The Bigger Classroom

Dear Professor Mendham

2008-06-20T08:33:00.001-07:00

At the end of each College Writing II course I ask the students to write "Dear Professor Mendham" letters, where they imagine they are one of their future instructors writing to me about the students abilities and readiness for future courses. This last group exercise done in class asks the students to reflect on what they've learned over the course of the term, which I think is always an important step in consolidating and preserving the benefits of a learning experience. Additionally, students seem to to deep reserves of comic genius in the last 45 minutes of a course. Here are the two letters my Spring '08 students wrote:

Dear Professor Mendham,
The students in my history class that came from your College Writing II class far exceed the other students in their writing skills. They may not know their history, or what a pioneer is, or that Hitler was not the cause of World War I, however, their reports on the Emancipation Proclamation were better written than the document itself! In the future, could you possibly include a tad of history in your curriculum? Plus, their research skills make me look like a 5th grader.
Sincerely,
Professor Pearl H. Arbor

Dear Professor Mendham,
I have a few of your past College Writing II students enrolled in my Playa 101 course. I am concerned that with their exceptional knowledge of proper grammar they will have problems with hollaring back. When I talk to them about skilz I did not expect them to come back with punctuation. It is apparent that your College Writing II student will fail my class miserably, due to your teaching of proper format.
Regrets,
Professor Ben Dover
PS: Fahizzle my dizzle!

Individual and Community Podcasts

2007-12-19T06:16:00.000-08:00

For today's reading response, I asked students to record a phone message of two or three sentences describing what they thought the individual's responsibility to his or her community is, and what they thought society's responsibility to the community was. The answers have been wonderful, succinct, nuggets about civic and social duty.

Bigger Classroom #37 - Matt's Individual and Community Podcast

Matt argues for random acts of kindness, and suggests helping people as a first step to community involvement.

Bigger Classroom #38 - Jeff's Individual and Community Podcast

Jeff outlines the responsibilities of the individual to contribute to the well being of the community, and the community's responsibility to provide law enforcement, maintain roads, and provide quality education for everyone.

Bigger Classroom #39 - Patricia's Individual and Community Podcast

Patricia suggests that it's the individual's responsibility to help the community as best he can--for example, paying taxes and volunteering--and the community's responsibility to provide things like food, heat, or a wheelchair ramp if the individual can't provide them for himself.

Bigger Classroom #40 - Dawn's Individual and Community Podcast

Dawn argues that everyone should be a committed member of society, from brain surgeons and nuclear physicists down to the ordinary person, and that society's responsibility is to make sure that every single individual is taken care of.

Bigger Classroom #41 - Hank's Individual and Community Podcast

Hank believes that the individual's responsibility is to be an integral part of the of group and to contribute to the greater good of the community, and so far as they are able, not to be a liability or a burden. The community's responsibility is to protect the individual's Constitutional rights, and contribute to the greater good of the individual.

Bigger Classroom #42 - Linda Moody's Individual and Community Podcasts

Linda believes the individual's responsibility is to be fair to all other individuals and not discriminate, and that society's responsibility is the same--to not look down on people with less money, for example, as so often happens.

Bigger Classroom #43 - Linda May's Individual and Community Podcast

Linda framed her response neatly in a way that focuses on mutual support. The individual's responsibility to his or her community is to encourage and support the community's members, help their neighbors, and to be proactive in the community. The community's responsibility is to encourage members to take responsibility for their actions and to support themselves.

Bigger Classroom #44 - Bonnie's Individual and Community Podcast

Bonnie says the individual's responsibility to community is to be as self-sufficient as possible, and to help others while being honorable and ethical. Society's responsibility is to be trustworthy and dependable in upholding the duties entrusted to them.

Bigger Classroom #45 - Nate's Podcast

Writing to Learn Online Survey (Help my teaching and win a prize)

2007-12-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

I have a short 10-question survey I am asking students to answer. This is optional and does not affect your standing in the course. I'll use the results of the survey in designing future courses and in an article I plan to write about online writing in College Writing I and II at Franklin Pierce.
To recompense you for your time completing the survey (5 to 10 minutes), you can be entered in a drawing for a small Mystery Prize or several consolation prizes if you enter your name in the final question.
If completing the survey online is not convenient for you, you may complete it on paper in class Wednesday. If you plan to complete it online, please do so before 5:30 Wednesday so I can enter you in the drawing and distribute prizes.
Click here to take survey

Gabcast Messages

2007-12-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

I'll post any phone messages that I get far enough in advance of class time here on the blog. If you'd like to listen to them hot off the press, go to our Gabcast channel http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&id=12483

Last Class Project: "Dear Professor Mendham" Letters

2007-12-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hi all: For your last group in-class project you're going to write letter from a fictional future professor to Tracy about the skills and knowledge you've gained from CWII. If you want to see some examples, see this previous blog post: http://biggerclassroom.blogspot.com/2007/10/what-youll-learn-in-college-writing-ii.html.

Review of Spying on the Home Front

2007-12-17T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hi all: I asked Linda to review Spying on the Home Front, and share her thoughts so that other students would know whether it would be useful and interesting to view themselves. Here's her response. (Thanks, Linda!)

Here is what I got out of this. I hope others will watch it.I finally got it to work.

I watched Spying on the Home Front- Frontline

It was very interesting in the fact that no American is safe and secure as far as the fact that they can be spied on from the government and not even know. In December 2003, the Las Vegas New Year's celebration was almost cancelled because there was word that there could be a terrorist attack. Every record for Las Vegas casinos, hotels, airlines and rental car agencies was looked at from the FBI for the 2 weeks prior to New Year's. The celebration went on and a lot of people's privacy was invaded. People don't even realize that they are affected by this.
Choice Point and Lexus Nexus are 2 ways of getting information on anyone and there is nothing anyone can do about it. They are privately owned companies so the Privacy Act does not apply to them. It's a scary thought to think that anyone can get your personal information.
There was a lot of evasion of questions from authorities when asked questions by Frontline right up to Alberto Gonzalez, who at the time was Attorney General. Most questions when asked were answered by the comment, "I'm not a liberty to say" or "That's classified or confidential" or "I don't have permission". I find this very disconcerting because what are they trying to hide from us?
What is going to happen in the future? Are we going to give up our rights so that we can have more security? There should be a happy medium.
I think that everyone should watch this so that they know exactly what is or is not going on with our government. They say they are trying to protect us, but at what expense?

Linda Moody

You and Akakii, Paying for the Snow Day

2007-12-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

In order to provide you with your money's worth of educational experiences in College Writing II, I will be providing you with two options for deeper discussion of Nikolai Gogol's classic story "The Overcoat."

Option A: Answer two discussion questions about "The Overcoat" (which will be posted on the blog) using the Comments link, and then respond to one of the comments that someone else has left to one of the discussion questions.

Option B: Use the write a "Five Minute Paper" and respond to a classmate's 5 Minute Paper.

Whichever option you choose, please complete your initial response by midnight on Saturday, December 15th, and and reply to a classmate's response by noon on Monday, December 17th.

Discussion Question 1 (of 2)

2007-12-07T08:29:00.001-08:00

Do you believe that Akakii Akakievich is made a better man by the experience of saving for and finally acquiring his new overcoat, or is he made worse by it?

Please respond with a reply of three or four sentences, explaining in what way he is made better or worse, and support your answer with evidence from the book.

Click on the Comments link below (next to "Posted by Tracy Mendham at 8:29 AM") to answer.

Discussion Question 2 (of 2)

2007-12-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

Although "The Overcoat" can be read as a tale of perfect poetic justice, for the moment let's look at the story as a tragedy. Please say which you think is the greater failure in "The Overcoat": Is it the story of an individual's (Akakii's) failure to meet the needs and requirements of his community, or the community's failure to meet the needs of the individual?
Please write a reply of three or four sentences in which you argue for either individual or societal failure, supporting your position with evidence from the text.

5 Minute Paper

2007-12-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Please click on the Comments link below, and spend five minutes writing your response to the following question: What does "The Overcoat show us about the world as it really exists?" Write in roughly the form of an introduction paragraph for an essay you could write about the topic. Write the best answer you can in five minutes, and submit your answer.
Then, read your classmates' responses to the exercise, and complete a three minute peer review of one of their five minute papers, borrowing from any of the styles of peer review we have used in class.
[This was originally going to be a chatroom, but the chat tool seemed to be losing the responses, learned after the tragic loss of a five-minute paper. I'll make another post with the chatroom in case anyone wants to experiment.]

"5 Minute Paper" Chatroom UNDER CONSTRUCTION

2007-12-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

This is the chatroom that doesn't seem to be working correctly, but I'll leave this post up in case it's only my own computer that's hinky and not the Meebo Chatroom service. Use at your own risk!
Please click in the chatroom box below, and spend five minutes writing your response to the following question: What does "The Overcoat show us about the world as it really exists?" Write in roughly the form of an introduction paragraph for an essay you could write about the topic. Write the best answer you can in five minutes, and then hit the Enter key to submit your answer.
Then, read your classmates' responses to the exercise, and complete a three minute peer review of one of their five minute papers, borrowing from any of the styles of peer review we have used in class.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

2007-12-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

If you're hooked on Orwell or just want more context for the reading, the full text of his novel 1984, (of which "The Principles of Newspeak" is an appendix) can be read at http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/.
An excerpt from Chapter One:

It was always at night — the arrests invariably happened at night. The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights glaring in your eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vapourized was the usual word.
For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl:

theyll shoot me i don't care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother —

He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down the pen. The next moment he started violently. There was a knocking at the door.

Already! He sat as still as a mouse, in the futile hope that whoever it was might go away after a single attempt. But no, the knocking was repeated. The worst thing of all would be to delay. His heart was thumping like a drum, but his face, from long habit, was probably expressionless. He got up and moved heavily towards the door.
(http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_p_1)

"Ultimate Discourse" Podcasts

2007-12-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

I reviewed the podcasts from your "Ultimate Discourse" responses again as I evaluated journals, and took the opportunity to add tags and descriptions to them. Here they are again:

Bigger Classroom #35 - Shelby's First Podcast

Shelby chooses the film Ever After for her response to EL Doctorow's "Ultimate Discourse."

Bigger Classroom #34 - Cliff's Podcast

Cliff chooses the novel Lord of the Flies for his response to EL Doctorow's "Ultimate Discourse."

Bigger Classroom #30 - Nate's Podcast

Nate applies Doctorow's claim that fiction tells us "without shame what people do with their bodies and think with their minds" to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code

Bigger Classroom #29 - Linda May's First Podcast

Linda applies Doctorow's statement that readers experience what the character experience ("This is the way it is, it will say, this is what it feels like,") to Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook.

Bigger Classroom #28 - Dawn's Podcast

Dawn applies Doctorow's statement that fiction "will know [characters] nightmares and blinding moments of moral crisis" to Robert Heinlein's book Job.

Bigger Classroom #27 - Hank's Podcast

Hank applies two of Doctorow's statements to Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Doctorow notes that "The fiction writer...understands the homage a modern up-to-date world of nonfiction specialists pays to his craft--even as it isolates him and tells him he is a liar," and that "Weather reports on television are constructed with exact attention to conflict (high-pressure areas clashing with lows)."

Bigger Classroom #33 - Jeff's First Podcast

Jeff chooses All Quiet on the Western Front for his response to EL Doctorow's "Ultimate Discourse"

Bigger Classroom #26 - Patricia's First Podcast

Patricia chooses Stephen King's The Green Mile for her response to EL Doctorow's "Ultimate Discourse."

Bigger Classroom #25 - Linda Moody's Podcast

Linda relates James Patterson's The Honeymoon to EL Doctorow's assertion that fiction "distributes the suffering. It says we must compose ourselves in our stories in order to exist."

Bigger Classroom #24 - Bonnie's First Podcast

Bonnie chooses the movie Heidi for her response to EL Doctorow's "Ultimate Discourse."

"Ultimate Discourse" Podcasts

2007-11-27T20:20:00.000-08:00

For this week's journal assignment, I've asked students to leave voice messages on our Gabcast channel relating the story of their choice to the qualities and powers EL Doctorow attributes to fiction in the essay "Ultimate Discourse." Here are the voice messages so far:

Bonnie: Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #24

Linda: Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #25

Patricia: Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #26

Hank: Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #27

Dawn: Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #28

Linda: Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #29

Nate: Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #30

Listen to the podcasts at they appear at: http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&id=12483

Literary Analysis in 60 Seconds

2007-11-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

You're going to be writing an essay about the novel The Namesake, which means that you'll be writing a literary analysis. Completely unfamiliar with the idea or practice of literary analysis? Check out this PowerPoint from the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University (their site is a great source of information about college writing).
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/pp/litanalysis.ppt

Film Version of the Namesake

2007-11-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, only a week until The Namesake comes out on DVD. I had a chance to preview the movie and it's pretty good. There's a website for the the film at http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thenamesake/. It includes videos of the movie trailers.

The Namesake at Audible

2007-11-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Hi, College Writing II students. I checked to see if the audiobook download service, Audible.com was running a free offer. They're not, but they are running a special where you can subscribe to get one book a month for $7.49 a month for the first 3 months (after which it goes up to $14.95 a month).
They sell both Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat."

Keene Public Library Reality TV Selections

2007-11-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

For those who might still be looking for additional examples of reality TV, I was at the Keene Public Library earlier tonight and noticed that there are several PBS series available: 1900 House, 1940 House, and Manor House are all available on VHS. According to the library catalog Frontier House is also available. I returned Colonial House on DVD to the library, so that also is there for those who need it.
By the way, if you are a full time student in Keene (at Franklin Pierce Keene that means two or more classes) you are entitled to a library card.
If anyone knows of other shows available in your local public library or video rental place, feel free to leave a comment here to let others know.

Welcome to the Bigger Classroom

2007-11-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

I'd like to welcome this term's College Writing II students to the course and to our blog. Remember that you can post messages here too if you sign up on Blogger to be a contributor to this blog.
Also, I've updated my academic web page at http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham/FPC.htm, and if you need a copy of the syllabus, calendar, or instructions for Essay 1, you can get them there.

What You'll Learn in College Writing II

2007-10-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

In recent College Writing II classes, I asked students to reflect on what they learned in the class and to imagine how future instructors would perceive and describe my students' abilities. Here are six imaginative and humorous letters.

Letters to Next Year's Class

2007-10-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

At the end of each College Writing I class at Franklin Pierce, I ask students to write letters to future CWI students, sharing their experience and advice as college writing experts. Here are the two letters that my students wrote tonight.
________________________________________

Dear You Who Should Have Known Better:
Classroom atmosphere and expectations:
Turn up
Speak up-join in
Bring your stuff--try reading it first
Turn off cell phones (no texting)
Apparently no sleeping
Do the assignments (even if it's crap)
Do not turn in crap for instructor draft
Tracy expects you to be 100% here
Balancing act:
DON'T take two classes
Do not expect to have a social life
Expect to put in 12-16 hours on essays
Do NOT Wait until the night before
Don't review Dawn's papers EVER! (pay someone else to do it or give it to
Nate)
Two classes are too hard--brain drain, no sleep, Red Sox in the World
Series.
Do not take class through the Super Bowl
Good luck!!
Cliff L, Hank & Dawn B, Chance

_____________________________

If I Knew Then What I Know Now:
If I knew then what I know now then it would be how much time to plan for, for assignments. I would definitely work ahead and try not to fall behind. I would spend more time on assignments. I would spend more time on final drafts.
How much time outside of class do you think a new student should expect to spend on their assignments?
For homework reading assignments you should expect 45 minutes to an hour for readings and journal entries. I would spend 8 to 16 hours for essays. Definitely do not take two classes unless you don't have a job or family.
Nick, Linda, Nate, Beth

________________________________________________
You can read the letters from the October '05 class on the old IC 105 blog at http://ic105.blogspot.com/2006/10/letter-to-next-years-college-writing-i_25.html. Read additional CWI "Letters to Next Year's Class" letters at my academic website at http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham/FPC.htm.

Poetry Assignment Podcasts

2007-10-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

For the last session of College Writing I, students were asked to read four lines of a poem they liked and to explain why they liked it. Here are the last Fall 2007 College Writing I podcasts. Thanks for a great term, everyone!
Bigger Classroom #18 - Linda's Poem Selection

Linda chose Theodore Roethke's "The Waking" for this assignment

Bigger Classroom #19 - Hank's Poetry Excerpt

Hank chose the poem "A Dream" by Edgar Allen Poe for this assignment. The full text of the poem can be read at the University of Toronto's Representative Poetry Online website: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1622.html

Bigger Classroom #20 - Dawn's Message

Dawn chose the poem "Progressive Health" by Carl Dennis. It's a real "carpe diem" gem, and you can read the work in full at the Poetry Out Loud website of the National Recitation Project: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=30396

Bigger Classroom #21 - Nate's Message

Nate chose a poem excerpt, "Make a memory with your children..." for the assignment. I believe the work is unpublished and by a writer Nate knows personally.

Bigger Classroom #22 - Beth's Message

For the poem excerpt assignment, Beth chose "Letter to the Dead" by Affonso Romano de Sant'Anna. (It can be found in The Conscious Reader 567-568)

Bigger Classroom #23 - Nick's Poem Selection

Nick chose the poem, "The Rose That Grew from Concrete" by Tupac Shakur.

"I'm Like a Bird"

2007-10-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

Some background info for our reading, Nick Hornby's "I'm Like a Bird":

Nelly Furtado's music video for "I'm Like a Bird" can be viewed at YouTube.
I know you're not "afraid of looking like you don't know who Foucault is" (Hornby 338), but that doesn't mean it's not worth finding out. GLBTQ.com, an encyclopedia of gay and lesbian culture, has an entry on Michel Foucault, who is an important philosopher 20th century philosopher. (File this under "small world:" one of the editors of GLBTQ.com is Arnie Kantrowitz.)
Dave Eggers has shown up in two of our readings, Hornby and Rebecca Mead's "You've Got Blog." You can read an excerpt of his autobiographical A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at BookBrowse, and learn more about Eggers at Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia entry on Hornby has lots of information and links as well.

Bring laptops if convenient

2007-10-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

For those of you that have laptops, tonight (Monday 10/22) would be a day to bring to them to class.

Commenting on a Blog to Rebecca Mead's "You've Got Blog"

2007-10-22T06:42:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this online writing exercise is to challenge you to work actively with the reading (Rebecca Mead's "You've Got Blog"), and to give you practice using the technology which is the subject of Mead's article.
1) Please read the question below and formulate a thoughtful answer.
The Conscious Reader directs us to:

Respond to Mead's comment that blogs create "a world in which the personal lives of participants have become part of the public domain." What is the value, if any, of putting personal information online for strangers to read? Would you be comfortable with compromising your own privacy by writing an intimate blog? (Shrodes 317)

2) Click on the Comments link at the bottom of this post and type your answer into the window that appears. You can click the Show Original Post link so that these directions are visible in front of you as you write. Sign it with your initials.
3) When you're done writing, either choose to respond as an anonymous user, or if you have a blogger account you can sign in. Click the Publish Your Comment button.
4) Read your classmates' comments as they appear on the page.

Arnie Kantrowitz

2007-10-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

If you were intrigued by Arnie Kantrowitz' story in our reading for today, "Growing Up Gay" (Shrodes 578-581), you can read a short interview and other excerpts from his autobiography, Under the Rainbow, at http://www.echonyc.com/~stone/Features/RainbowIntro.html.

Podcasts on Significant Experiences

2007-10-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

As an pre-writing exercise for a narrative essay they'll be writing, I asked my College Writing I students to describe a significant experience they'd had in the last year or two, one that they'd learned from or been changed by. Here are their messages. Each could be the foundation of a great narrative essay (in my humble opinion).

Bigger Classroom #13 - Hank's Message
Hank reflects on his daughter's birth

Bigger Classroom #14 - Dawn's Message
Dawn reflects on the big four-oh

Bigger Classroom #15 - Nate's Message
Nate reflects on jury duty and the new perspective it gave him on how we interpret news reports about alleged crime.

Bigger Classroom #16 - Linda's Message
Linda talks about having a loved one serve in Iraq

Bigger Classroom #17 - Cliff's Message
Cliff talks about adapting to a change in corporate culture at C&S

The podcasts can also be downloaded as MP3 files at http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&id=12483 .

Please try the chat room

2007-10-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

This is a place where students can chat with each other. Please try it out by typing a sentence into the Type Here line. This will be available for you to come back to if you want to talk to others online.

Meebo Chat

2007-09-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone: I'm trying out a new instant messaging tool. If you see that I am online you can use the window below to message me.

(Remember that this a public chat and others will be able to see your comments.)
(10/1) PS: Okay, so far it looks like it works to view the chat using the browser Internet Explorer but from Mozilla Firefox messages you type just disappear instead of showing up in the log window. Secondly, I think maybe the chat is private, after all. Let's keep experimenting and find out. If you like, click on the Comments button below to leave me a message about how it is or isn't for you.

Infant Mortality Rate

2007-09-24T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hi all: Here's the info I promised to look up. According to the CIA World Factbook website, here are the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births. The lower the number, the better:

The best countries, statistically speaking, to have a baby are Singapore (2.30), Sweden (2.76), and Japan (2.80).
The United States has 6.37 infant deaths per 1,000, and Cuba is still slightly ahead of us at 6.04. Greece, the European Union, Germany, Portugal, and the Slovenia also still have lower mortality by the estimates in this report.
The most dangerous countries are Angola, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan, at 184.44, 158.27, and 157.43 deaths respectively. (What a huge gap there is!)

Source: Central Intelligence Agency. "Infant Mortality Rate" page on The World Factbook website. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html.

Hola, guapa!

2007-09-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

You could probably guess from the context in Barbara Kingsolver's essay, "Somebody's Baby," what the meaning is of: Hola, guapa! It means, "Hi, beautiful!" When you need to look up a phrase in a foreign language, though, Google Language Tools is a handy tool. Go to Google.com and click the Language Tools link next to the search box. The online tool will translate the text. The renderings are far from perfect, but usually tell you what you need to know.

Anonymous Posts Allowed

2007-09-20T06:22:00.000-07:00

I've changed the blog settings to allow anonymous comments, so you don't need to be signed up as a contributor to the blog to comment on items posted here. Anyone in the class is welcome to click on the Comments button at the bottom of an item on the blog and say what they think about it.

Essay 2, 3, and 4 handouts on Website

2007-09-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

If anyone is curious about upcoming essays, the handouts for Essays 2, 3, and 4 now available on my academic web site at http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham/FPC.htm.
Essay 2 http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham/documents/Essay2RespondingToATextFa07.doc
Essay 3 http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham/documents/Essay3NarrativeWithResearchFa07FPC_Web.doc
Essay 4 http://academics.keene.edu/tmendham/documents/Essay4FormalInformalTourDeForceFa07_web.doc
If anyone is having trouble opening the Word documents, I can also post different versions of the files--just let me know.

Redbook's Photoshopping of Faith Hill

2007-09-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

A blog called Jezebel provides an example of the kind of digital alteration of images that Susan Bordo laments in "The Empire of Images in our World of Bodies." You can find it at http://jezebel.com/gossip/top/heres-our-winner-redbook-shatters-our-faith-in-well-not-publishing-but-maybe-god-278919.php

Handy Overview of the Organization of Academic Essays

2007-09-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

A good quick overview of the structure of academic essays can be found at: http://www.ccis.edu/departments/WritingCenter/documents/basicessay.html

Group Work on Summarizing and Susan Bordo's "The Empire of Images"

2007-09-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

In order to put into practice what we've learned about summarizing effectively from Chapter Two of They Say/I Say (Graff and Berkenstein 28-47), the class will be divided into three small groups.
GROUP ONE: Pretend that you are writing an essay in which you argue that girls are in fact not made up of "sugar and spice and everything nice." Your group's job is to write a summary of Susan Bordo's "The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies" to use in your essay that is accurate, uses some of the verbs from page 37 of Graff, and is tailored toward your argument.
GROUP TWO: Pretend that you are writing an essay in which you argue that girls are in fact not made up of "sugar and spice and everything nice." Your group's job is to write an inaccurate summary of Susan Bordo's "The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies" that is tailored to use in your essay but which uses, alas, at least two "closet cliches."
GROUP THREE: Pretend that you are writing an essay in which you argue that girls are in fact not made up of "sugar and spice and everything nice." Your group's job is to write a summary of Susan Bordo's "The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies" which, although it is accurate takes the unfortunate form of a bland "list summary" and which is not tailored to advance the point of your essay.

Troy Police Station

2007-09-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

Hi, College Writing I class:
Here's a link to the WMUR story, "Bulldozer Barrels into Police Station: Police Say Man Had a Grudge Against Department."
http://www.wmur.com/news/14018582/detail.html

TROY, N.H. -- A man stole a bulldozer from a construction site and slammed
into the Troy police station early Friday morning, police said.
Police said Stanley Burt, 34, stole a bulldozer, drove
it up a road in Troy, maneuvered behind Town Hall and crashed it into the police
department.
"Mr. Burt drove the bulldozer into the police station, backed
up, drove it in again, backed up and hit it a final time," Sgt. David Griffin
said.

Received Ideas Phone Messages

2007-09-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here are the phone messages that students have left for the Received Ideas phone message assignment in College Writing I. The purpose of this assignment is to build community within our group, demonstrate that writing is a social act, and give students practice identifying and articulating received ideas and their own reactions to them.

Bigger Classroom #5 - Curtis' Received Idea
Curtis was the first one to call in his response to the received idea phone message assignment. Thanks, Curtis!

Bigger Classroom #6 - Nick's Received Idea
This is Nick's response to the received idea phone message assignment, in which he discusses steroid use among athletes. Thanks for being one of the first, Nick!

Bigger Classroom #7 - Cliff's Received Idea
Cliff talks about the phrase "Everything happens for a reason."

Bigger Classroom #8 - Nate's Received Idea
Nate's interested in the saying, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."

Bigger Classroom #9 - Linda's Received Idea

Linda identifies the view that "Everyone know that kids today have no work ethic."

Bigger Classroom #10 - Dawn's Received Idea
Dawn has chosen the truism, "Television rots your brain."

Bigger Classroom #11 - Hank's Received Idea
Hank takes on one of the biggest nomenclature about-faces of our time: Pluto is not a planet.

Bigger Classroom #12 - Beth's Received Idea
Beth considers the preconceived idea that boys are easier to raise than girls.

Welcome to the Bigger Classroom

2007-08-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog, The Bigger Classroom, is to create a larger space for our College Writing classroom. This is online space will allow us to:

Stay in touch with each other between classes
Express ourselves so we can be more fully present in the classroom. (When people in a learning community--such as a class--know about each other, they trust each other more. When they trust each other more, they talk more, ask questions more. When all that happens, students usually learn more and feel better about the class.)
Provide doorways to the information resources of the web. The internet can be a like a huge, wonderful library/bookstore/meeting place. The trick is to find your way to the parts that are reliable, interesting, comfortable and relevant to you.

Phoning in your Received Idea Topic

2007-08-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

Here are audio messages on the topic of received ideas:
Bigger Classroom Gabcast #2 - SN's Received Idea

Bigger Classroom Gabcast #3 - Tracy's Received Idea

Bigger Classroom Gabcast #4 - Donna's Received Idea

Intro to Gabcast

2007-08-16T10:15:00.001-07:00

Gabcast! Bigger Classroom #1 - Intro to Gabcast