Each page of a Learning Module will be a blog post so we can use the comment functionality of a blog post.
Now that we got some style fresh on our mind, I want you to choose one paragraph that you have written in this class and revise it with at least two of the elements of style from the previous page in mind.
In a comment below, do the following:
After commenting, click on the button below to continue.
Throughout both Units 1 and 2, we have been working on style. We will continue doing some things with style throughout the term, but in the spirit of taking a break, I thought we would pause to do some review.
Please review these pages on style to refresh your memory:
Comment below, on one element of your style as a writer that you would like to keep working on this semester and why. Take about 100 words to explain.
After commenting, click on the button below to continue.
In Unit 1, we focused on rhetoric in terms of having terms to name aspects of what we do in our writing to help build awareness:
Below is from the syllabus:
| Unit 2 – Rhetoric: Awareness and Writing |
| In this unit, we will explore rhetoric in greater detail. We will start with the importance of audience and the relationship between audiences and genre conventions (and the slipperiness of what we can ever actually fully know about either). We will then consider the full nature of the rhetorical situation (i.e., exigence, constraints, and audience), the impact of ideology on how everyone reads and writes, and consider the value of a rhetorical outlook on the world around us. To realize these ends, we will develop our abilities as rhetorical analysts. This unit will mostly address the third and fifth Learning Goals of the course (i.e., Read and analyze texts critically; Use conventions appropriate to audience, genre, and purpose). Some of the sub-goals for this unit include:
· Learn the functions of rhetoric: make knowledge, coordinate human and nonhuman activity, and impact others. · Learn the differences between genres at the level of words, sentences, paragraphing, document design, mode, etc. · Change stylistic features of your writing to accommodate your audience · Recognize the full rhetorical situation to understand the context for writing · Consider the important material concerns for writing, to include different modes, circulation, and other infrastructural concerns for writing · Learn how to analyze vs. summarize · Find, evaluate, and synthesize evidence in texts we analyze · Establish links between claims and evidence · Apply theoretical lenses to what we analyze in ways that both expand and limit what we can know · Integrate textual analysis into a larger argument or narrative |
Comment below to talk about which subgoal best represents the area of your writing you’d most like to work on and why. Take about 100 words to respond. We are still in the middle of this unit, so much of this is in-progress still.
After commenting, click on the button below to continue.
In Unit 1, we focused on writing in terms of emotion in two ways:
Below is from the syllabus:
| Unit 1 – Identity, Language, and Process: Emotion and Writing |
| The focus on this unit is primarily grounded in the first two Learning Goals of the course (i.e., Composing as a process; Compose with an awareness of how intersectional identity, social conventions, and rhetorical situations shape writing). We will explore together the emotional foundation of writing, language, and rhetoric—that our feeling is integral to how we know our worlds and communicate about them. Sometimes, for sure, the feelings associated with language can make writing difficult, even lonely. Thus, we will focus on thinking strategically about the entire process of writing. The sub-goals we explore will include:
· Understand language as social and as part of who you are · Experiment with the rhetorical power of tapping into the full range of your rhetorical expertise (i.e., your rhetorical practices in all of the contexts in which you use rhetoric) · Understand the role of reading in writing (e.g., procedures of annotating, reading to revise) · Set goals and a process for checking in on your progress on an ongoing basis. Re-evaluate goals, periodically. · Develop a writing practice (e.g., creating the best environment for productive writing sessions as possible, managing distractions, time management) · Develop your writing process (e.g., planning, outlining, drafting, reflecting, revising, editing) · Receive feedback, apply it, and give constructive feedback (e.g., in peer response, workshopping writing, interpreting comments, integrating feedback in a global sense rather than only locally, managing the embodied nature of having an audience for your writing) · Using examples effectively in your writing to help illustrate things you are trying to explain or argue |
You have 2 tasks to complete for this page before moving on.
First, post to our Slack workspace to update us on how your writing process (i.e., the order in which you go from ideas to a finished piece of writing) and practice (i.e., the habits and environment you have set for getting writing done) have been going.
On our Slack channel for writing process and practice, give a brief update on what you have been doing that has been going well and what maybe has been a recent challenge in terms of your process and practice. Take about 100-200 words to do this. Feel free to post in response to others rather than have your own separate post if that can happen!
Second, comment below to talk about which subgoal best represents the area of your writing you’d most like to work on and why. Take about 100 words to respond.
After posting to our Slack workspace and commenting below, click on the button below to continue.
Here are the course goals. Take a moment to read them over.
Learning Goals (LGs)
Comment below with which goal best represents the area of your writing you’d most like to work on and why. Take about 100 words to respond.
After commenting, click on the button below to continue.
This was a review and a time to reflect on where you are at! Hopefully you got some quality time to think about where you’ve been and where you are going across:
We also talked a tiny bit about the logistics for our Midterm Learning Narrative and Midterm Meeting, as well as setting up Unit 3 on research along with QSR4.
We focused on four things for this module:
For 10/8, you will:
As I mentioned last class (10/1), I want to do a check in on how the class is going so far.
Here is the link to the survey. It should take 5-10 minutes to fill out.
Once you are done, comment below saying “I submitted the survey.”
It is important to comment below! Otherwise I can’t give you credit for completing the survey since it is anonymous.
After commenting, click below to continue in the module
Sentence coherence can best be thought of as ways in which you can position your sentences in ways where a reader can quickly understand why one sentence follows another. One of the best ways to think about coherence is the given/new principle in writing.
Generally speaking, the opening of a sentence (‘given’) contains information that the reader already knows and the ending of a sentence (‘new’) contains new information. The ‘given’ information is based on one of two sources:
Here are some examples from chapter 4 of the professional writing textbook Business Writing is for Everyone:
It is easy to let your sentences become cluttered with words that do not add value to your message. Improve cluttered sentences [GIVEN] by eliminating repetitive ideas, removing repeated words, and editing to eliminate unnecessary words [NEW].
You should be especially careful when writing about groups of people in a way that might reinforce stereotypes. For example, [GIVEN; offers inference that example will illustrate point in last sentence] implied in his book Elements of Indigenous Style, Gregory Younging discusses how subtle bias can have a big impact when non-Indigenous people write about First Nations, Metis and Inuit people [NEW].
If you are a writer that frequently gets comments on papers that your writing is “clunky” or hard to follow, this can be one fairly easy method to improve the readability for your reading.
Comment below with the following:
After commenting, click the button below to continue.
I want you to read a collection of sentences I gathered from a book called Brothers and Keepers by John Wideman. The book is a memoir about Wideman’s relationship to his brother. Wideman and his brother are both Black but lived very different lives, growing up in different places. Wideman spends the memoir talking with his brother, who is in prison, to get closer to him but it also is a way to think about his family history and larger societal issues of race and class in the U.S.
Wideman’s style uses a lot of different punctuation in interesting ways. So, I thought it might be good practice for you to read through some of his sentences and to think about which uses of punctuation stand out to you.
After reading through these sentences above, comment below on 2 different uses of punctuation and how it had a rhetorical effect. Think to the last page where we talked about different punctuation is giving different lengths of time for pausing. Why would certain lengths and types of pauses have a rhetorical effect? Why use punctuation in the way it was used, why not just use a bunch of simple sentences that end in periods? Why not a comma rather than a colon? Etc. Try to think that through by throwing out some ideas as you read and react to the above sentences.
To comment, mention:
After commenting below, click on the button below to continue.