Blog Assignment - Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

Find a written text about family (online on the internet or in print (newspaper, magazine, etc).  It is up to you to locate and find an essay about families.  You can choose any essay that directly relates to families but a great place to find such an article is the Real Families section of Salon.com.  The web address for this website is:

http://www.salon.com/topic/real_families//

The purpose of this assignment is to broaden the range of possibilities or to help you discover more ways to help you write a narrative or personal essay about a memory or experience.  As you are probably discovering this kind of writing varies widely in organization, voice, and even length. 

Once you have chosen your essay please print it out and read it carefully, making notes, and writing down important passages.  This assignment will ask that you pay close attention to the elements and the strategies the writer has used to write their essay. 

This assignment asks that you write a 250-500 word response to the following questions. Remember, you are asked to respond in essay form so do not simply answer the questions. The goal is to develop an essay that answers the questions in a cohesive and coherent fashion. 

For this essay, analyze the strategies employed by the writer.  The following questions will help you figure out what you are looking for, and how to analyze the text you have chosen.  Please do not feel you have to answer all of the questions.  It is ok to choose one question and focus on writing an essay to answer that specific question.  I am just trying to give you a range of possibilities to write about.

How does the writer's approach differ from the readings in the textbook that we have read so far in class?

How does the writer's connect his or her experience to potential readers?

Who is the audience for this text? (Note: it is not "everyone.")
How does the audience impact the types of things that are written in this text?

This assignment will require that you write 250-500 words and then post your response to this blog.  These posts will be graded so I suggest you write your response using Microsoft word and cut and paste your response into the blog.  Also, feel free to write responses to other comments, as well as the prompt. 

This blog assignment is due by 12 am (midnight) Wednesday, June 20, 2012.  Please include your first and last name in your blog post. 

You will need to sign into your Google account or create a Google Account to post your comment to the blog.  To create a Google account please follow the directions on this link:

https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount

Blog Assignment - Monday, June 18, 2012. 

This assignment will require that you write 250-500 words and then post your response to this blog.  These posts will be graded so I suggest you write your response using Microsoft word and cut and paste your response into the blog.  Also, feel free to write responses to other comments, as well as the prompt.

For this assignment I would like you to write a brief process analysis about your personal essay. 

A process analysis essay explains a series of events. Often process analysis essays are written chronologically so that readers can perform a set of steps. To write a process analysis essay, you need to understand the steps involved in a process, how they relate to one another and how they lead to the end result. The steps below will help you in developing and writing a process analysis essay that effectively and accurately explains your writing process to your reader.

For this assignment, you will need to think about your writing process for the personal essay, and explain the steps you took to write your essay from start to finish.  Since you only have 250-500 words I recommend focusing on the most important steps in your process.  Also, try to explain not only what steps you took, but how they relate to each other, and build upon one another to form your writing process. 

Some tips to writing a good process analysis essay:

• Be sure to include all steps and arrange them in sequence.
• Explain why each step is necessary, and include warnings where appropriate.
• Define any terms that your readers may not be familiar with.
• Offer clear descriptions of any tools or materials needed to carry out the process.
• Provide your readers with a way of determining whether or not the process has been carried out successfully.

This blog assignment is due by 12 am (midnight) Monday, June 18, 2012.  Please include your first and last name in your blog post. 

You will need to sign into your Google account or create a Google Account to post your comment to the blog.  To create a Google account please follow the directions on this link:

https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount