Assignment #4: Effective Composition Blog

Causal Analysis / Literature Analysis
So far, we have explored the keyhole template for essay writing, have worked on sentence and paragraph development, grammar issues (dangling modifiers, parallelism, inference use, etc), have wrote personal expository essays, an informational (teaching) essay, a professional narrative paragraph, weekly blogs and daily journals. Our next project paper is a Literary Analysis Report/Essay.  For this essay, you will use the library book you have been reading every Friday and develop a paper around it.  Using the criteria discussed in class, you will develop an essay which analyzes at least two elements of the story.  While this is not a full blown “persuasive essay,” a literary analysis does use some persuasive techniques to convince the reader about your perspective on the elements you are exploring in your paper.  This is sometimes also referred to as a “causal analysis.”

    ·        Read in your textbook (Writing with a Purpose) pages 459 to 468.

    ·     Pick one of the following questions to answer for this week’s blog:

    1) How do Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee
demonstrate that the "trickle down" is not relevant to parent-child relationships?

    2) How do the authors illustrate some of the effects of divorce on children (e.g., fear, rejection, anger, loneliness, guilt, and grief)?

    3) How do the authors use the metaphor of "tapestry of many threads" to suggests the complex, long-term effects of the postdivorce period on children?

·    Also, for full credit, respond to at least one other student’s blog. 

·    This is due by Wednesday, October 24, 2012.

Assignment #3: Effective Communication Blog

Planning an Essay:

• Read your text (Writing with a Purpose) pp. 26-42.
• It will discuss strategies for writing, how to write journals, free writing, speculating, interviewing, reading, and evaluating each of these types.
• Summarize your reading in one paragraph highlighting the most important parts of the reading.
• After you have submitted your "blog" answer. Write at least a one sentence response to at least one other person's blog answer.
• Your blog response is due by Monday, October 15th at 9AM.

Assignment #2: Effective Communication Blog

Toward Purposeful Writing

• Read the readings in your textbook "Writing with a Purpose" pages 19-23. 
• After reading, CHOOSE JUST ONE of the following to respond to.
• You receive full credit for writing a minimum one paragraph response AND at least a one sentence response to another person's blog paragraph.
• Your second blog is due by next week Monday at 9 AM (10/8)

1) RESPOND: Respond to Wallace Armstrong's "Brandon's Clown" by trying to remember some words of wisdom that your parents or a trusted friend passed on to you as guidelines for giving your life a sense of purpose.  Then describe an incident in which you tried to follow those guidelines.
                                                             OR
2) EVALUATE: Make a list of the explanations Howard Gardner uses to interpret Mozart's claim that he could hear an entire piece of music in his head at one time.  Then evaluate which of Gardner's explanations make the most sense.  Give your reason's why or why not.
                                                             OR
3) ARGUE: Consider what you have learned in this chapter about the ways in which various professional writers work.  Next consider the differences between the writing they do and the writing you have done as schoolwork (this class and others).  Then develop an argument in which you demonstrate in some detail why their advice helps or hinders the "school writer."