The Style Blog Writing Assignment

The Style Blog and Essay Writing Assignment

As we read and discuss "style" in Strunk and White and in Williams, you will keep an ongoing web log or "blog" writing space. I will give you total of five "prompts" you will use as a starting point to make different entries in your blog space. Each of these prompts will need to be posted on time-- see the schedule for details-- and each will be between 250 and 500 words. Then you will write a brief essay that will reflect in more detail about the use of the blog and what you've learned and observed about this notion of "style."

Each prompt will be posted here as they come available:

Prompt One (Assigned February 5, due February 10)

Prompt Two (Assigned February 10, due February 12)

Prompt Three (Assigned February 12, due February 17)

Prompt Four (Assigned February 17, due February 19)

Prompt Five (Assigned February 19, due March 2)

And finally, the Essay Assignment (Draft workshop on March 2; Final Copy Due March 9)

Here are some things to think about:

Keeping up with the deadlines on these posts will be important! I realize that the requirements of this assignment mean you need to do a bit of writing before each class, but that activity of writing a bit every day is designed to help you be successful with this assignment. And actually, writing a bit every day is a good approach to simply be successful as a writer. Late posts will result in a grade penalty for this project, and missing posts will result in a failing grade on this project.
You will need to link from your homepage to your blog-- that's how readers will find it!
Each of your blog entries need to be clearly labeled-- "Prompt Entry One," for example. This is especially important if you are using your blog space to post other things. As we've already discussed, we're using Blogger for this exercise. While easy to use and reasonably reliable, Blogger can sometimes be"buggy" software. I recommend that you write your posts with a word processing software (like MS Word) and then "cut and paste" your text into Blogger. Of course, you should let me know if you experience any problems with your blog space and I will offer you whatever help I can. However, each of you are ultimately responsible for your own Blogger space: if you are having problems, you are going to work to solve them.
As you make your blog entries, you should keep in mind at least three different potential readers. Of course, I will be reading your posts. However, your classmates will be reading your posts too; in fact, some of the prompts will require them to read, quote, and respond to them. And third, as is the case with any document published on the web, other readers who know nothing about our class or this assignment will eventually come across your blog space. What I'm getting at is you should think of your answers to the prompts as "mini-essays" which need to be understandable and clear to a variety of different readers.