Welcome!

*Updated*Welcome to ENGL 1101. We will be using Blogger throughout the semester as a place to reflect on our work and communicate with each other. Please set up your own Blogger Blog using the following guidelines:

• Keep in mind that Blogger works best w/ Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox; it doesn't much like Internet Explorer.
• Click on "Create Blog" at the top right of this page, and create a Google Account (if you don't already have one). Typically Blogger doesn't accept my students' UNCC email addresses, so you'll probably have to use a personal e-mail address here. You'll really only need your e-mail address to sign in; I've never received e-mails from Blogger or Google.
• As you're creating your account, please make sure your display name contains some version of your real name so that your classmates and I can identify you easily.
• Once you've made an account, you should be taken to your "Dashboard," the "home base" for Blogger. From here, you'll want to create ONE blog that you will use for the semester - click on "New Blog." Please note that once you have a Blogger account, you'll be able to make as many blogs as you want to, but you will create ONE blog for use in this class. This blog's title should be pertinent to ENGL 1101 and/or UTOP.
• You may design your blog however you'd like to. Have fun with it.
• Once you've created your blog for this class, make sure to "follow" your own blog. I know this sounds silly, but if you're not a follower of your own blog, it won't show up on your profile. Blogger might have rectified this issue since last semester - we'll figure it out. 
• Also, you'll need to "follow" my page AND your peer group members' pages. To follow a blog, you'll have to paste the URL into the designated spot on your dashboard. When viewing somebody's page, click on, copy their URL, then click on "dashboard." From there, "Add" and copy the URL into the box.
• Make sure to paste the URL of your blog into Moodle (I showed you this in class on Friday)
• From your Dashboard, whenever you want to write a new post, you'll click on the orange "Create a New Post" button. It's that easy. (: I will post directions for each Blog Post assignment on this very page. Here we go!

Blog Post #1 - assignment

For your first blog post, let's discuss the obvious: how it feels to be a college freshman! Write for 15-20 minutes, and answer the following questions in your blog. However, you don't have to stick to just these questions: let this blog take you wherever you want to go!

Please label your post accordingly (e.g. "Post #1").
This post is due before class on Friday 7/6.

• How does it feel to be a college freshman?
• What do you expect to "get" out of UTOP? 
• What do you expect to learn from ENGL 1101? (You can look through your syllabus for ideas, of course!)
• What are your strengths in writing? Explain one piece of writing from your past (it doesn't have to be a school assignment) that you are proud of. Also discuss ways you think you can improve your writing.
• What do you think YOU can do to make UTOP and this course successful experiences for you?
• What are you most excited about right now? If you had to make a list of "good stuff" in your life, what would be on it?
• What are you most fearful of right now? If you had to make a list of "stuff that makes you anxious," what would be on it?
• Do you have any ideas about what you might major in? Explain.
• What questions do you notice that keep running through your head as you embark on your college journey?
• What is one thing you can tell us (your classmates - and me, your teacher) that will help us remember you? Why are you unique, and why should we remember you're name? (:

• Lastly, read your peer group members' 1st blog posts and comment on at least one of them.

Hints:

-Your Blogger blogs count as a major assignment in this class, which you will include as part of your final portfolio, so take this seriously. However, this is reflective writing, so it is "low stakes," meaning you should relax, focus on generating good content, and your tone can be personable; you won't be graded on grammar and punctuation, and there's no "correct" answer to any of my questions. Just think, and WRITE, and show your thinking and your reflecting in your writing.

-Keep in mind your teacher and (at the very least) your peer group members will be reading your blog. So, you are writing for YOU (to learn about yourself and to explore your thoughts), but you also have an audience.

-Here's a helpful website, especially if you're new to the genre of blogging: http://www.problogger.net/how-to-write-great-blog-content/

Ms. Ingram's Blog Post #1 - an example

So, I thought I could write Post #1 along with you, to provide an example of a thorough blog post and to let y'all get to know me as I get to know you.

I was a college freshman 11 years ago, at Appalachian State. I remember feeling many, many emotions. I was anxious about college classes, unsure of whether or not I was prepared. How hard will the classes be? Will the professors be impersonal and uncaring? I also wasn't sure I wanted to be in college. Everyone told me I had to go to college, that there wasn't really a choice, but I thought that I maybe just wanted to work and make money and get my own place. I was also a bit sad about leaving my parents; I wasn't so much sad for myself, but I felt bad that my mom cried when they left me at my dorm room for the first time. In hindsight, I can tell you that college was the best decision I ever made. By midterm of my first semester, I had figured out that I liked college and that it was worth my time and energy - and my parents' money. I wasn't sure what my major was yet, but that didn't matter because college isn't just about the end result--the degree, the prospective careers--rather, it's about the experience, about learning and growing and being stretched out of your comfort zone, and about becoming a better person.

I didn't get an opportunity to take any freshman seminar-like classes or to be involved with anything like UTOP, so I kind of had to "go it alone." I'm really excited for all of you to be here, getting a head start. On my list of "good stuff" right now, that is definitely at the top:
-new UTOP students, embarking on their college careers!
-I just had 8 weeks off of work, wahoo!! (come ON, that is just awesome)
-it's summer and I can go to the pool
-my summer garden, and my hanging basket of marigolds
-letting my cats outside to sunbathe
-summer fruit and frozen yogurt
-going to Kure beach with Elizabeth
-having lots of free time to read and write (during these past 8 weeks)
-going to the mountains to visit Sarah
-yoga

My "stuff that I'm anxious about" list is much shorter:
-moving offices
-turning 30

When I was in your shoes 11 years ago, this last list was much longer b/c of all the unknowns. So, growing up isn't all bad. (:  But, back to my college life...at first I was a Hotel & Restaurant Management major. That changed after I realized I didn't like business classes or economics. I eventually became a middle grades education major, which was definitely the right choice: it was a small program (about 30 students in my graduating cohort), and I got to take lots of English and history classes. Plus, I really enjoyed my student teaching, and this all led me to apply to grad school and--long story short--to this job that I have today, which is my dream job!

As far as something interesting about me: I've lived in 3 very different states -- NY, TX, and NC. NC is my favorite.

-Ms. Ingram

Post #2 - assignment

This post is due before class on Tuesday 7/10.

For this blog post, discuss how it's all going so far. As with the last post, please address the following questions in your writing, but you may go wherever your writing takes you! Challenge yourself to write for 20 minutes, and be thorough.

• At this point in the semester, you have been to 3 days of college classes. How are they going? Are they the same as or different from what you expected? Explain.
• You've written a draft of your first college essay assignment, and workshopped it. How was that experience? How did the writing go? The workshop? If they didn't go so well, what will you do to make the your next writing and/or workshop experience better? 
• How are you revising and/or editing your Literacy Narrative for the next draft? While we're thinking about revision and editing, let's think about this: what is the difference between revision and editing? What do you think?
• You've completed 2-3 reading assignments in this class so far. What are your reactions to college reading assignments? Thinking ahead to a semester when you are taking a full course load (5 classes), how do you predict you'll get all your reading done - and not just done, but done well?
• Do you have any questions you'd like to pose--about college, about the course--to your teacher and classmates?

Post #3 - assignment

• What was your "high" this week? What was your "low"? If you could have a "do over" for your first full week of college, what would it be?
• What's standing out to you about college right now, or what's surprised you, or surpassed your expectations?
• Write a hefty paragraph or two about what you've been learning in your classes, without looking back over your class notes or textbooks. Then, spend a couple minutes reflecting on what you wrote.  Part of college is learning how to learn. So, how is your learning going? How could you improve your learning?

• Have you ever written a list poem? It's a poem, essentially a list, that's organized around a central idea. Here's an example list poem about the color orange:

What is Orange?

Orange is a tiger lily,
A carrot,
A feather from

A parrot, 

A flame, 

The wildest color you can name. 

Saying good-bye 

In a sunset that 

Shocks the sky . 

Orange is brave 

Orange is bold 

It's bittersweet 

And marigold. 

Orange is zip 

Orange is dash 

The brightest stripe 

In a Roman sash. 

Orange is an orange 

Also a mango. 

Orange is the music 

Of the tango. 

Orange is the fur 

Of the fiery fox, 

The brightest crayon 

In the box.

And in the fall 

When the leaves are turning 

Orange is the smell 

Of a bonfire burning.

---Mary O'Neill (from http://www.angelfire.com/ct2/evenski/poetry/listpoempg1.html) 

For the last part of this blog entry, pick something about college or UTOP to write a list poem about. Aim for at least 10 lines.

Post #4 - assignment (last one!)

As a teacher, I'm continuously noticing trends in my students' writing: in the topics they choose, the way they say things, and in what they say. One trend I've seen a lot of this summer goes something like this... "I am just here for the degree," OR "I can make it through four years and get that degree," OR "If you get the academic part done, then you can have fun." I'm always a little disheartened by comments like these because college isn't just about rushing through the "academic part" or about getting the degree; rather, it's about learning and growing. That degree will be meaningless to you if you didn't learn anything in the process of getting it, if you just skirted through school, trying to do as little as possible and still pass. You know that old joke, "You know what they call the person who graduates last in his/her medical school class? Doctor." I don't think you want to be the last in your class. Actually, I know each of you at this point in the semester, and I know you don't.


My first question is, then, how do you plan to live in the HERE and NOW and get the MOST out of your academic experience?? How will you find meaning and purpose in your core classes, even if they seem unrelated to your major? You chose to come to a 4-year university for a liberal arts education, after all; how will you take advantage of that, and how will that benefit you in the long run? How will you challenge yourself to learn and grow--academically-- every day?

.........................

For the second part of this blog entry, read and respond to 3 other students' blogs (any post).