How to pass in your papers

Someone had a good question in class yesterday. They asked how students should attach their outlines to their final drafts when handing in papers.

The order I want to see goes like this: Final draft first, outline second, and the draft that was peer edited last. So the clean copy of your final draft goes on top and is the first thing I see. These should all be stapled together and placed on my desk when you enter class on Monday.

Blog Talk

So as I stated in our last class, I'll be visiting your blogs to comment on your entries. And I should warn everyone that I will be arguing with many of you because one of the realities of writing in a public forum is the fact that other people hold different opinions, and they are often more than willing to express those opinions (especially on the net). My responses to your blogs could range from agreement to level disagreement to sarcasm to all out intellectual assault. When we write, we must always consider our readership, and we should be able to predict the way people will respond. If we can predict how people will disagree with us, we can create strategies to diffuse those potential disagreements before they even happen. And some of my disagreements will help you write better research papers. 

Essentially, if you read my comments and see something you don't like, you should not take it personally. I'm responding to your argument and not your personality or character. And you should feel free to fire back because I love to argue. Once we understand that an argument isn't personal, it becomes fun and a great way to learn. I invite you all to out smart me.

Peer Editing

In our class tomorrow, you get to be an editor. You should really make an honest effort to help your partner make improvements to his or her work. Because it is early in the term, you may not be able to articulate exactly what is wrong with a particular sentence or idea, but you should at least try to identify potential problems and attempt to offer possible solutions.

Remember to bring a complete, printed, double-spaced copy of your first draft to class. You will be attaching these first drafts to your final drafts when you hand them in on Monday.

AWOL Bloggers

I have received almost all of your blog addresses, and you can now use the blog list to view your classmates' work. However, a number of you have either not sent your address yet or have sent the wrong information. I totally understand that setting up a blog can be a little confusing, but I need your blogspot address. That address will look like this: http://yourblogname.blogspot.ca

I look forward to reading everyone's writing, and I'll be showing up on your blogs as the week progresses.

Welcome to STATION 1110, my English 1110 blog. I know, I know. That’s so 2008. Anyway, if you want to keep up to speed with the course, follow your syllabus and visit the blog.

You should all have your own blogs created by Wednesday’s class. Send me your blog addresses so I can post a link to everyone’s page on this site.

Make sure you read Chapter 3 in the textbook for tomorrow’s class.

During our first class, we introduced ourselves and talked about music and movies as a way to break the ice. I didn’t really answer the question of my favorite album. My favorite albums released so far this year are Celebration Rock by the Vancouver band Japandroids and Attack on Memory by Cloud Nothings (Notice how I placed album titles in italics. Album names appear in italics; song titles appear in quotation marks). You can check them out below. I hope you like guitars.