Online Peer Review

Please locate your classmate's essay draft on their blog and evaluate it by following the instructions below. Type your evaluation in a word processor, then cut and paste it into a comment on your classmate's blog post. Your work on today's peer review will be graded equal to an annotated bibliography.

Due: On classmate's blog on Monday, 11/22 by 1pm

Instructions

1. Does the introductory paragraph include a thesis statement? Show the writer which sentence or sentences you think make up the thesis by writing "I think the thesis statement is:" and copying them out. Evaluate the thesis by explaining whether it is simple or complex, according to our previous discussion in ENG101.

2. Choose one body paragraph to focus on. Is the body paragraph structured by a major claim? (Usually the first sentence.) Show the writer which sentence you think is the major claim by writing "I think the major claim of this paragraph is:" and copying it out. Evaluate the organization of the paragraph by explaining whether everything in the paragraph relates to the major claim.

3. Evaluate the organization of the essay by explaining whether the major claims of the essay relate directly to the thesis. Are there any major claims that do not seem to relate to the thesis? List them. Is there anything in the thesis that is not developed in a major claim? Explain.

Online "Silent Discussion" of Schlosser ii.9

Today, we're going to experiment with using our blogs to conduct a silent discussion of the reading -- in other words, a discussion that takes place entirely in writing.

Before you begin:

Before you begin, please move your seat so that there is an empty chair between you and the people next to you. If this is not possible, then change seats with someone in the class so that you are sitting next to people that you don't usually sit with.

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Step One: Work up some ideas before you blog

1. Think of a topic to write about: something you learned or that caught your interest as you read this chapter
   
2. Choose a quotation to represent your topic
   
3. Do a 5-minute free write on the topic using a word processor (or, if it works better for you, pen and paper)
   

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Step Two: Post to your blog

Using your best organizational skills, write a 1-2 paragraph post on the topic for your blog. Briefly revise your post for development and style. Your post should:

1. Define your topic in your own words
   
2. Elaborate on your topic by stating why it interested you and why it should matter to your readers
   
3. Introduce your quotation, give the quotation, and cite the quotation using MLA format
   
4. Discuss the quotation in detail, "unpacking" its nuances -- the language of the quotation, its reasoning or logic -- and explaining what new insights or further ideas it provides regarding your topic
   
5. Further elaborate on the topic as necessary
   

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Step Three: Read and Comment on your classmates' blog posts

Remember, this is a discussion: you need to write substantive comments that bring new ideas and perspective into the mix or encourage your classmates (both the person blogging and other commentors) to elaborate on their ideas.

Your comments should:

1. Respond to your classmates' statements and ideas by treating their post or comment just like any other source and trying to "unpack" it
   
2. Raise questions about your classmates' statements and ideas
   
3. Expand on the topic by introducing personal experience or knowledge from outside this class, explaining in each case what new insight or further ideas it provides
   

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Step Four: Read and respond to the comments left on your blog

(See previous step for guidance on comments)

Jump back and forth between Steps Three and Four, conducting several discussions at once

Response #3: Description of a Blog Project + Your First Post

I love obsessive behavior. There's something about a singular commitment to one object or idea that, at its best, raises human idiosyncrasy to the level of art. Motomachi's vending blog is one example: four years old last month, the blog uses daily photographs and comparisons to track the changes in one beverage vending machine somewhere in Japan. Without offering much in the way of commentary, the project manages to inspire observations about the cyclical nature and the major tropes/themes of beverage advertising, the mysterious systems that function around us and provide the everyday context of our lives (in four years, for example, Motomachi has only once seen the machine being refilled), and the role of vending machines in Japanese culture.

There's a similar kind of obsessiveness at work in Chris Harne's Condiment Packet Gallery, a collection of 724 (and counting) scans of condiment packets. The project began in November of 2003 and has expanded dramatically since that time thanks to reader submissions. Harne's goal is to build an exhaustive collection of the packets that fit his criteria (which mostly amount to excluding sugar and salt packets). In building this collection, Harne has managed to evoke a powerful sense of variety in sameness: all of the packets "look alike," yet together they reflect strong differences in national and period style, brand identity, and the colors, themes, and other design elements associated with different kinds of condiment. Harne's collection also inspires me to reflect on the "single serving" lifestyle that has become characteristic of American culture--the intense focus on the individual as the unit of American life (as opposed to the family and other forms of collective) and our tendency to focus on the present moment in isolation rather than situating the present in terms of the past that led up to it and the future to which it leads. In many ways, the fast food industry is the ultimate expression of these national tendencies and--as the international sections of Harne's collection remind us--their most exportable form.

Assignment: Response #3

At the beginning of the semester, I suggested that you find some kind of independent project that would drive your blog. This could be a weekly writing project or it could be something else that helps draw you into the themes of the course and makes your classmates want to check in with your work. Whatever you choose to do, the project should be something that you work on regularly, and it should involve some writing even if it relies primarily on other media. Motomachi's vending blog and The Condiment Packet Gallery provide good models for such a project--although, again, yours should involve some writing. Without copying Motomachi or Harne exactly, you could learn a lot from the ways they've constructed their projects so that they are (1) creative enough to provoke a reader's interest and (2) easy to maintain.

Both of these projects could easily be incorporated into a staple form of the blogosphere, the "regular feature"--a recurring theme that bloggers revisit each week on a particular day. In fact, although these sites are devoted entirely to the projects I've described above, they could still be considered regular features: Motomachi updates every day, and Chris Harne posts his new-found packets every Monday. Having a regular feature can give your blog a sense of continuity and create a shared sense of event among your readers. It can also help you to keep your blog active because it allows you to build it into your routine.

For ENG101 Response #3 (due on your blog before class T 10/12) I want you to write a 300-word description of a weekly blog project that you will do for the rest of the semester. The response should:

1. Describe your project in detail
   
2. Explain how you came up with the project and how it relates to your everyday life
   
3. Explain the themes of your project, what you hope to learn from it, and what kind of thoughts you hope it will inspire in your readers
   

Be sure to use good organization in your response, dividing it into appropriate paragraphs with strong topic sentences. Please label this post with the following words: response, project. All of your blog project posts should be labeled: project.

If you need more inspiration, you might take a look at these other blogs, all of which are devoted to specific projects:

• Miss Q's Fed Up with Lunch: Miss Q is a teacher who decided to eat lunch at the school cafeteria every day in 2010 and blog about her experiences;
  
• Andrea Joseph's SketchBlog: not related to the course themes, but a good model for how to use art and writing together in a blog; and
  
• Slice: this is now a semi-professional blog, but it started out as a personal project to review all of the major pizza restaurants in New York City.
  

On Thursday 10/14, I will give you 1/2 hour of class time in the computer lab to work on the first post for your blog project. Make sure that you bring whatever you need--images you've made or found, text that you've written--to class that day on a USB drive or as an email attachment. After that, I will give you some time to look at each other's projects and offer comments.

Sample Blogs

Here are links to some blogs that I think are good. They're not related to the cluster topic (which your blog should be) but each of them has a theme and actively engages with that theme through regular posts. Some of them might be run by more than one person, so don't be intimidated if the volume or frequency of the posts seems very high.

Gaping Void
Yellow Menace: Asian Pop Culture Upside Your Head
Strange Maps
Arbogast on Film
I Love Typography
Motomachi's Vending Blog

The last one (a favorite) requires some explanation: this person in Japan photographs a particular vending machine every day, tracking changes in the products sold in the machine and their placement, the advertising campaigns that are featured on the machine, and the price of the goods. It's a great, crazy, obsessive project.

Grading Student Blogs

Note to my Ethics of Food students:

During Monday's ENG103, I talked a little bit about how your overall performance on your blogs will figure in the "low stakes writing" part of the course grade (30%). The grade for "low stakes writing" includes all of the grades for weekly responses and informal presentations, but it also includes an evaluation of the quality and interest of your blogging activity as a whole. Having an active, creative blog will positively impact this portion of your grade; having an inactive blog will negatively impact the grade. One of you has emailed to ask me for some clarifiction on what counts as an active, creative blog, and I thought the answer should be posted here.

What I mean is that you should work to make your blog active by posting informally about topics related to the class on your own, instead of just posting assignments. For example, look at my Ethics of Food blog: I post at least three times per week, and there are posts on a variety of subjects related to what we're talking about in the cluster. Some of my posts (about 40%) are course materials: assignments, feedback, etc. Most of the posts (about 60%) are related to our cluster topic, but are not course materials: links to news items, videos, images, small pieces of informal writing on the fast food industry or industrial agriculture. Some of my blog entries are short and very informal: for example, the posts on "The Invincible Happy Meal" or today's post on George Lopez. Others are longer and more developed, but they're still just me "thinking out loud."

Keeping an active blog should be about the same for you. Post a few times every week. For each formal assignment you write (40%), do a few informal posts (60%). Your blog doesn't have to look like mine or read like mine, but it should demonstrate some engagement with the cluster topics. Use the blog as a tool to bring your course-work into your everyday life.

For example, you might post informally about a food-related experience: a meal you ate, something you noticed on a trip to the grocery store, a job you had, a crazy adventure you had trying to fulfill a food craving late at night, etc. Or you might draw a picture of your lunch once a week for the rest of the semester and post the drawings. Or you might post a Youtube video that you think relates to the class and say a little about it. ("Here's a great George Lopez routine on immigrant labor in the fast food industry...") Or you might investigate the food options you find in your neighborhood or at school.

This should be an easy way to raise your grade, and it should be fun. Note that not everything has to be writing, because I'm not grading these posts individually. If you're an "okay" writer but a good artist, you can use your art to make an exciting blog. The point is, you should try to make your blog more than a place where you deposit homework. Instead, it should be something I and your classmates want to check in with.

I know someone is going to ask exactly how the blogs will be graded. You'll find a description of how the grades will be assigned here.

Assignment: Comments

Due: Tuesday 3/23 by noon

Before class on Tuesday, please read and comment on one of your classmates blog entries for Response #2. Remember our discussion about commenting on blogs today: you should be opening a dialogue with your classmate about what he or she has to say, not responding to the form of the writing alone. Consider the observations made in the post and the conclusions that are drawn from them; consider the ideas, analyses, and responses presented in the post.

Your role as an active reader is to test what the writer has said against your own ideas, observations, analyses, and conclusions. Your role in providing written comments is to respond to the writer using what you've discovered in reading his or her work.

Blog Check + Notes on Titles

I've set up a list of blogs from the "Ethics of Food" cluster to the lower right. The list is sorted so that the most recently updated blogs will always float to the top. Each entry lists the title of the blog, the title of the most recent post, and the time of that post relative to the present (for example, "7 hours ago"). If you don't see your blog in the list, that means I do not have the address of your blog, and no one in the class can read it right now. If you see the title of your blog, but not the title of your most recent post or the time of that post, that means you haven't posted anything yet! In either case, you've missed the due date of your first homework since both of these things were supposed to be done by midnight. Uh oh.

Now let's notice a few things:

1. Some of the blogs have titles that don't tell the reader anything about the theme of the blog. Remember, the title of a piece of writing has two jobs to do: first, to give the reader a sense of what to expect from the work, and second, to attract her attention so that she'll want to read your work. Because you're publishing your writing for this class in the real world, we're playing by real world rules: an ineffective title can mean the difference between someone choosing to click on your blog or going elsewhere. With this in mind, some of you may want to think about changing the title of your blog to something more effective and intriguing. (To change your title, click on "Customize" at the top of the page, then "Settings.") You can use any phrase that fits the theme of the course. Be creative!

2. Similarly, we need to work on giving our posts descriptive titles. Look at the titles of your classmates posts: Which of them sound interesting? Which of them are you likely to read when you give comments on Tuesday morning? By thinking about what makes these titles attractive, you can learn to title your own posts more effectively.

In both cases, we're dealing with titles. It's easy to ignore them or to lose sight of their purpose in a classroom situation, where among other things you learn to take it for granted that the teacher is always going to read your work. But in the real world, the title is one of the most important parts of a piece of writing. It can make or break you. If you think about your own reading habits, both online and in print, you'll probably see that this is true: Who wants to read a magazine article or a web page (or go see a movie or play a video game) with a boring or obscure title?

Let's make that our first big writing lesson: Work on your titles!