European drinkers and American drivers
You might want to go read Nicole's most recent hebdomadal. She raises several excellent introductory claims in the popular argument about the legal drinking age. Here is an awesome opportunity for you - in two weeks, since this Friday's topic is locked - to get into an in-depth argumentative and analytical discussion.

Nicole's main claim might be a little controversial, depending on the cultural assumptions you bring with you into the debate, but I'd like you to look especially as her subclaims and evidence. How can you build on Nicole's argument? How can you argue against her position?

Try to engage with what she says in depth: surface responses like "Nicole says some interesting things about the legal drinking age; here is what I think..." aren't quite going to cut it. Be specific about whether you are interested in her evidence, in her subclaims, or in the way she logically connects all the pieces of her argument, and we're sure to get into some interesting territory very quickly.

- posted by Mike @ 8:38 PM

 
When you're in grad school, your friends are all insane--
--This is clearly because we're in a transitional state between undergraduate normalcy and absent-minded-professordom.

If you'd like to witness the class blog for a particularly intense section of 100, gaze you upon Los Fabulosos. If you think I'm nuts, you've got to see what Samaa's students have to endure enjoy.

- posted by Mike @ 10:32 PM

 
A Little Honest Example
I asked Nikki to post her first hebdomadal online to give us an example of a deliberately-organized (and extremely funny) argument. When you spend a minute reading it over, look especially at the way she bookends her anecdote about the unfortunate Mason with pointers towards her larger claim:

1. "I like writing for me," she hints at the very beginning, which leads her into a discussion of
2. "little writings... [that] force me to be honest to myself";
   
3. the motivation and consequences of one such "little writing" then forms the meat of the evidence
4. which supports her concluding claim that "my written words are more meaningful than my spoken words," which written words
   
5. become that "little harsh honesty [that] is better than a life of illusions."

- posted by Mike @ 6:40 PM

 
Ask and Google shall answer!

Q. Is there a Bluntman and Chronic comic book connected to Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob movies?

A. In point of fact, yes.



I'll pretend that this interest doesn't make me wonder about you, Adam H.
- posted by Mike @ 8:10 PM

 
Beginnings and Examples

Although I'm still excited about Elyse Sewell (below), I suppose my first entry in the class blog for the semester should more formally welcome you to English 100, Section 034. Hence,

Welcome!

I'm sincerely delighted to have you in class this semester. Whatever my curmudgeonly complaints about plagiarism and students not knowing Latin, teaching First-Year Composition has been a consistently wonderful experience for me both because I love and believe in the subject and especially because I really enjoy meeting and spending the semester with my students. (Yes, you are my students: I explicitly forbid other TAs to own you.)

Since you've stopped by the class blog, why not take a look around? The names to the right link you to student blogs of yesteryear. You'll observe that these earlier student journals were a good bit shorter than your hebdomadals, but they're also a jolly lot more frequent. If you're looking for one exemplary blog to skim over, to see what I expect out of your hebdomadals, you might visit Meggie's parables. She made use of an option I offered last semester for students to write longer, less frequent journals--called Position Papers--that were the forebear of your hebdomadals.

You'll observe in Meggie's position papers that she consistently organizes her writing around a solid, focused theme; yet, her writing is not stultified by this lasered focus. In one of her later pieces we can see her negotiate the boundaries between focus and breadth just beautifully. In the revealingly-titled High School Sports Should Be Enjoyable for the Players, Meggie begins with general observations about the violence sports can elicit (building off of an earlier journal by Eric) and then funnels through a discussion of how her friends responded to athletics in high school into the description of a specific game that illustrates her main claim.

This fluid structure isn't something that came naturally to Meggie (I don't think) and doesn't come naturally to most writers. By paying careful attention to her writing and by revising with the reader's interests in mind, Meggie was able to orchestrate the presentation of an interesting and clear argument intriguingly and persuasively.

Finally, and frivolously, let me point you to one of my favorite student blogs ever: two semesters ago, the inimitable Kaylan amused me a minimum of three times a week with her sometimes wacky, often profound journals. Go and check her out if you want to see what a rich style can give you.

- posted by Mike @ 5:28 PM

 
File under "Shamelessly Pop Culture"

I am told that Elyse Sewell was a popular contestant on the first season of America's Next Top Model. (I am also told that "America's Next Top Model" is a television program, and that a "television" is a contraption which brings moving pictures into one's home. How fabulous is our modern age!) Whoever and whatever she is / was, she keeps a glorious, heavily-illustrated blog. This is not to hold up a model-wannabe-med-student as the ideal blogger whose arguments you should imitate nip by tuck, but her writing is erudite, bitchy and delicious: she conveys boatloads of personality in just a few words, and I invite you to explore similar ways of casting your own voice in hebdomadals and essays alike.

- posted by Mike @ 5:08 PM