst your group members. Each group member should perform the Paramedic method on his/her paragraph(s) and post it to his her blog.

When you revise the U3P, consider what areas need to be developed and elaborated to make this introduction "rich and taut."

To refresh your memory, below are the steps for the Paramedic Method.

  1. Highlight the prepositions in blue.
  2. Highlight the "is" forms in red.
  3. Ask, "Where is the action?" "Who's kicking who?"
  4. Put this "kicking" action into a simple (not compound) active verb.
  5. Start fast, no wind ups.
  6. Remove unneccessary words.
  7. Read the sentence, paragraph aloud.
  8. Re-write and repeat.

No IM hours on Thursday, April 13

Since Friday is a University holiday, there will be no virtual office hours on Thursday.

Unit 3 Project Rubric

For this assignment, you will help design the rubric. I have designed a skeleton rubric, which should look familiar, on which you will elaborate with your group.

You will have time on April 12 to complete this rubric in class. If you don't finish, you may finish for homework, emailing me the completed rubric by 9am Thursday, April 13.

UPDATE: The rubric you designed is now posed.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Now that you have all those cool multimedia projects . . .

Show them off!

The James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence is currently inviting submissions for its Fourth Annual Multimedia Festival, which will be held in February 2007. We ask faculty and teaching fellows who have allowed undergraduate students to develop media projects as part of assigned course work to encourage their students to submit this work for inclusion in the festival. We welcome submission of films, web sites, digital images, and other media projects. Faculty can also submit work for their students with the students permission. The deadline for submission is May 15, 2006. We are currently soliciting material from Spring 2006 classes. We will have additional deadlines for Summer and Fall 2006 classes later in the year.Please visit the Multimedia Festival website for detailed submission rules and guidelines.

Questions about submissions or the festival should be addressed to: multimediafest@unc.edu.

3.2 Paramedic Method

In this draft workshop, you will remove the lard from alphabetic prose. To "get the lard out", you will cut unnecessary verbage such as prepositions, forms of "is", and put verbs into simple active forms.

For example, the revised sentence below has a lard factor of 33%.

Original: This sentence is in need of an active verb. (9 words)
Revised: The sentence needs an active verb. (6 words)

Here is a second example with a lard factor of 66%.

Original: I think that all I can usefully say on this point is that in normal course of their professional activities social anthropologists are usually concerned with the third of these alternatives, while the other two levels are treated as raw data for analysis. (44 words)
Revised: Social anthropolgists usually concentrate on the third alternative, treating the other two as raw data. (15 words)

These examples come from Richard Lanham's Revising Prose 4th ed.

You will complete this draft workshop by revising one paragraph of alphabetic prose from a group member's 3.2 draft. To do this, you will need to copy the text into your own blog. Once you have completed the steps below for each sentence, discuss the paragraph with your group mate to see if his/her meaning has been preserved.

Steps for performing the *Paramedic Method on a sentence:
1. Highlight the prepositions in blue.
2. Highlight the "is" forms in red.
3. Ask, "Where is the action?" "Who's kicking who?"
4. Put this "kicking" action into a simple (not compound) active verb.
5. Start fast, no wind ups.
6. Remove unneccessary words.
7. Read the sentence, paragraph aloud.
8. Re-write and repeat.

*This method adapted from Erika Lindemann's A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers 4th ed.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Conclusions- Cyberstyle

Conclusions often use the opposite shape of an introduction. They help the reader move from the specific topic under discussion back to a larger culture context. This is pyramid shape or a specific-to-general pattern.

Conclusion also should end with a memorable clincher, a device like the "grabbers" used in introductory paragraphs:
  • questions
  • quotations
  • vivid images
  • warnings
  • call to action
  • antecdotes or human examples

How can these concluding paragraphs be adapted for the web?

In class assignment: Search the web for effective (or not) concluding paragraphs on any topic. Prepare a short (1 minute) discussion analyzing how this paragraph works or could be improved.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Introductions -Cyberstyle

Introductions -on and off-line- have two important tasks: announce the topic under discussion and grab the reader's attention. The thesis statment performs the "announcement", the end of the paragraph creating a "general-to-specific" paragraph structure.

Some of the "attention grabbers" frequently and effectively deployed in introductory paragraphs are questions, ancedotes, statistics and opinions.

Below is an example of a strictly alphabetic SET (Statistic, Explanation, Thesis) paragraph.

60, 000 women under the age of thirty died of breast cancer last year, according to a study by the American Cancer Society. Most of these deaths could have been avoided if the cancer had een detected by a mammogram. Medical practices need to institute cancer awarness programs and routine mammograms for all women, not just those over forty, to avoid those needless deaths.

This is the same paragraph prepared for the web:

60, 000 women under the age of thirty died of breast cancer last year, according to a study by the American Cancer Society. Most of these deaths could have been avoided if the cancer had been detected by a mammogram. Medical practices need to institute cancer awarness programs and routine mammograms for all women, not just those over forty, to avoid those needless deaths.

In your groups, prepare the following alphabetic introductory paragraphs for on-line environments. Post the paragraph on a web page and post it to each group members' blog.

Teacher's Pet

GET (General, Explanation, Thesis)
You are being watched. Frightening as this may be, in the near future it could be true of every person living in the United States. Although it is important for the government to protext citizens against terrorism, new security measures are endangering citizens' privacy rights.

Super Llamas

QBERT (Quotation, Background, Explanation, Relation, Thesis)
"I prefer my women dead." While the typical Victorian gentleman did not explictly stat this, his thoughts and actions, like the majority of society's, implied it. In a period which one historian referred to as "the modern dark age for women," the ideal of feminity was embodied by passivity, physical weakness, and moral purity. This ideal was upheld by both scientific and religious thought, as well as by law. Ultimately, it led to the objectification of women, frequently symbolized in the literature of the time by dead or dying women.

Purple Cobras

HERT (Human Example, Relation, Thesis)
Mabel Worthers loves to garden. She loves the feel of the soil between her fingers and the sense of peace that comes with spending time outdoors among her flowers. However, Mabel has not been able to garden for the last two years due to her crippling arthritis, a condition which is not currently covered by Medicare. Arthritis affects nearly thirty percent of all adults over the age of sixty, and can greatly decrease a person's quality of living. It is imperative that Medicare reevaluate its position on this terrible condition.


Square Headed Spouse

QET (Question, Explanation, Thesis)
Why are Americans terrified of using nuclear power as a source of energy? People are misinformed, or not informed at all, about its benefits and safety. If Americans would take the time to learn about what nucelar power offers, their apprehension and fear might be transformed into hope.