Process Portal: Project Work: Invention, Peer Review, Postwrites

Project 1: First Sakai Work Brainstorming Activity


Image Credit: "Working on Easel." maximalideal. CC BY-SA 2.0

As part of a group earlier this week you were asked to accomplish an analysis of one environmentally themed blogs. If you recall we talked about the rhetorical concepts such as exigency, purpose/aim, audience, context, media, multimodality, genre & stance/tone. The purpose of that exercise, from my perspective was threefold: First I wanted each of you to get to develop a real face to face, human connection with two or three others from this class. Second, I wanted you to practice, in a low stakes, supportive environment of your peers the work associated with rhetorical analysis. Third, it allowed each of you (I hope!), to see that these rhetorical elements are variables. In other words, these are dynamic elements that change: because we face different exigencies we develop difference aims. Because we are unique individuals who encounter the need to persuade, communicate, and inform others we have to be equipped to arrange and adapt our messages in terms of content, media, genre, stance/tone because of the situations that arise within specific contexts. If this paragraph seems really confusing or if you just want to review some important concepts, please consider reading the Bullock reading in the Resources folder of the Sakai page. It provides a useful overview of these concepts, and we'll be talking about these core concepts all semester!

Now to the heart of the matter. Earlier you were asked to look at one of these blogs and perform a group analysis of one rhetorical element. For today, I want you to individually explore a different blog (from the list of ten choices) and compose a detailed written analysis of at least one blog. Each analysis should attempt to describe and respond to each of the following four categories. If you are asked to compare/contrast, please compare the blog you analyzed more recently to the blog you analyzed in class earlier this week!

Genre Elements: Look at the blogs. Read the blogs. Click the blogs. What makes a blog different from another genre such as a Facebook note, an email, or a homepage? What are the key features that define this genre? In other words, are there consistent or repetitive features you found across the blogs that you looked at?

Multimodal Elements: Look at the blogs. Read the blogs. Click the blogs. What components or modalities does the author use to create a freestanding blog? For example, does s/he mostly employ text? Has s/he included pictures and movies? Hyperlinks? Are there comments? Does the blog have followers? Is this a blog that allows a RSS feed? Is there an example in the blog where the arrangement or inclusion of these elements (pictures, text, video) distracted you from the overall feeling of the blog?

Visual Design: Can you describe specific aspects of the blogs that are visually compelling? Why do you think that is compelling? What about the design makes the blog look nice? Can you describe choices the author(s) made about about text, color, alignment, proximity, representative themes or textures, etc. Are there aspects of the blog that don't look good or that seem to be distracting?

Textual Content: Specifically consider the textual 'writing' that contributes to the meaning fostered within these blogs. Which blog has the 'best' or most 'successful' 'writing': What makes the writing successful? Can you speculate about techniques/strategies the writer might have engaged in to compose such successful blog posts? Is there a clean theme? Is the scope narrow? Are the posts creative? Has the author created a tone that is warm, humorous, serious, somber, well-reasoned, etc.,?

Compose at least one developed paragraph for each of the four elements outlined above.
Then, compose a brief paragraph that describes a blog project that meets the assignment objectives for Project 1. Be sure to identify the topic, your purpose, the exigency, your potential audiences, as well as potential subtopics that might be developed as ways of organizing a focused piece of writing around a sustained topic for at least 13 weeks.
Describe three examples of how authors from the environmental blogs you examined created authority or expertise on the topic they are writing about. Provide a description of the audience. Provide a description of the context. Provide a description of the types of media which have been selected.
Last, reflect on ways that you might use this new information to structure, organize, and adapt your blog project!

Project 1: Brainstorming Activity 2

Image Credit: "HA0510-079."

Highways Agency CC BY 2.0

You should be thinking a great deal about what you want to write about for your activist blog. Reread your writing from Thursday's in class activity. Think about the rhetorical situation again, and reflect about the following rhetorical situation for this project: In a post to your process blog answer the following questions:

What is your exigency? In other words, what does the assignment ask you to do? How does what the assignment asks you to accomplish this connect to a larger social, political, or economic issue you interested in. In many ways, the exigency is the 'topic' for this blog. Your blog should be directly responding to the exigency you define.

What is your goal? What aims do you have for your activist blog? What do you hope to achieve?

Who is your primary audience? Who do you envision as readers? Who do you hope will read your blog? Who do you want to target?

What will your stance be?

Project 1: Peer Support Exercise


Image Credit: "Mfenner" "barr" CC BY 2.0

Begin by identifying one member of the class who you would like to partner with for this exercise.

Exchange P1 Activist Blog URLs.

Read the blog as a whole. Write one paragraph that provides a general reader-response to the blog. Especially, be certain to point to the most notable feature of the blog. What stands out most? What is the greatest asset of the blog currently? What is the area that you believe the author will need to work on most?

Read the about me statement. Identify two claims the author makes in order to create his or her ethos. Identity why or how the author is using these claims in order to may persuade his/her audience. Use evidence to support your findings--use "quotes" to attribute the evidence. Provide one suggestion or ask one question that deals with information you would want to see in this genre element. Is something missing? Do you think a choice they made about how they framed their about me is interesting? Is something confusing? Support your peer!

Read the blog description. Answer the following questions: 1) Does the author identify what the exigency he or she is responding to is? Does s/he do this directly or is implied? 2) Does the author share his/her stance? 3)Does the author describe the audience? Who is the intended audience? Can you think of any audiences that the author might not have thought of? List all the examples of people who might be interested in this topic and why. 4) What is the overall goal of the blog? Is it stated? Should it be? Weigh in.

Last, read one of the posts. In a paragraph meaningfully respond to what the author has written. Pretend you are a member of the intended audience you described above. How do you feel about what you've read? What does it make you think about? Are there things the author might have included or choices the author made about the post that seem more or less useful.

Project 1: Reflective Post Write

In a 4 paragraphs in total, using one paragraph to each of the four bullet items, please respond to the list found below:

Provide a reflection on blogging: What is one specific challenge you've encountered about the activity of blogging? How have you been working to overcome this challenge?
Provide a reflection about your project's greatest strength (two parts): (1) What is the greatest strength associated with your blog. (2) Why do you feel is the greatest strength or what are you most proud of about this blog so far?
Provide a reflection about your project's greatest limitation (two parts): (1) What is the greatest limitation associated with your blog. (2) Why do you feel that this is the greatest limitation associated with your blog at this time?
Last compose one paragraph that provides three-specific ideas or strategies you have for improving and developing your blog as your move forward. (3) Why do you believe that these three strategies will help your blog improve as you continue to write it over the course of the semester?

Project 2: Brainstorming Activity-Understanding Social Networking Presence

This is a mandatory Sakai-work exercise.

You will identify three organizations and/or individuals who are known for doing activist or advocacy work that is similar in some way to topic/issue you/your client is writing about for Project 1. Pick one organization that matches the following criteria. (I provide examples based on a client/blog that is about recycling in Rhode Island for a primary/target audience of URI students, faculty, and staff):

Identify one global/national organization: Using the example topic outlined above, GEF, UNEP, AMC, Sierra Club, and/or NRDC might be good choices.
Identify one regional or statewide organization: Using the example, New England Grassroots Environment fund, Audubon Society of RI, Save the Bay, and Environment Council of RI might be good examples.
Identify one local, audience specific organization: Student Action for Sustainability, the Coast Institute, and URI Sustainable Seafood Initiative might be good examples.

For each choice, briefly describe the group: What is the name of the group? Where is it located? Who are its members? What is it's aims/goals? What or who are they most specifically dedicated to changing or helping?

Then, perform an analysis of the ways that the organization/individual uses social networking or media to build publicity and an online presence. For each one of the three choices you made, describe or respond to the following. Organize the content however you see fit, lists may be appropriate.

What social networks do the organizations use?
Do they prefer one social network to another? What makes you think that? Explain. Use evidence.
If two or more of the organizations/individuals both use Facebook or Twitter, compare how the way they use the tools in similar or unique ways. For instance, how consistently do they most status updates, what types of images do they use for profile pictures, what types of writing is found on the different social media platforms, how robust or developed is their presence. Describe how you see these folk using these tools, in other words.
What is the aims/purposes that the organizations are using specific posts for. Try to account for the different ways that aims fit into larger scale goals and desires. For instance, if I'm an environmental group at URI I might hope to end global warming at a large scope. At a more mid-level scope, my goal might be to to increase awareness about the importance of members of the URI community recycling responsibly. But I might retweet a post about an event the SEC is holding where they will show a documentary. My aim, in this case, is most simply to get members of the URI community to attend the showing of this documentary, or to make community members aware that such an event exists.
Who are the audiences the groups/individuals target? Think about this the same way you thought about aims. Thing about audiences generally, and try to move to a more specific and narrow description of the people who might care. If I am analyzing the URI Sustainable Seafood Initiative, for instance, I might think that citizens from Narragansett, Galilee, and Pt. Judith might have a stake in this program, professors from URI, RI DEM, captains and crews of fishing vessels , restaurant owners, market owners, and seafood lovers. But, secondary audiences might include professors at UConn who are interested in developing a program that is modeled after this initiative.