Informational Writing-Pick a Topic!!

This quarter, you are going to be writing an Informative Essay on a topic of your choice!

Today, I would like for you to start thinking about some possible topics.  Choose three topics that are of interest to you.  They could be anything: sports team, artist, actor/actress, club/organization, celebrity, college, sports figure, car brand, etc., etc.  The options are endless!

For each of the three topics you have chosen, brainstorm what you already know about the topic without looking anything up.

Be sure your brainstorms are in paragraph format and your blog post is at least 300 words.

How to Spot a Liar

For the next couple of class periods, we are going to experiment with writing on this blog.  I've chosen some interesting TED talks to get us started.  Please watch the following YouTube video which is Pamela Meyer's TED Talk on ways to spot a liar.

As you watch take notes and be prepared to develop a 300 word (or more) response to her talk.
Keep in mind some of these guiding questions:

• What is Meyer's argument about lying?
• What are her numbered truths? Explain in your own words what each one means.
• Did this TED talk make you think differently about lying?
• If so, how?  Explain your biggest takeaway.
• Do you have any unanswered questions about lying?  If so, what are they?
• Do you lie on a daily basis?  If so, what are some of the lies you tell.

Let's Start Blogging!!

I never thought I would be a blogger!  Well...I wouldn't necessarily label myself as such, but I do have two blogs.  Blogging is something I have to do for my master's program and it is something that I have really grown to love.  As part of Writing Lab class, I am going to ask all of you to become bloggers as well.  To start, I would like you to watch this YouTube video about blogging and leave a comment about it in the comment section of this post.

Comments can be anything really...the whole point of blogging and commenting on blogs is to get you to think about topics in a way you maybe haven't before.  So feel free to comment and question on what I write as well as what your peers write in their comments.  I can't wait to see how this goes!

Here are some guiding questions for this week's post: (But don't feel limited by these questions!)

• What is a blog?
• Who are bloggers?
• Do you follow anyone's blog?  If so, whose.
• Do you have a blog yourself?  If so, describe it.
• Find a blog and look through it.  What type of blog is it?  What do you notice about it?
• What types of writing would you like to do in this blog?  Be specific.
• What questions do you still have about blogs in general or this particular blog?

Each week's blog post must be at least 300 words.  It is a good idea to write your post in google docs or Word and then copy and paste into the blog.  You will also have to set up a username in order to comment, but we'll do that in class.  Happy blogging!!