Evaluation Blog Posts (2) - Due Monday August 1

Over the weekend, complete the following in a few blog posts:

* Think of three cultural objects of interest. Freewrite about why you think it is good of bad (or the epitome of mediocrity). What does it mean to you? Why are you interested in it? What are people saying about it. How have people reacted to it. Where has it been taken up and used or repeated? Where has it made the most impact? How and why?
* Read the piece on Lady Gaga on Angel. In addition, look around the Gaga Stigmata blog beginning with this post on her video Born this Way. What sort of arguments do they make about Lady Gaga? What evidence do they use? Note a few rhetorical tactics that are used that are particularly effective in this kind of cultural commentary (you guys should be getting good at this).

Potential Narrative Topics

If you absolutely cannot think of your own narrative topic then you can choose one of the following as a point of departure.

1) Describe your bedroom back home. Use the objects in the room as reference points to talk about various points in your childhood and your leaving them and coming to college.

2) Pick a friend or a group of friends that were important to you. Describe some of your favorite moments with them in order to demonstrate, in a rhetorical savvy way, the value, difficulties, or nuances of friendship.

3) Using key personal experiences, write about the way that a certain technology has changed your life--a cell phone (or smartphone), a car, a computer, an instrument, etc. Use that technology as a point of departure to comment on the role of technology in shaping your life.

Anyone in the class should be able to write any of these and the general idea of the purpose is already set for you, although the particularities of it will be up to you (there is a TON of room in each of these prompts). You should see how each prompt points you to something specific--1 forces you to use objects from your room, 2 forces you to reference friends, and 3 uses technologies--that will then lead you into even more specific things: the experiences themselves.

You will need to describe these experiences and then relate them together to make a point.

Narrative Blog Entry #2 - Due 7/26

As you sit down to eat dinner (whatever that is) take note of the experience. Later,write for 10 minutes describing it with as much detail as possible. Include details from all the senses: how does it smell, feel, and taste. What does the place around you sound like? Who all is there? Again, give as many details as possible

Narrative Reading Response - Due Monday 7/25

Read the three essays (the two of mine posted on Angel and the gaming addiction one over at Kotaku). Then do the following:

1) Write a bit about how these essays differ from the writing you are used to writing/reading. How do they use a different structure, tone, techniques, etc?

2) Take one of the essays and write a few sentences about the purpose and audience for the essay. What are they and how do you know?

Reflection Help

As I said in class, you should be freewriting for at least 10 minutes every day this weekend, then posting them on the blog. Here were the prompts I gave in class--they are just to help you get started.

-When was the last time you can think of where you got really upset or really happy. Why? What was it over?
- What do you spend the most time doing, what do you love doing most, or what things are most interested in? What do these mean to you? Why are you interested in them?
- List experiences that you've had in the past, starting as young as possible. Don't worry if they were small or significant--most likely if you remember them then they were significant for you.

Form For Definition Topic Proposal

- ___________ is (or is not) _________ (your word)

- ________(Your word) is
1) _____________
2) _____________
3) _____________
(might be more than three but at least needs to be 3)

For example

- Waterboarding is a form of torture
- Torture
1) Inflicts excessive pain
2) Has lasting psychological consequences
3) Relies on the fear of death to get answers

Definition Blog Post - due 7/19

Read "Vanity, they Name is Metrosexual"

Briefly answer the following questions

1) How does the author define Metrosexual? How does the author relate the term to a larger argument?

2) What is at stake in the definition of the term? How does the author make this clear?

3) Note one other means of persuasion that you found particularly effective in the article. What about the audience does this means rely on.

Peer Review Reflection for Rebuttal - Due Friday, 7/15

After you finish your final draft write ~250 words reflecting on the peer review. What was helpful about it and what was not. Did you get some good feedback? What did you apply to your paper (try to be specific). Do you feel like you have a better sense of what to look for when reading other and your own writing?

Drexler - Smalley Response - Due 7/7

For this post you need to read the debate on nanotechnology.
Start with Richard Smalley's Scientific American article.
Then read the debate he had with K. Eric Drexler over here.
Alternatively, I have the pdfs up on Angel.

For the blog entry, answer this series of short questions (1-2 sentences for each)

• What is the main point of contention between Drexler and Smalley?
  
• What is at stake in their argument?
  
• Name a few strategies they use to refute the other side.
• How does both Smalley and Drexler develop their ethos (provide an example)
  
• Point to at least one logical fallacy used on both sides and explain why it is fallacy (see GRs pg 17-19)
  
• Which side to do you think was more convincing and why?