WRD104: Composition & Rhetoric II

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Do we have our details in order?:

• Have we considered our organizing principles?
• Are banners appropriate in terms of presentation and credibility?
• Have we sufficiently reflected on and documented our source remix projects?
• How can we represent our writing processes?
• How can we represent multimodality? [1] [2]
• Formatting issues: indentation and white-space conventions — print vs. digital — and integrating text and images
• How do we link our work — literally and figuratively?



• Wordle
• Reflection [St. Martin’s]

“New learning technologies prompt a rethinking of traditional course structure”

What I found interesting about this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, is the connection we can make to our Week Four discussion: the need to be your own filter for information — online materials, databases, educational videos, and tutorials.

This might make for a compelling entry in your portfolio’s research section: what does it mean to be your own filter?

This week, next week, and final-exam week, we will work on WRD104 Digital Portfolios.

Background, Context, and Support:

• First Year Writing Digication site
• Student resources
• Writing Center

You will have three different organizing principles to choose from — see below — but in each case, the very best and most compelling portfolios engage in meaningful reflection:

•    What did I do?
•    What was important about what I did? Did I meet my goals?
•    When have I done this kind of work before? Where could I use this again?
•    Do I see any patterns or relationships in what I did?
•    How well did I do? What worked? What do I need to improve?
•    What should I do next? What’s my plan?

Three possible organizing principles:

Option #1: FYW Learning Outcomes-based Digital Portfolio
(Learning outcomes)

Option #2: WRD Curated Digital Portfolio

Option #3: You invent the organizing principle

From the NYT — “Why We Need Women in War Zones” — February 19th.
Illustrator: Shannon Freshwater

From YouTube and the NYT: “Arab World Embraces Israeli’s YouTube Spoof of Qaddafi Rant”

From YouTube and Savanna — thanks, Savanna! — a NYC Comedy Group at 92YTribeca, satirizes the NYT:

“Among Catholics, however, there was one group that did believe in dancers and dancing: the Jesuits.

“Known for their Counter-Reformation zeal and desire to employ the arts to save souls, the Jesuits saw ballets and spectacle as a way to attract and inspire believers, and it is no accident that many of the most impassioned treatises on ballet were written by Jesuit fathers.

Degas / Blue Dancers

“At Jesuit schools, students (many of them future courtiers) were taught oration and the ‘mute rhetoric’ of dance, gesture, and declamation. They learned to carry themselves with a firm, upright posture with the head just so, not thrust back or hanging dog-like to the front, not too high (proud) or too low (disrespectful). The hands were to be help by the side, slightly in front of the body, and the arms poised, never swinging to the gait of a step or lifted above the shoulders. Good orators, they were told, should have well-proportioned bodies (no short necks–too comic) and strive to hone their gestures to match those of kings and princes of the Church, whose numinous bodies shone with divine light. … The ballets were written and designed by professors of rhetoric and were meant to persuade. Working in conjunction with ballet masters, these professors created elaborate and richly decorated productions with up-to-date stage effects.”

From: Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet (p. 32)

Jerika: “Assisting Suicide to Be Focus of Trial in Motivational Speaker’s Death” — in print on Friday February 11th page A20. (Front section.)

Michael V.: “Judge Fogel and the Death Penalty” — in print on Friday February 11th page A26. (Editorial)

Aleksandra (and ?): “In Montana, A Bid to End Medical Use Of Marijuana.” — in print on Friday February 11th page A13. (News)

Grant: Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011): Movie Review. in print on Friday February 11th page C5. (Weekend Arts)

Sarah: “Childhood: Obesity and School Lunches.” in print on February 8, 2011, on page D6.

Ethan: “Crisis in Egypt Tests U.S. Ties With Israel.” in print on February 5, 2011, on page A8.