Your Personal Essay

Make sure that you check the rubric before posting your initial draft.

For this assignment, I want you to think back on one of two things:
1. What was it like when you drove for the first time? Try to remember what you said, thought and felt. Who was with you in the car? Were you going somewhere or just driving around for the practice? What kind of car where you driving? What city were you in? What were the roads like? What was the traffic like?
2. If you have never driven, write what it was like the first time you took public transportation. What were the people like? What was the vehicle like? Did you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Did you talk to anyone? What was the conversation like if you did? Where were you going? Why did you not have a car?

Type one of these up first in a word program and save. Good precaution. Also, make sure that you have one of the people in the writing center look it over before submission to make sure that it is worthy of initial submission.

Your first reflection

In this reflection, restate the title and author. Look at the picture in the shark article and imagine how one single story can emerge from a random, accidental picture being taken while someone is diving. Think about a picture that you have or have seen that might be worthy of writing about. Share with the class whether you think that this article is worth writing about. Why or why not? What would you have written that might have been different?

Remember, when you have written your post, comment on the post of someone else. Be professional.

We will discuss this further in class for this post, but I would like most of the online discussions to be self-contained in the future.

I will also comment on your blogs. Make sure that you go back tomorrow before you write your next post and read what comments there are.

All posts must be published by 8pm, and all responses must be published by midnight tonight.

Welcome

This is where you will display your daily and weekly creative non-fiction pieces for the class, including article responses. These are basic exercises to prepare for the larger pieces you will create. Each day, you will have the opportunity to free-write in a private notebook, but the exercises will be posted here.

All work is expected to be appropriate for this class. If you wonder if you should post something, it is best not to post it at all.

You will create your own account for blogger, which is relatively simple. We will establish the accounts for you during class. They are free.

Once posts have been made, each person must respond to one of his/her classmate's posts. Daily responses will be short and will be a reaction to what the person has written about the daily reading. The weekly comments must consist of at least one thing you liked about the post, questions, and any helpful suggestions you might make to the work. The author will then incorporate those suggestions in final writings if they are submitted. Final submissions will not be posted on the website, but will be submitted to me via email. We will discuss how to submit final drafts in class.

Welcome to English 101!