Week Three Blog Assignment

Audience awareness is extremely important when writing because it influences everything from topic to word choice and sentence structure. As students, you often write only for your instructor. This can make your writing very dry and boring. Blogging is an excellent way to reinforce the need for audience awareness because you are writing for a "worldwide" audience not just your instructor.

Your blog assignment this week is to examine the advertisements below.  View by simply clicking on each video. Who do you think the intended audience is and why for each ad?  Be sure to utilize specific details from the ad to elaborate on your "why." Why should we be critical of intended audience in advertisements and other information that surrounds us?

Week Two Blog Prompt

Narration is just one of many strategies for developing an essay. Narrative writing is essentially telling a story, often relying on personal experience. Effective narrative writing:

1. is told from a particular point of view,
2. makes and supports a point (has a purpose),
3. is filled with precise detail,
4. uses vivid verbs and modifiers,
5. uses conflict and sequence as does any good plot,
6. may use dialogue.

For your blog assignment this week, you are to write a narrative consisting of about 400-500 words. I want you to choose a vivid childhood memory - for example, you might think of the first time you rode a school bus, of a time when you went to the principal's office, of a first encounter with a friend, of a first A on a test or paper, of the first time you earned money to buy something you really wanted, and so on. Narrate events related to that childhood memory so that your reader will understand why the event was important and memorable. 
After watching the TEDtalk, "How Reliable is your Memory?," do you trust how well you have remembered the event that you narrated?  Is it important? Why or why not?

Blogging Requirements and First Blog Prompt

Welcome to the blogging (web log) experience! You will be keeping a blog as part of Composition this spring semester. Your blogging requirements involve two components:
1. You need to post to your blog at least one entry each week. This entry needs to be one complete paragraph following standards of good grammar and punctuation. Generally, your weekly entry will be based on a writing prompt that I will post for you on the class blog; however, sometimes your post will be based on a topic of your own choosing.
2. You will need to also read and comment on at least two of your classmates' blogs each week as well. These comments need to address writing and style not content. Once everyone has created their blog, you will be able to find a list (labeled "students") at the right hand side of this class blog page that will link you to everyone's blog.

For your first blog today, I would like you to respond to the following prompt:
You wake up in jail and have no memory of how you got there. As you pace around the cell, you find five items in your pocket from the night before. As you look at each piece, the night slowly comes back to you. Write about your night, why you have these five items (and give a detailed description of each of these five items), and how you ended up in jail.

Have fun blogging!!