amy ferdinandt
aferdina@purdue.edu
heav 417
phone: 4-3765
office hours: t/th, 12-1 pm

| home | course policies | course syllabus | conference schedule | view blog| post to blog |
|purdue's writing lab |purdue university libraries|

Your course portfolios should include the following:

FINAL PORTFOLIO

• Final drafts of each project
• Website address and introduction (brief explanation of what the site includes)
• Reflection and evaluation of your work over the course of this semester. Some examples of questions you could address are:
  • How has your writing changed?
  • What have you learned?
  • If you had more time to revise, what would you do?
  • How will what you've learned here help you in future courses where writing is required?
• Extra Credit Paper
  • Cover sheet that explains your purpose in writing; who the audience is and why the subject is appropriate to them; and why you chose the genre you did.

RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

• Any documents related to your writing/revising of your drafts (including extra credit paper). These include:
  • Pre-writing worksheets
  • Notes taken while researching
  • Outlines or any brainstorming you did on your own
  • First drafts with peer review/instructor comments
  • Revisions
• Pre-conference planning forms for each conference you attended
• Post-conference evaluation forms for each conference you attended

Your final short writing assignment for the semester will be a peer review of another student's web project, based on the criteria for success for the project. You will be assigned a web site to review, and your review must be sent, via e-mail, to the web site's designer and copied to me no later than Friday, December 5th at noon.

The web design peer review assignment will be worth 30 points of your total course grade. Get the peer review form here.

Peer Review Pairings
Daria & Kelly
April & Erica
Billy & Carmela
Jennifer & Brittany
Jenny & Brandon
Abby & MY
Matt & Dorian
Steve & Aisha

I've set up the details of the web design assignment. Check it out and bring questions to class tomorrow.

I've also updated the course syllabus for the rest of the semester. Go there to see the plan...

As you know, first drafts of Project 2 are due Friday in class. Bring two copies to class...one for me, one for your peer review.

Starting next week, we'll be in Format 3 for conferences again so that I can talk with you one-on-one about your work for Project 2.

Stay tuned this weekend for more information about the web design project.

We're starting our unit on visual design and writing on the web, and on Tuesday, we'll start playing around wit web design. I've attached some links of resources that you can take advantage of to help you go through the process step by step. We'll work on these in class too.

Dreamweaver Basics: Professional Writing Resources

Web Publishing Frequently Asked Questions: Purdue ICS

Web Design Strategies: Jessie Moore Kapper and Michael Carlson Kapper

I've just updated the syllabus to reflect this week's changes, as well as our plan for Weeks 10 and 11.

FYI: The first draft of Project 2 will be due on Tuesday, November 4 at the beginning of class. This will also be your last chance to turn in a draft of Project 1 for me to review before you turn in your final portfolio at the end of the semester.

We'll continue discussing research strategies this week, and you will show your skills in the Electronic Research Assignment that will be due on Wednesday, October 15. We'll talk about that in detail in class on Tuesday.

Also, start thinking about some issues about the 1960s that of interest to you. Your next paper will require research on any element of the 1960s (or the aftermath of the decade) that you are interested in.

I've also updated the course syllabus for the month of October. Check it out so you can start planning (and working ) ahead.

Our conference schedule will change as of next week, as well. Find your name and conference date under Format 3.

Here's the long-awaited (since 4:30 today, at least) assignment we discussed in class today:

Library Investigation Assignment

Libraries are far more than collections of books; this short report asks you to look for such things as technology available, special collections, study areas, special services, and other unique and important services specific libraries offer. The only way you can do this is to both examine the library’s Website (available through the Purdue Library main site), and by physically exploring each library top to bottom, end to end.

INSTRUCTIONS: You and your group are to explore the library you chose in class on Tuesday. Please fill out, in detail, responses to the Library Investigation Questionnaire.

1.) Prepare the document in PDF (minus the instruction page, which you can delete from the RTF here) to be posted at our Website for other members of our class to consult. Send the completed PDF to Amy by 3:30 p.m. on Friday.

2.) Be ready to give a maximum five-minute presentation about your library in class on Friday, October 3.

TEN BONUS POINTS: If the librarian you talk to (if you talk to one) has some time, you can get ten bonus points by completing the short interview at the end of the Library Investigation Questionnaire.

assignment developed by Karl Stolley

Based on our discussion in class today, here are the criteria by which we will evaluate each others' papers:

How well do you organize your project?
use transitions between ideas
place similar topics related to each other near each other in the paper

How well do you answer your question?
evidence to critical thinking
elaborating your ideas and thoughts
(you may know what your opinions are evident to... but you must make the reader
understand your
thoughts also)
well supported opinions with examples

How well do you connect subject, audience, and genre?
effectiveness of the genre
relating subject to audience

How well do you explain the significance of your issue?
why is your paper so significant to you
conflicting  ideas and values
(comes from how this issue is significant, what is ure position? why is there
disonance in your ideas?

How well do you pay attention to details?
grammar
punctuation
spelling
typed

Thanks to Jenny for taking great notes in class today!

When you come to class on Wednesday, bring THREE copies of your paper to be shared during peer review.

So what do we do about audience?

In class today, we'll workshop on audience...in an untraditional workshop forum. To begin, open a word document and answer the following questions:

1. What is your guiding question?
2. Who is your audience? Why did you choose this audience? Why is this the best audience to receive your message?
3. What do you foresee as possible difficulties in relating to your audience?

Respond to each others' texts following these guided responses:

1. How well do you think the writer's subject fits his/her intended audience? Explain your answer.
2. What strategies could you suggest to the writer to help him/her reach the intended audience most effectively?

More work on Project One this week. I'll be collecting the worksheets you've completed this far on Tuesday (up to and including the readers/writers and focusing worksheets). We'll also be talking more about what it means to be a student in a university, and the responsibilities students/faculty/administrators have to each other and their shared community.

If you look at the syllabus for the next couple of weeks, you'll notice that a first draft of Project One will be due 9/24/03. You've still got plenty of time, but I wanted to let you know the deadline we'll be shooting for.

Keep up your reading, writing, and blogging, and let me know if you have any questions.

We're starting today with a writing activity to get you thinking about technology and how it influences the way we write. This writing sample may be used as part of a graduate student's study, and you are welcome to not participate if you choose not to.

We'll then talk about determining contexts, audiences, and methods in relation to the writing projects that you're working on.

Copy and paste this prompt into a Word document to be turned in:

A student decides to drop a class he is enrolled in because he feels uncomfortable with certain requirements for the class. More specifically, the teacher requires students to put their papers on the web for the entire class or anyone else to read. Has anything like this ever happened to you? How did it make you feel? If a situation such as this hasn’t happened to you, has it ever happened to a friend or acquaintance of yours? Or, if this has not happened to you, imagine what your reaction might be. How do you think you would feel in this situation? What is your opinion about requiring students to put their papers on the web? Why? More specifically, what do you think are the pros and cons of publishing student papers or materials on the web? Do you think a student would be justified in this decision to drop the class? Please explain the reasons for your views.

Conferences
I've finalized the conference schedule for the time being. This schedule will stand for the next few weeks, at least, and if it changes, I'll let you know way ahead of time. When you come to your conference, bring the worksheets that you've been working on.

You'll also be responsible for completing a pre- and post-conference worksheet for each conference session you attend. I'll explain more about that during our conferences this week, but you can check out the worksheets here.

Assignments
Keep reading the Three Perspectives Guide in the course eBook, and answer the Three Perspectives Guide worksheet for the subject, question, or conflict you are pursuing. Be certain you have your worksheet for class on Tuesday, September 9.

If you're having trouble finishing the invention strategy worksheets, remember to read the eBook text closely, for it provides many good guiding questions to help you complete the assignments.

WEEK TWO

Wednesday: This week's syllabus is up and functional on the web site. Check it out.

We're diving in with the questioning strategies this week. Tuesday, we'll spend working on identifying ourselves in context and exploring questions about those rhetorical situations.

For Wednesday, complete the Questioning Strategy handout and be ready to discuss in class.

WEEK ONE

For Friday: Read Starting Strategies, the first section in the Rhetoric chapter of the eBook.

Thursday: Conference day for Group B (those who meet on Thursday)
Rather than conferencing today, we'll use our time to tour Purdue's Writing Lab, which is in HEAV 226. Group B will get the Writing Lab Tour next Thursday, September 4.

For Wednesday: Read Donald McAndrew's acticle called "This Isn't What We Did in High School" found in the course eBook. Come to class ready to talk about your past experiences in English and what you're hoping to get out of English 106.

And the semester begins...
This week we'll be doing a lot of getting started type things. On Tuesday, we'll get set up with technology; specifically, we'll play around with the class blog and our eBook for the class. And you know the best thing? No textbook for the class. All the texts will be using are in electronic formats on the course eBook. No need to thank me. :)

On Wednesday and Friday, we'll go over the course policy and start some writing.

Conference time, for those in the Thursday group, will be spent doing a tour of the Writing Lab. Meet in HEAV 226 at 4:30. But more on that later.

last updated: 12/09/2003