Prompt: Curious / Why Blog

Read:

• “The Importance of Getting Curious,” (must be logged in to MyFAU), from Ballenger’s The Curious Researcher (2011).
• “Why Blog? Searching for Writing on the Web,” by Alex Reid from Writing Spaces, Vol 2.

Reading Note: The readings aren’t challenging and there are parts of both you could skip or skim (because they don’t apply to our classroom context). Use your judgement in deciding which parts to read carefully, which to skim, and which to skip.

Write:

In an informal, thoughtful post of ~400-600 words, draw connections between Ballenger, Reid, and your own experiences with writing.

Additionally, you may consider one or more of the following:

• Since I’ll be asking you to write publicly (and regularly) in the context of this class, in what ways might the authors’ discussions apply to your own writing (any writing—exploratory, informal, generative; or more formal planning, drafting, and revision)?
• How might you/we use Reid’s “basic rhetorical questions” (308) as a means to think about your own writing and as a way to analyze others’ writing?
• While Reid asserts writers “require sufficient exigency to write,” he also questions where exigency comes from (312). Was there a time when you were motivated (I mean, REALLY motivated) to write? What motivated you?

Notes:

By informal, I mean that I’m not looking at grammar or spelling, and I don’t want thesaurus words or long, convoluted sentences. By thoughtful, I mean I want your good faith effort at reading, thinking, making connections, and communicating your understandings in writing.

Also, please write good post titles—they should allude to what you wrote (not the assignment). In other words, “Connections Between Ballenger, Reid, and My Experiences” is a bad post title—that’s the assignment, not an indication of the content of your post.