Assignments for Week 2: Monday, 14 January-Sunday, 19 January.

Reading:

1) Read Chapter 2, pages 20-66, of _Writing for College, Writing for Life_. This chapter discusses reading actively and how to use reading to better understand what you read. This is important information for many reasons; here are two of the main reasons: 1) in order to understand how your audience reads, you need to start learning how to think consciously about how you read; and, 2) this chapter will help you better understand how to integrate reading and writing tactics to maximize what (and how effectively) you learn. Think of point two in relation to how much reading you have to do to succeed in college, and you'll quickly see the value of reading the assigned chapter.

Writing:

Start your writing inventory.

A major assignment in this class will be keeping a writing inventory. If you go to the class blackboard site, under "Course Documents," you'll find an rtf (rich text file) document, called "writing inventory." Download this file to your computer, and then upload it to the google docs account you set up. [What you haven't set up the google docs service? Right now, log onto your gmail account and look at the top of the page. There you'll find a number of services you can add to your google account. Click on the link named "documents." If you don't see it, then click the "more" link and then on "documents." Once you add the service to your google account, you'll have set up an online word processor, one you can access from anywhere you can get an internet connection.]

You upload a file to google docs by logging onto your google gmail account, using the service line (the one with the "more" link in it in the upper left of your account page), and clicking on the "documents" link. Doing so will take you to the file management page of google docs. Just to the right of the NEW tab, you'll see an "upload" tab. Follow this link to upload the file from your computer which contains the Writing Inventory assignment from the blackboard site.

Once you get the file set up in google docs, use the "share" tab to invite me (prof.brandon@gmail.com) as a collaborator. This will allow me to "visit" your document and leave comments on it.

I've set up the Writing Inventory file (the rtf file mentioned above) as a template for keeping your writing inventory. In this file, I spend a couple of paragraphs explaining why keeping the inventory is so useful to you. One note you'll not find in the file: I'll be posting to this class blog content which goes over many of the learning outcomes you'll see in the inventory, but much of what you'll learn in the course will depend on your ability to read your textbook, summarize the information you find in it, and apply this information to your responses in your inventory, and, yes, we'll talk about how to summarize, that is, if you didn't learn how in your English 111.

As always when taking on a brand new task, expect to do badly, be frustrated, continue to practice, and only then for things to begin to make sense. After you've gone through a week or two of updating your inventory, reading the class text and this blog, doing the homework, summarizing what you are learning, and integrating all this into your inventory responses, the whole process will seem like old hat. Right now, expect to go through some growing pains, and let me help if you find yourself too frustrated. Pay attention to your learning curve, when we talk more about "Process Writing" and Kaizen (more later.), I'll be getting you to reflect on your learning process for these first few weeks of class.

Other tasks:

1) Get in the habit of checking this blog either through this web site or via an RSS feed reader.
2) Set up an individual blog you'll use for the course. You set up the blog--you guessed it--by logging onto your google account and adding the service called blogger. You'll be asked to name your blog. Pick a name with the following structure: "YourLastNameENG111Spring2008." My guess is this blog name will be available when shorter ones wouldn't. Next week, as one of your assignments, I'll set up a google doc through which you can share your gmail and blog address with the class. At the same time, you'll be inviting everyone else in the class to be a collaborator on your writing inventory. Again, more later. The above is enough for one week.