Monday, November 26, 2007

Week 3: Process, Overview of the Week

Week Three: Process

Your second formal essay will be one on process. I’ll introduce you to ideas like Kaizen, process theory, and process writing. Your assignment for the week will be to write an essay in which you fully describe a process you’ve used in the past to create some product. Your audience will be folks in the class unfamiliar with your process. As part of the process (excess use of the word, “process,” is intended) of writing this essay, you’ll do a peer editing assignment in which you help revise and proof read drafts produced by your peers.

I’m hoping you’ll take this as an opportunity to discuss a process which is used the field you’re hoping to go into and your experiences in the field. One of the great things about UAT is most of us are geeks. I’m a rhetoric and English geek. By geek I mean someone who is very knowledgeable and passionate about a specific field of human endeavor. So far, it’s been my experience that most students here already know a great deal about the fields they hope to study and many have already done a lot of coding, game design, etc. If this assumption is wrong in your specific case, get in touch with me, and we’ll speak about how to modify the assignment so it will be of use to you and help me teach the notion of process in communication.

If all goes well, I’ll build on your discussions of process to teach you how to put process theory to work in your own lives and specifically in your writing and in becoming a better writer.

Again, discussion of the outcomes will be ongoing. There will be a side discussion this week of process, Kaizen, and how you can and do use them in your own life. Remember that 40% of your grade is tied to class participation, so take these discussions seriously.

3 comments:

Daniel S said...

Where will be holding our ongoing discussions? The Q/A forum is getting a bit unwieldy.

Saiule said...

Good call.

Steve Brandon said...

See my post on participation grades on 5 Dec. I don't expect further ongoing discussions in the Q&A. You should feel free to write one another, and you should feel free to write me. You should also feel free to exchange comments on posts here in the class blog. I assume a few of you may well have exchanged IM info. Finally, I've seen some of you talking as you collaborate in the google docs, please do continue to talk here. As far as I know, this is the first time such exchanges have happened in a 101. I might even write up an article on how flexible y'all have proven in participating in so many forms of communication.

The point is you've got a host of technologies (note Steve nodding toward an outcome) through which you can communicate effectively outside the class Q&A. Use these forums if you have questions and concerns. I'll continue to try to monitor them all.