Pearls & Onions » Blog Assignments

Want to Be a Better Blogger?

lisahuff — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:39:26 +0000

In the spirit of becoming better bloggers, take a few minutes to read two these two articles:

Karl Fisch, a noted edublogger, defines blogging and give example

Kris Braden’s blog post–How to Prevent Another Leonardo DaVinci–award Best Student Blog Post 2007 (I think that was the title.)

Give me feedback via Comments. What do you think? Do you agree? Can you reflect on their writing style, ideas, formatting…?

e-Circles

lisahuff — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:46:28 +0000

Someone once said writing is the inking of our thinking. Before we can write profound analyses of text, we need to mull over the text, reading and re-reading it deeply, thinking and discussing the text, bouncing our ideas off other critical readers of the same text. Good discussions help us all polish–or sometimes discover–our ideas. This polishing allows us to ink our thoughts.

In the spirit of discussion, we will undertake e-Circles this nine weeks. Here’s how it works:

Each group chunks the text into four reading assignments.

Each week (for four consecutive weeks) one member “hosts” the discussion on his or her blog.

The “host” generates three discussion questions–questions that will generate an AP-level discussion about the text. These questions might deal with the author’s style, with themes of the text, with characters, with setting, with connections to other texts, current events, or societal/world issues.

Each week, group members respond to at least two of the questions using the comments feature.

Ideally, a lively discussion ensues.

Below are the dates for the four discussions. I will grade each week’s discussion each Monday. To allow time for everyone to comment, the host must post discussion questions no later than Friday each week.

eCircle 1: January 11

eCircle 2: January 18

eCircle 3: January 25

eCircle 4: February 1

Rhetorical Treasure Hunt

lisahuff — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:50:13 +0000

This Thanksgiving, I hope you’ll spend some time hunting for more than just turkey and dressing. As we continue our journey to give voice to the techniques writers use to “play” with language, we’re starting to appreciate how challenging acquiring a rhetorical vocabulary can be. It can seem a bit daunting–especially when multiple terms exist for one device. Don’t lose hope. Though hundreds of terms exist, we need only learn a few of the most common. About.com has a wonderful list: Top 20 Figures of Speech. Though these aren’t the only devices we must know for the AP exam, they are a wonderful start.

Your task in this assignment is to undertake a rhetorical treasure hunt. For what are you looking? Examples of writers “playing” with language. Where might you look? Everywhere. Start with your CD (or digital downloads) collection–in the song lyrics, notice advertising slogans, check out the newspaper, look in your textbooks, search in the classic you’re currently reading.

Share your results in a blog post:

Include a catchy introduction to introduce your topic,

Quote the example of a particular rhetorical device,

Give the source of the example,

Identify the device being used, and

Include a concluding paragraph.

I’m spraying purple any Internet lists of examples of rhetorical devices–such lists are off limits. The idea is for you to find your own original examples, not copy and paste someone else’s list. Include at least five (5) examples in your post.

For inspiration, check out Richard Norquist’s post: Trampling Through the Garden of Eloquence. Note how his post includes a witty introduction and conclusion and how, within the body, he includes a list of rhetorical devices. In short, his post exemplifies good writing as should your post.

Start hunting! Season ends Monday morning after Thanksgiving; that is, you must have published your post before coming to class Monday, November 26.