October 5: groups for commenting on drafts + what we did in class

I will post the conference schedule tomorrow - Blogger was down so I couldn't post it after class - and I left the list at my office.

the groups for commenting on each other's blogs are:
DJ Akinyemi, Allison Cherry, Tim Lowe, Brittany Piano

Elliot Fant, Nicole Deluccia, Stephen Mesa, & Kelly Quinn

Kim Castro, Julie Jackson, Maureen Peterson and Rebecca Wood
Lauren Buttacavole, Joe Fernandes, Benny Nieves, and Jaimesue Salva

Alex Cade, Nick Garripoli, Car Oliveto, and Joe Tingle

You signed up for conferences - and for reading times (I will post that tomorrow as well)and you then looked through your writing journals for patters. Some of you noticed that you wrote about material you didn't know what you thought about - while others observed that you wrote mostly about material you had resovled; some of you noticed particular topics that came up again and again - or that you focused on traumatic material, material from a particular time period in your life. These patterns can give you some insight in to what is on your mind - as well as to how your mind works - and they can help you find a focus for your next essay.

We breezed through Gutkind's essay - noting his points at the end where he lists do's and don't's for CNF writers. He states that every writer has to write to her or his own conscience - but as the assignment for Thursday makes clear - readers (and publishers) also have ideas about where those boundaries should be set.

For Thursday:
Read the Smoking gun expose of A Million Little Pieces
and the story of Oprah's backlash

Blog 9: What went well in your first essay? What do you need to work on (take a look at the suggestions for revision, (p. 95-96 in your text). What are you going to try to do differently in your next essay? Do some freewriting, associative freewriting (use your journal) clustering/outlining, listing - whatever works best for you to find your focus for essay 2.

In class we will talk some more about author's obligations to readers - and do some more brainstorming for your second essay.