Weathering the Storm

Hi Everyone,

I trust you are safe and sound. I hope everyone has viewed the assignment I posted to Moodle prior to the tornado. This is the last assignment I will hold you accountable for, so it's crucial that you are up to date. You should complete up to the Newsweek assignment and make sure that you're following the rubric's standards for substantial posts.

I will update grades in Moodle sometime next week and those final scores will essentially be your grades in this class.

If you were missing paper grades prior to the storm, I cannot accept late work that was not a result of the school closure. If you had arrangements with me prior to the tornado, make sure you email any outstanding work by the end of the week.

I hope you are all doing well, and I'm sorry we don't get to share more time together. Feel free to blog about your experience with the storm for one of the "extra" blog posts. Let me know if you have any questions.

Come by and see me next semester, or sign up for 111 with me!

Take care, and I wish you all the best.

Slam and not so slammin poetry (but still good)

Check out these sites to write the required poetry question.
Academy of American Poets

Be A Voice, Not An Echo: DYN Poetry Slam Promo from Digital Youth Network on Vimeo.

Use the Digital Youth Network as a jumping off point. Your task is to find two poems you identify with--one spoken that you've found on your own through youtube or some other site and one text you've found through the poets.org link I provided. Post both of these poems to your blog and give the artists proper credit by providing an MLA formatted citation at the end of your post, like this:

A Page on a Web Site

For an individual page on a Web site, list the author or alias if known, followed by the information covered above for entire Web sites. Remember to use n.p. if no publisher name is available and n.d. if no publishing date is given.

Clifton, Lucille. "We Real Cool." poets.org. poets.org, n.d. Web. 11 April 2011.

Click this link for directions on citing a video from youtube (or any other video, just insert the right name):

Finally, for the writing part of this assignment, substantially explore how you relate to each poem. Deal with them separately. Quote at least one line from each and apply it to your life. Then Deal with them together. Do they share any ideas or themes, maybe even a certain kind of voice, rebellious or pleading? What attracts you to this commonality?

Newsweek Blog

1. Find an article from Newsweek.com and read it.
2. Introduce the title and author of the article somewhere in the blog post.
3. Write a few paragraphs that take the ideas in this article and connect it with your life.
4. Make sure your voice and your view shine through.
5. Provide at least one quotation from the Newsweek article, put it in quotes, and cite it parenthetically and with ending citation.

In the Newsweek article, “The City: Tokyo,” by Junot Diaz, he talks about his love for Tokyo which is particularly relevant after the tsunami, earthquake, and radiation leaks. Really, he’s talking about how a foreign place can feel like home, how it can even make you fall in love. “It is a strange thing to love a city. In the end because no city is entirely knowable. What you love really are pieces of it” (Diaz).

Blog, Blog, Blog!

Hi Everyone,

I had a great time reading your blogs this week in class, but I don't see everyone showing up in my followers list. Remember to post your blog address to Moodle so we can all follow you, and don't forget to add me to your readers list.

I appreciate you putting so much thought into your object analyses--they are personal, scholarly, and overall awesome. Don't forget to view the blog rubric on Moodle to make sure your posts are substantial enough to receive credit.

See you Thursday!

You can embed videos!

You can post videos!

For your first blog post, I'd like you to post a music video (appropriate content only) and in the post also explain why this song/video is important.  Here's my video: My Sharona