Blog Post #2: The American Dream

George Carlin says that to believe in the American Dream, you would have to be asleep. I am interested to know if you agree with what Carlin says. Are corporations using this concept to force us into submission in some way? Or is the American Dream an important concept that binds us all together? Immigrants still come to this country with a dream. Is that still intact? Think about these questions and write a blog post about your thoughts on the American Dream.

Blog Post #1: Class and Education

In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich explains how her PhD level of education is meaninglessness in the jobs she gets as part of her experiment. There is a stigma against her and her fellow workers because they wear uniforms, work hard, and don't need an education to do it. These jobs are seen as "easy" because one does not need an education to perform them. Mike Rowe and Mike Rose also weigh in on this in the readings for this week.

 Mike Rowe's website about this issue:
http://profoundlydisconnected.com/

For your blog post, I want you to think about jobs you have had or your family members have had. How were you treated? Did your education level matter? Do you think that the level of education a worker has should determine the respect and pay that worker receives?

You can refer to the readings to write your blog for this week, but I want you to think mostly about your personal experience (or a family member's experience) as a worker.

Blog Post #1: Interviews

Blog assignment #1:

Interviews

You will be interviewing a classmate for your first blog post. A good interview reveals something about the interviewee that we would not normally know. Make your questions in a way that will get your interviewee talking about something important to her.

The blog post will be well written in paragraph form, so you will be taking your answers and making them into a complete picture with your writing skills.

The blog post will also include photographs that your interviewee provides you. These photos should be a central part of your question and answers.

You will have time during the next week to work on perfecting your blog post before it is officially due. Please use your time wisely and proofread your work. Make it as professional and presentable as possible.

Welcome Fall 2013 Students!

Hello Writing 100 students!
Welcome to our course blog. You will be creating your own blog that I can link to this one.  We will be practicing writing skills along with enhancing your creativity, critical thinking, and technical skills with blogging!

You will be exploring the ideas in this course through your own personal experiences in this blog. Our first unit, for example, is about education. Since you have experienced education for many years in several different settings, your stories will be of interest in conjunction with the essays we will read.

Blogs also have multimedia capabilities, which is not something we can do in your formal papers. I want to see you connecting your ideas with your read through your writing as well as images and links to other places on the web.

Anything below this post is from a previous semester. Your post prompts will be found above.

I look forward to seeing your work over the semester!

Portfolios

Your portfolio will include the following items:
Revised paper 1
Revised paper 2
Blog posts, including reflective post
Research paper (graded and not revised)

I would like to see your revised work posted on your blog as a public piece of writing. Please create a page on your blog for each of your revised papers. A page is different from a post because it does not move. I will show you how to do this.

In order to make sure I get your revised papers, I have created a PORTFOLIO dropbox. Please put the revised essays in this dropbox as well as on the blog.

In a sense, your blog is your portfolio. You can point to it as a complete body of work. Make it pretty and revise anything you want to before the due date. Remember, each blog should have photos or videos!

Reflection: Final post

I want you to reflect on this semester as a whole. Please write a final reflective blog post explaining what you learned about reading, writing, and thinking in this course.

Discuss the writing assignments, including the blog. I found your blog posts to be insightful and beautiful in moments. This is the first time I have used a blog, and maybe this is just a special group of students, but it was successful for me as a first attempt.You developed some complex answers to my questions about the texts and put energy into making them good. I appreciate it, and I want to hear your feedback about the experience. You can also talk about writing papers and getting my feedback on them.

I am interested in hearing about the reading assignments and the films we watched. Should I use them again? Were they worthwhile to read? How did they affect your thinking in some way?

If this is your first semester in college, how did the course meet or defy your expectations?

You can add anything else you think is important.

This is my last teaching experience for a little while, and it has been a great experience for me. Thanks for your hard work and ability to be flexible.

Miss Representation

American media presents us with limited representations of women, according to Miss Representation. After watching the film, think about your role models as a child and today. What women are available for you to use in your own career path? Are they in movies? On TV?

Thinking about your own experience, do you agree with the idea that having no role models in the media leads to a lack of women leaders?