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Daybook Prompts

Page history last edited by Henry T. Hill 6 years, 8 months ago

 

 

The Day Book Blogs

 

Create a Day Book blog to include some of the following examples:

  • reflections that you revised and developed
  • reflections on in-class, homework, and service-learning activities
  • musings about current events and issues that are relevant to your research, valuable sources you would like to comment on and share
  • field notes from your service-learning site
  • compositions in progress for which you would like feedback

If you are seeking feedback/ responses, guide your reader to "bless", "press" or "address" specific questions you have asked. You should post at least one blog response per week and respond to someone else's each week as well. Have fun, explore your voice, and as Austin Powers said (or not), "Oh, B-log!"

 

 

1.  Beginning - What do you expect from a college-level research writing class? What do you expect from its instructor? What are you looking forward to? What are you anxious about? Questions?

How has what you’ve learned today impacted your expectations? Anxiety or excitement level? What additional questions do you have?

 

2.  See Information Revolution

 

3.  So, what else do faculty members do besides teach?

Your task today is to work with a partner to find and choose an article out of Edge Magazine. You can access the most recent issues here: Edge 2005, Edge 2006.

Together, you and your partner will share the tasks of identifying the research question, the researchers, the departments to which they belong, as well as summarizing the article. In addition, you should pick a powerful passage to quote directly as well as paraphrase (restate in your own words.) You may want to break up the tasks, each of you taking two or three, but each partner should read, revise, and approve the other's responses so that the writing is a collaborative effort.

On Friday, each group of partners will share their work with the class so that together we can learn about the diversity of research .

 

4.  Listen carefully to the research reports from Edge magazine and take brief notes. After the presentations, you will reflect on the following questions in your day book.

 

  • What are your impressions of the research?
  • Which report(s) particularly surprised or engaged you?
  • How do you feel about becoming a researcher in this community of researchers

 

5.  Good blog, bad blog, oh b-log!

So you want to be a blogger, eh? Well, maybe not, but since it's a class requirement, you'll give it a try.

Today we'll explore the blog as a genre, discuss the ways that blogs can function inside the classroom, cover some evaluation criteria for successful blog posts, and have you work in groups to evaluate a collection of student blog posts.

 

What is a blog?

Let's hear from ProBlogger, Darren Rowse.

What makes a good blog?

J.A. Conrath poses some answers to that question at A Newbies Guide to Publishing.

While Conrath is speaking more specifically about professional blogs, much of his advice is applicable toblogs in an educational setting, with the exception, however, of giving things away, but if you're so inclined...

What makes a good student blog?

In this next page, educational blogger Will Richardson expands upon David Warlich's questions for assessing a blog post. This page provides some good criteria for evaluating the content of student blog posts.

Now that you have explored the world of we(blogs), you and your group are ready to assess some blogs written by previous students.  As a group, use Richardson's criteria to determine how well the blog post:

 

  • Relates to a course reading, writing, discussion, or experience "texts"
  • Relates to the processes involved in those tasks (metacognition)
  • Has made an important contribution to the course discussion
  • Has critically reflected on that reading, writing, discussion, or experience
  • Made good rhetorical choices about what to write and how to write for the audience, their background knowledge, appropriate language,etc.
  • Anticipating readers' questions, responses, and reactions
  • Evidence of synthesizing other course "texts" and creating context
  • Has a specific purpose for what the reader should know, do, believe, learn, or question
  • Addresses the question of where should I go from here? What have I learned and how will I find out more?

Post your evaluations for your blog.

 

6.  When assessing any writing situation, smart writers think about and try to answer these questions.

  • What is the purpose? Why am I writing this? What do I want my readers to know, believe, learn, do, think, etc.? (logos)
  • To whom am I writing? What are the values, beliefs, interests, background knowledge of my audience? (pathos)
  • What genre am I writing in? What are the conventions of that genre?
  • How can I establish credibility with my audience? (ethos)

Today you are writing an email to your community partner representative to introduce yourself, inquire about service-learning opportunities, and set up a meeting with your group. Use the questions above as a prewriting activity to assess this writing situation (context) and prepare to make strong rhetorical choices as you compose.

 

7.

Every Day Poems
homage to my hips
 these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
Lucille Clifton


 Bathroom Visitor
 A horsefly
travels the world
of my bathroom.
Stops at the kitty litter box
on occasion for refueling.
One thousand round trips
including the bathtub area,
and buzzes past the toilet bowl.
Steady pilot, good mileage.
Frequent flier miles.
I swat his journey to an
abrupt end.
Michael Lee Johnson
 Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes





The Plum Apology Poem
This is just to say
I have eaten the plums
that were
in the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams

These poems are examples of everyday poetry, poems that make the mundane extraordinary. They are accessible yet substantive, leaving the reader ripe to contemplate simplicity.

(15 Minutes)

Get together in your s-l/writing groups. As a group, choose one of these poems that resonates with the group and discuss the following questions. What is it about the poem that speaks to you? Does it challenge your notion of poetry? If so, why? What images and phrases stand out to you? What makes the poem powerful and meaningful?

(30 minutes)

If you brought field notes from your service-learning site, use those. If not, use the field notes from Friday's "Observation on the Mall" assignment. Trade field notes with a group member. Use highlighters or markers to highlight or underline powerful words and in your partner's field notes. Choose language that "pops", citing interesting, fresh phrases.

Take your field notes back, and write the chosen words or phrases on small slips of construction paper. Play with them, arranging and re-arranging to your liking. Add/ subtract or invent words if necessary to create your own Every Day Poem grounded in the experience of a moment.Once you have it set, glue the words to a larger piece of construction paper. In class or afterwards, type and post your poems to your blog space and keep your physical copy in your day book.

 

8. Why do you think the authors of Field working included this fictional essay in their reading? How does it speak to us as ethnographers? What issues/concerns/complexities does it raise about field research?

 

9.  10 minutes

In your blog, reflect on this weekend's library experience. What went well for you? What was difficult? Which keyword search terms were the most successful? Did you accomplish your goal of finding two print sources and logging the citation and annotation? If not, what can your instructor or your classmates do to help?

 

10. 12 minutes

In your blog, reflect on the following questions. What does it mean to read with attitude? What strategies can readers with attitudes use? What should savvy readers pay attention to? How many times should you read a source?

12 minutes

Sharing blog responses.

25 minutes

Using web portals, communities, blogs, electronic mailing lists, newsgroups, and web discussion forums as sources. Search, find, annotate.

 

11.  Use an artifact.

1) Describe the artifact in detail.

2) Analysis Questions:

  • What is the artifact’s purpose? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion? How does it function at the site?
  • What does the artifact say about the people who use it? About the person who made it? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion?
  • What does the artifact say about the relationships among those who use it? Between the person who made it and those who use it? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion?
  • How do the artifact’s users respond to it?
  • What does the artifact reveal about the time it was produced? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion?
  • What does the artifact teach you about the site/activity and its values, procedures, goals, etc?
  • How does the artifact relate to your purpose for observing the site?
  • What metaphor might you use to describe the artifact and its function?

After answering those questions, write your artifact analysis for an outsider. Don't forget to include the name of your organization, its mission, the values you are representing, and the function/purpose of the artifact in the culture.

 

Inspiration for revising your artifact analysis using an NPR This I Believe mini-essay. Seven minute free write: How can you revise your artifact analysis? What would make it as tangible as Barbecue?

Documenting Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the most common form on academic dishonesty. ECU defines academic integrity violations here in the Student Clue Book.

Intentional Plagiarism occurs when the writer is fully aware that he or she is using someone else's words or ideas without giving them credit. Unintentional plagiarism includes the following: using a paper someone else has written that you accessed from the Internet, a Term Paper Service, a roommate, a girl/boyfriend, or someone in your sorority or work study group who took the class three years ago, etc.; turning in a paper that you submitted for credit in a previous class or school; copying, pasting or stealing others words or ideas without documenting your sources. 

 

Unintentional Plagiarism occurs when beginning researchers are not careful documenting their sources. For example, a student writer may leave out a letter in a URL, and the reader may not be able to track down a source. Or, a writer may fail to cite the author, year, and page or paragraph number when including a paraphrase or a direct quotation. These errors, while innocent, are serious, and must be corrected to pass this course.

 

 

12.  Read the blogs of your group members.  Read your partner's responses for the exercise you completed for homework on developing a research question. Then, underneath your partner's work, write a response to the following:

Of the three or four questions your partner has authored, which one would you most like to have answered? Why? What do you already know, need to know, or want to know about this issue? Why is it significant?

 

13.  Analyzing classroom artifacts

Sit together with your writing group members and choose a classroom artifact to analyze. Any material object can work as long as you can draw and/or transcribe it and relate its significance to the culture.

· Example: Studying interaction in the weight area of the rec center: Transcribe a rule sign that is posted somewhere. Consider how the sign influences how people interact. What kind of environment does the sign create for people who work out there?

· Example: Studying customer service at Wright Place: Get a printed

menu or transcribe a menu sign and consider how easy it is to understand, what it suggests about the selection, etc.

You have all observed the culture of your English 1200 class for nearly two months, so choose a material object to analyze that will help your group to tell the story of our classroom culture. Through your analysis, you should reveal your group's reading of our course values, beliefs, goals, language, relationships, stories, etc.

Please elect a secretary to cut and paste the information below into a Word document and type your group resonses. You have thirty minutes to complete the following questions and add a new page to post your responses under this assignment page. You will then have five minutes to orally present your mini-analysis to the class.

Classroom Artifact Analysis

List your group name and its members (only those present and participating).

1) Describe your artifact in detail.

2) List at least 5 possible research questions concerning artifact.

3) List at least 4 ways to start researching this artifact.

4) Analysis Questions:

  • What is the artifact’s purpose? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion? How does it function at the site?
  • What does the artifact say about the people who use it? About the person who made it? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion?
  • What does the artifact say about the relationships among those who use it? Between the person who made it and those who use it? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion?
  • How do the artifact’s users respond to it?
  • What does the artifact reveal about the time it was produced? Which details/features of the artifact lead you to this conclusion?
  • What does the artifact teach you about the site/activity and its values, procedures, goals, etc?
  • How does the artifact relate to your purpose for observing the site?
  • What metaphor might you use to describe the artifact and its function?
  •  

14.  What did you learn from the body biography activity? How does this impact your thoughts about service-learning in non-profit communities? Over the semester could you create a body biography to represent yourself as a service-learner? What might be in your head, your heart, your hands?

 
15. Create a chart.  Take fifteen minutes to complete the chart, describing in as much detail as possible three to five subcultures that you are a part of. Next, sit together with your writing group and discuss the subcultures to which each of you belong.

Once all group members have had a chance to share, return to your day book and choose one subculture to focus on. Write about your experience of encountering that subculture. What was it like to be an outsider? How did you gain entry into the subculture? Was there a "cultural broker" that helped you navigate that subculture and become acclimated? When did you feel like an insider? How can you tell the difference between an in- and an outsider?

 

 
 

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