The purpose of this post is to reflect on your writing experience this semester and to expand the audience of your blog.
1. Format this blog as a letter to students taking English 110 next semester.
2. Spend time reflecting on your own experience as a writer, and look to your First Day Essay to remember your thoughts about writing and the course theme the beginning of the quarter.
3. As you write the letter, think carefully about the audience of new English 110 students and consider the following questions if you need guidelines
• What do they need to know to be successful in these assignments?
• What did you do that worked well and what would you do differently?
• What specific examples or stories from your experience this quarter might help illuminate your process as a writer?
Recent Recipes
Blog Prompt #4
Comments (0) | Wednesday, May 12, 2010
This week, we are beginning to explore public writing, and to understand how it differs from academic writing. Consequently, it seems like an appropriate time to experiment with a different way of communicating with the public! :)
Blog writers often communicate their readers through more than simple text. They make videos, record audio commentaries, create graphics, draw cartoons, and alter images, amongst other techniques. Blogs are ultimately multimedia artifacts, and, in this prompt, you will be required to explore this aspect of them by creating a blog post that includes more than text.
Create a blog post in which you use a multimedia technique in order to explore your own relationship with or feelings about food. For instance, you can create a collage of pictures; you can alter a photograph with text as on Post Secret; you can draw a masterpiece on paper or stick figures in Paint; you can use a webcam to record a video in which you tell a story! Be as creative and original as you can! If you need any help with the technical side of things, talk to me or to the people in the Digital Media Project.
As always, you'll be expected to comment on three other blogs as well.
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Blog Prompt 3
Comments (0) | Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking about the foodways of different communities. Write a blog post in which you describe an important foodway in your own community. Is there a dish that represents your own region or culture? When and where is it eaten? What meanings or associations does it have?
Due date: Friday, 7 May
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Blog Prompt 2: Possible Primary Sources
Comments (0) | Thursday, April 8, 2010
This blog post is designed to get you thinking about your choice of source for your primary source analysis.
COMPLETING THE ASSIGNMENT
1) Find two possible primary sources for your PSA, and post them to your blog.
Directions for how to embed pictures or videos are included in the blog set-up instructions on Carmen, but, if you have any problems, drop me a line and I will walk you through it.
If you cannot embed your source for whatever reason, simply link to it.
2) Write a short paragraph (5-6 sentences) about each source that describes what you find strange, interesting or revealing about it, and why you are thinking about using it for your PSA. Since you have two sources, you will obviously be writing two paragraphs in total.
DUE DATE: 10 April (so that I will have time to respond to them before you do the Method worksheet)
COMMENTING ON THE ASSIGNMENT
For this prompt, you will be required to comment on specific blogs, so that everyone has the same amount of feedback. If you look at the list of blogs to the right, you are required to comment on the three people below you. If you are at the bottom of the list and do not have three people below you, you will simply wrap around to the top. For example, Young-Hwa will comment on Yuwen, Alexandra and Alyssa's blogs.
In commenting on these blogs, you will evaluate the two primary sources in light of the criteria which we went over in Wednesday's class (i.e. Is each source manageable in scope? Does it have a clear rhetorical agenda? Do you agree that it is strange, interesting, revealing? etc.). If you wish, you may suggest which source you feel will be better, although the person is obviously not obligated to take those suggestions into account.
DUE DATE: 11 April (so that people will have time to use your feedback)
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Blog Prompt 1: Introductory Post
Comments (0) | Tuesday, March 30, 2010
In this post, you will introduce yourself to your readers by thinking about the role which food plays in your own life, and talking about your own food history and foodways. Choose ONE of the following options:
1) Write a profile of yourself based on the contents of your refrigerator or your food shelf. What do the items in it reveal about you? What don't they reveal? Do you think people would get an accurate idea of you based on it?
2) Write about one of your favorite meals. Why do you like that particular food? Where did you first encounter it? What does it reveal about your background, your interests, your personality, your experiences, etc?
3) Write about a food-related memory you have. Why is it significant to you? What does it show about you as a person? What does it reveal about your background, your interests, your personality, your experiences, etc?
In each case, use the prompt as a springboard for a short portrait, a different way of introducing yourself. Be creative in writing your response!
Also, don’t include sensitive information about yourself that you aren’t comfortable sharing with others, as your classmates will be reading and responding to this post.
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Some Food Templates
Comments (0) | Sunday, March 28, 2010
To help you customise your blogs (if you so wish), I went hunting for some food-related themes that I thought were fun and attractive.
This theme is bright, colorful and cheerful. I love the stripy background!
It also has delicious looking food, which will make all the visitors to your blog hungry!
This template has more of an urban edge with the slightly weathered, grunge feel that it has.
It also has cake.The cake may or may not be a lie.
This template certainly lives up to its name. It's very sweet with its cream and pink pastels, and its hand-drawn sketches of cakes and ice-cream.
I suspect you'll either love it or hate it.
I love how bright and colorful this template is. It feels like cocktails on a tropical beach.
For some reason, I find the "Hello!" very amusing too. It's as if the theme is trying to start an inappropriate, drunken conversation with you.
It seemed appropriate for a college course, given that the entire academic project is fueled by tons of caffeine.
It would be even more appropriate if I were teaching at 7.45 again . . .
These are just some options. There are tons of other themes available . . .
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Customising Your Blog
Comments (0) |
In this post, I'm briefly going to describe how you might use a third-party template (in case you grow tired of Blogger's defaults or put more of a personal stamp on your space). Please read through all the way before experimenting!
Blogger allows you to create your own templates, which isn't a good idea, unless you're a super programmer. However, you can import third-party blog templates, many of which are available for free on sites such as BTemplates or Deluxe Templates. In fact, I used a template from there to customise this site.
Take a stroll on the BTemplates site and browse through their free layouts. When you arrive at a layout that you like, click on the bright orange download button. Download the zip file onto your desktop:
Unzip the file. You should now have a folder that (typically) contains two files -- a read-me file and an XML file. The read-me file contains some simple installation instructions. You probably don't need to follow those as they're virtually mimicked here, but it might be helpful.
The only file that matters for installation purposes is the XML file. You don't need to open this at all (unless you're curious... or nerdy). Make sure you're logged into blogger. Once there, click on the Layout tab and choose Edit HTML.
Right here, I'd recommend clicking on the Download Full Template link. In doing so, you'll save all of your hard tweaking work from your previous blog layout, just in case this new blog layout turns out to be fouler than you'd imagined. Save this file (also an XML file) in a safe place on your computer. You might need it someday.
Now onto the new layout! Under Backup/Restore Template, click "Browse" and find the XML file for the new template you downloaded. Then, hit "Upload."
You should now have a new design! "Should" being the keyword.
What the read-me file doesn't tell you is this: there are quirks in the system. When you go to upload your XML file, for instance, you might be prompted with a warning message: sometimes, you have to delete some of your gadgets and then reinstall them for the template to work. This means that you might have to delete a link list and then re-enter the whole thing. And, of course, this can be time-consuming.
Also, sometimes the template just doesn't look like it did on the preview page. These are third-party layouts, so designers might not keep the templates current with the blogger software.
Hopefully, though, this will provide you with some scope for imagination. Have fun experimenting with your blog's look!
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