Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Writing is More Than Words on the Page

Keys to Successful College Writing

Here are eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing:

* Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world.
* Openness – the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
* Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
* Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
* Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
* Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
* Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
* Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.


Source: Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing Council of Writing Program Administrators

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Welcome to our Canvas!

Dear Students,

Like painters, writers craft in layers. Whether ideas begin in a rough sketch or a vague brush stroke, every artist must start somewhere.

Deep thinking drives the artistic process, but mishaps, confusions and mistakes chart the course. What ultimately comes out on the canvas is the result of careful attention to form, but inherent in this process is that which is unforeseen at the outset. Slowly the layers build and as they do, they inspire new ideas and in this way writing is mysterious, surprising and utterly unpredictable.

As students enrolled in Composition 1B, you are all writers now. Your individual blogs provide you with a canvas for contemplation and reflection, a place to explore and experiment.

Your goals here are simple: Read, Think, and Write!

Welcome to the Humanities.

Click here to go to Instructor Knapp Blog
The Layers
by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked so many lives
Some of them my own
And I am not who I was
Though some principle of being abides
From which I struggle not to stray
When I look behind as I am compelled to look
Before I gather strengths to proceed on my journey
I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon

And the slow fires trailing from the abandoned campsites
Over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings

Oh I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections
And my tribe is scattered
How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends
those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn, exalting somewhat with my wings intact
to go wherever I need to go
and every stone on the road precious to me

In my darkest night when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage
A nimbus clouded voice directed me, “Live in the layers. Not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written.

I am not done

with my changes.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Keys to Successful Writing

Keys to Successful College Writing

Here are eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing:

* Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world.
* Openness – the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
* Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
* Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
* Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
* Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
* Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
* Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.


Source: Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing Council of Writing Program Administrators