This is the post for the October 20, 2014 class meeting.

Today, Dan will give his presentation, and then we’ll spend the rest of our time on the reflection memo for Project 2.

Presentations for Today

Dan N will present on Storify today, since we ran out of time on Friday.

Write Your Reflection Memo and Submit Your Web Essay

Whether you turn in your project today or after the grace period, you still need to write this reflection memo to tell me about your project.

1. Go to the Assignments tab on the left menu in Scholar.
2. Choose P2: Interrogate the Interface.
3. Scroll down to the text box below the headings Submission and Assignment Text. You will write your reflection memo in this box. (Alternately, you can write in a word processor and copy/paste your text into this box.)
4. Add your memo headers (To, From, Subject, and Date). For your reflection memo, you’ll use the following:
   • Address your memo to me (Traci) and from you (use your name).
   • Add a subject line that indicates this is your reflection memo and which project it is for.
   • Add the current date.
5. Insert a horizontal divider line using the button indicated with the red arrow in the image below:
6. Introduce your project and tell me the following information:
   1. What is the link to your web essay?
   2. What are your overall goals? What grade have you aimed for? Talk about your goals for the web essay and the presentation.
   3. Tell me anything else you want me to know about your site that you want me to know before I grade it. You might talk about the content, the layout and design, and any screenshots or other images you included.
   4. Tell me anything else that you want me to know about your presentation.
   5. Add a concluding section that sums things up and tells me how well you think you met your goals.
7. Review the information in your memo.
8. Agree to the Honor Code by clicking the checkbox at the bottom of the page in Scholar. You cannot finish submitting the project without clicking that checkbox (and it’s easy to miss).
9. Submit your Project, and save a copy of the confirmation and submission ID. If something goes wrong in Scholar, you can contact 4HELP with that information.
10. Celebrate! You’ve finished the second project!

Schedule for the Week

On Wednesday and Friday, we will talk about Project 3, which will focus on remixing an existing story (fiction or nonfiction). We will look at several examples in class and think about how we might use some of the tools from Project 2 to remix a story.

This is the post for the October 13, 2014 class meeting.

Today we begin the five-minute presentations for Project 2. Your job during this session is to pay attention, since you may want to use these tools yourself in Project 3.

Important Dates

• October 13, 15, or 17: Presentation Days (no grace period)
• October 20: P2: Interrogate the Interface web essay due
• October 27: P2: Interrogate the Interface deadline (end of grace period)

Presentations for Today

These are the people and tools scheduled for today’s presentations:

• 10:15 Matt E. on 750words
• 10:20 Tinny S. on SoundCloud
• 10:25 Ricky S. on PicMonkey
• 10:30 Jenna H. on Creativist
• 10:35 Sarah F. on Visme
• 10:40 Drake B. on Masher
• 10:45 Maddi G. on Comic Master
• 10:50 Michelle O. on WeVideo

Today’s Blog Post

After the presentations, choose the tool you saw today that you are most interested in trying out (other than your own if you presented). State what tool it was, why you found it interesting, and how you might use it.

Homework/Schedule

M, W, F 10/13–10/17: Presentations in Class. You will write a short blog post for each day, based on the presentations that took place that day. Remember to send me the URL to your presentation by midnight the day before you present so that I can set up the presentation links for the session.

M, 10/20: Web essay and reflection memo due. National Day on Writing activity.

This is the post for the October 8, 2014 class meeting.

Today is peer review day for Project 2. You can share whatever drafts you have—your web essay, your presentation, or both.

Important Dates

• October 8: Draft of P2 due in class for Peer Review
• October 13, 15, or 17: Presentation Days (no grace period)
• October 17: P2: Interrogate the Interface web essay due
• October 24: P2: Interrogate the Interface deadline (end of grace period)

Email Responses October 9–12

Responses to email messages this weekend will be a bit slow, as I will be at the Maryland Conference on Academic and Professional Writing. Do your best to work around any problems that come up. If you are presenting on Monday, be ready to go, no matter what. We can fix any other issues on Monday.

Posting Details on Your Drafts for Project 2

You will post information about your draft in the forums:

1. Go to the Project 2: Interrogating the Interface board in the forums, and create a topic with your name or your username and the name of your tool (e.g., “Traci’s on WordPress.com.”). Use a pseudonym if you like.

2. Add the link(s) to your your web essay, your presentation, or both at the beginning of the forum post.

3. Highlight the link(s) you pasted in, and click the URL button to make the link work. (This button will add codes to your post.)

4. If you have any specific concerns that you want your readers to consider, add a note on that as well.

5. Be sure to Preview your message to make sure everything shows up the way you want it to, and then Submit your post.

Replying to Project 2 Drafts

Next, you will reply to the posts of some of your classmates:

1. Read the post and visit the site of at least two of your classmates:

   • Find one post that no other student has replied to (so that we can be sure everyone gets a reply).
   • Find a second post that has only one other student reply.

2. Add a reply to your classmate’s post, and answer the following questions for the website:

   • Does the essay and/or presentation give an overview of the tool and what it does?
   • Does the essay and/or presentation consider how the tool uses the modes of communication?
   • Does the essay and/or presentation evaluate the tool’s rhetorical situation?
   • Does the essay and/or presentation review the tool’s design choices?
   • Does the essay and/or presentation identify and discuss the tool’s affordances and constraints?

3. Read the feedback from your classmates and ask follow-up questions if you need more information you can post a reply with questions or find each other in the classroom if you like.

Today’s Blog Post

Create a blog post that talks about the work you have done on your project since we met on Monday. Remember these posts are will help you write your Reflection memo.

For today’s post, I’d like you to use three headings:

1. What I Did
2. Why I Did It
3. What I Still Need to Do

In the third section, I want you to think through your to-do list for the next few days.

Homework/Schedule

F, 10/10: Fall Break. Be safe. Have fun.

M, W, F 10/13–10/17: Presentations in Class. You will write a short blog post for each day, based on the presentations that took place that day. Remember to send me the URL to your presentation by midnight the day before you present so that I can set up the presentation links for the session.

F, 10/17: Web essay and reflection memo due.