January 31, 2008: David

Many in the cohort had a difficult time with the simplicity of 6+1 Traits of Writing and we thought David's blog did a good job of summarizing some of the issues. We're hoping to discuss the best uses for this text in more detail during class. David also had some valid thoughts about the Dornan text and zeroed in on some important points.

February 7, 2008: Brianna

Overall, we felt that Bri's blog entry this week succeeded best in its readability, usability, post quality, concise design, and link relevance. She notices Dornan's message of the importance of writing as a process that facilitates learning ("write-to-learn papers"). Also, she refers to an important point in Dornan's model of the conclusion of the classic five paragraph essay (fig. 5.2, p. 131), and offers a personal narrative of a teacher confronting her for not addressing the implications of her argument -- or, how and why these arguments should be important to an audience.

February 14, 2008: Denise "It Ain't Up to Nobody But Me"

Denise's blog post this week is well-written, relevant, and aesthetically pleasing -- plus it contains that gem of insight that every readers yearns for in a good piece of writing. She draws a connection between the subjects in the reading (grammar and the dialect of Standard English) and a reflection on social systems designed for exclusion. Her voice rings loud and clear, and her word choice packs a good punch. Bravo, Denise!

February 21, 2008: Lisa "Squirrels in the Springtime"

Lisa's blog posts are always enjoyable to read as she writes in an interesting, readable, and humorous fashion. This week she discusses the impact of assessment on student writing and how students benefit from free-writing for themselves rather than for a grade, students who write more because it is not assessed.

February 28, 2008: Chris untitled

Not only is Chris's blog entertaining, but it ties together much of what we have been learning about throughout this program: Rodgerson's class, multigenre writing, Jenkins, adolescents' changing identities, etc. Chris does an excellent job of deciphering lofty, academic writing and transforming it into tangible, understandable, applicable language and real-life examples.

March 6, 2008: Top 3 Visual Texts

Denise - Her piece really stood out to me because it had a strong focus, and Denise brought the multiple images together beautifully to tell that story.

Genevieve -

Jean - Jean's was my favorite for this week. You could tell she spent a lot of time on it! It was uniform and had good "flow." Also, I liked the fact that each picture had it's own caption. The theme was obvious and I thought it was a really interesting journey into Jean's past.