Instructions for Newsletter Draft Workshop #1

Posting Your Newsletter Draft

1. Complete a draft of your newsletter by Thursday, April 7.
2. Save your newsletter as a PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro, which is available on the computers in the Downtown Library, bottom floor.
3. Upload the PDF version of your newsletter draft to your Google Docs site by Thursday, April 7, at 1 p.m. Be sure that you copy the web address for your document before exiting Google Docs.
4. Create a “New Page” on your English 301 blog that links to the Google Docs site where your draft is located.

Responding to Your Partner’s Draft

1. Review your partner’s draft using the peer review questions I post to our course blog (see “Peer Review Questions, Newsletter Draft Workshop #1” under the “Pages” column).
2. By Friday, April 8, at 1 p.m., post your revision suggestions to your partner’s blog. Use the “Comment” function on the Page where your partner posted his or her Newsletter draft.

Group assignments for this draft workshop:

• Team Awesome: Will Foreman, Melissa Rhodes
• Team Brilliance: Andrew Holbrook, Jocelyn Waggoner
• Team Cool: Chris Kees, Rosemarry Curfman
• Team Dynamite: Danny Kelleher, Rachel Mort
• The Force-To-Be-Reckoned-With Team: Jared Lathrop, Francesca Gaglianello
• Team Coming-On-Like Gangbusters: Joe Rinaldi (read Allison’s newsletter); Rachel Tibbs (read Joe’s newsletter); Allison Wright-George (read Rachel’s newsletter)
• The Hypnotize You With Our Brilliance Team: Peter Rondy, Bridget Feeney
• The Imposing Team: Mackenzie Mays, Andrew Strittmater
• Their Writing Brilliance Will Make Your Jaw Drop Team: Erin Fitzwilliams,  Kate Everly

Course Blog Assignment #4

Review three of your classmates’ blogs. What have you learned from your peers’ work about strategies for blogging and/or strategies for writing about a public issue? What strategies do you see yourself trying to incorporate into your own writing about your particular issue? Post your 200-word response using the "Comment" function below.

Discussing Strategies for Your Public Issue Blogs

1.     What’s the aim of a blog post?

•  “For starters, I've learned that every post doesn't need to be earth shattering or contain tons and tons of evidence or research; they can be based on one or two facts and expanded upon with opinion or an analysis of the current state of things.”
•  “It showed that me it is quite possible to open up the eyes of readers about a topic even when it isn’t covered in the media day in and day out.”
•  “I loved how informative the blog is, but yet it doesn’t come across as a Public Service Announcement.”
•  “I think that she makes great use of factual evidence and she also places her opinion in the right areas and she doesn't over do it or go on a tirade and just preach about the issue.”

2.     What’s an appropriate way for thinking about the relationship between posts?

3.     How do you create effective “ethos” in your blog posts?

4.     What’s an appropriate “tone” for blog posts? What characterizes that tone? How do you create that tone?

5.     What’s the role of links, of information, of examples in blog posts?

6.     What’s the difference between simply reviewing a source and analyzing it in a novel way?