DawgNotes

During Week 2, our discussions focused mostly on their reading notes and research results. After reading Manning Marable's introduction to The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life, titled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Race," and discussing key concepts such as "life chances", "lucky days" and "unlucky days" the students did a database research project on the emergence of "life chances" as a concept/term in sociology, and an internet search on "the color line." For the first part of Tuesday's class I had them tell me about their results - one key thing that stood out for them from their notes. It was a good discussion. They brought up interesting observations and were able to tie them back to the underlying text, Gregory Howard Williams' memoir Life on the Color Line: The True Story of A White Boy who Learned he was Black. They had also been asked to expand on an in-class exercise from week 1 where I randomly assigned the students to one of three quotes taken from Williams, and had them work in groups to come up with passages from Marable that would help them imagine how Marable might respond to Williams. For homework, they were asked to take those results and expand their thoughts into a 400 word response paper. I had them submit those responses to the Drop Box in Blackboard, mostly to be sure they could all do it before the major essay comes due.

Tuesday they were asked to write a "discovery draft". In class, I explained the idea, emphasizing that it should not be considered formal, did not require an introduction or conclusion at this point, and should be mostly about testing what they know and still needed to know to write the final paper. On Thursday I grouped them according to the prompt they responded to and had them share drafts and discuss strategies for revision/organization. For homework over the weekend, they were asked to revise their drafts, to read a section from Writing Analytically on introductions and conclusions, and to write 3 different versions of each for discussion in class.

Week three was all about making a coherent paper with these drafts. They again grouped up to discuss introductions and conclusions, in an attempt to select a good one for their revised draft. We reviewed the prompts for the invention portolio. For Thursday, I had them bring their handbook, an expensive little chunk known as The Writer's Harbrace Handbook Brief (yes, really in that order). I showed them various sections pertinent to final editing, and pointed out the section about MLA citation, which they are required to use for this paper. Papers were due Sunday night in the Drop Box. The invention portfolios will come with them to class in Week 4.

WRT 307
Week Two was a short week because of the holiday, so most of what happed was the first three of the Genre Presentation Project presentations. They did a pretty good job, given how little instruction I had given them. The first presentation was about presentations, and it didn't cover all I wished it had but it was okay and gave the students a good example to work with. The student who got edged last week got back in. I completely revised the schedule for the rest of the presentations. I had set them all up to come in steady succession for something like four weeks, and I realized this wouldn't allow me to talk about any of the writing I was asking them to do until it was over, several weeks after they wrote. Not good for context. So I changed it so that there is only one presentation per class session, and then other stuff can happen.

Week Three was still about the presentations, but I also was able to review and discuss the key ideas that emerged from their initial papers on the anticipated difference between academic and workplace writing. It was interesting to me that they believe business writing to be more clear, less fluffy, more direct - even to the point of being terse. We talked a bit about how different workplace situations call for different levels of brevity or "fluff."

I asked them to read The Cluetrain Manifesto online and respond to any two of the 95 theses found there. I also asked them to read the Preface to Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and to post comments on that, especially in relation to Cluetrain. It will be a few sessions before I can get back to those discussions, because next week I want to work on their cover letters and resumes.

Both classes move into Unit 2 as week four begins. Breathe out and carry on.