Welcome! (Blog Entry #1)

Now that you’re set up as an author on our class site, it’s time to get to know everyone a little and start using this space for our primary purpose: as a public discussion forum where you can experiment with your informal writing style, draw on outside elements from the internet to enhance your writing, and engage with topics that scaffold into our course content and get you thinking rhetorically and musically.

In case you’re rusty on the concept of rhetoric, take a few minutes to refresh your memory on rhetoric, and the classic concepts of ethos, pathos and logos. We’ll be drawing on these ideas throughout the course as you make deliberate choices regarding the kairos, or appropriate context, of your work so that it’s most effective and engaging for your given audience.

Also take some time to read the short article “Swing in the Classroom” by Alton O’Steen, which is available in our course content in D2L under Unit 1.

Then write a 2-part blog entry (300-500+ words) in which you:

1. Introduce yourself to your classmates. Who are you, why are you taking this class, and what would you like us to know about you as a writer? As a listener of music?

2. Respond to O’Steen’s article. What surprised you in this piece? What did you find interesting? Why do you think I asked you to read this at the beginning of our course?

Be sure to click “save draft” frequently as you write! On the lefthand side of the page as you write your blog entry, give your work some appropriate tags, and write Blog Entry 1 as your category.

Then, be prepared to write three different comments (100-300+ words each) on three different posts by your peers.

Also, just so you know, I will pop in and write my own shorter comments occasionally as I see fit, but I think of the blog as primarily a student-centered space rather than a teacher-centered one, which means I’m mostly your reader. This is a place for you to talk to each other and explore your own voices! So be sure to adhere to the prompt at hand, but have fun, too.