For our first assignment, we were instructed to create our own writing technology, or method of writing. There were two parts. The first part was the project. The challenge was to look into our own environment, our apartment or house and the surrounding areas, and use only natural items to create tools to write with. The second part was to write a 3-5 page essay describing what we chose to use as our "natural" writing tool, why we made that choice, and what we ultimately learned about the technology of writing.
"Creating" a Writing Technology :-)
Our second assignment focused on the idea of the difference between traditional style and electronic style. We read E-Writing, by Dianna Booher, and The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White. While both of these books are writing manuals and make many similar points regarding proper grammar and sentence structure, they are also very different in ideas regarding proper writing style. E-Writing is a book written to aid one dealing with electronic communication and The Elements of Style is a writing aid for the scholarly writer. The idea was to take one specific topic from each book and compare the authors opinions on that topic.
Editing for Style: Strunk and White versus Booher
Our third assignment dealt with on-line newsgroups. We were required to choose an on-line newsgroup through Google and follow that group. We had to read both archived and current conversations between members of the group. From those conversations, we were to pay attention to the specific dynamics of the group, such as formalness of language, word choices particular to the group, slang or jargon, subjects discussed, perceived need to stay on task, as well as any other information that we considered relevant. The object of the assignment was to experience communication that happened solely on-line. We were to focus on the idea of on-line communication versus face-to-face communication and determine how the absence of in-person communication through something such as the newsgroup utlimatley effects the way people communicate with one another. IT SHOULD BE NOTED BY PROFESSOR KRAUSE that I made changes to my Works Cited page in this paper in order to correctly cite postings from an Online Newsgroup in MLA format :-o .
This final writing assignment describes the steps I took in creating and revising my website based on style guides which we were assigned to review and in-class discussion on those guides. This essay describes the three style guides that I used most when creating and revising my site and links to those guides. IT SHOULD BE NOTED BY PROFESSOR KRAUSE that this entire essay has been revised :-D.
This website is a collaborative project. We were grouped with other members of our class and required to create a website evaluating a topic having to do with English or writing in some way. My group chose to evaluate websites that deal with classroom management for English teachers. We mainly focused on Secondary grades. As someone interested in teaching English or writing, I found this project quite interesting because it allowed me to discover resources on the internet that I did not know existed to aid a teacher in making his or her classroom an interesting place. I came across many modern based ideas for the classroom and I am sure that one day, when I am creating my own lesson plan, I will look to the internet for creative ideas. The sites we evaluated are all quite interesting and useful.
Evaluating Classroom Management Websites (Collaborative Group Project)