Composition @ USC Aiken

If you are new to town and would like to visit Aiken, here are a few tips:
Watch the one way streets – they get me every time.
Walk the streets and visit the “bench people”- they are not much for conversation but they are most intriguing.
As a new teacher, visit Creative Program Planners – Call ahead for directions
For good ‘ol southern charm and hospitality– visit Tea Gardens and Gifts.
Have lunch at many of the wonderful and unique restaurants in downtown Aiken. Just drop in any of the stores and the merchants will be glad to direct you.

I don't want to comment on the "write for a person new to Aiken" assignment yet... but wanted to tell today's writers that the writings made me laugh and giggle (Karl and Kim), and my heart was moved by Lynne and Stephanie. Thank you all for sharing... and trusting...

Have a wonderful weekend !

Denise

A project of the Aiken Writing Project Summer Institute.

Reflecting on Ginger's discussion about using Harris Burdick's drawings, I was reminded of a PBS production called ART:21 that featured Sally Mann. The companion web site includes teaching resources and lesson plans for a variety of teaching applications.

Among the many wonderful things Rebecca H. shared with us today, I appreciate her quick reference to "sentence strips" the most. Her description reminded of a forty-year old article by Francis Christensen called "A Generative Rhetoric of the Sentence." In the article, Christensen outlines an approach to teaching sentences that sounds a lot like the "sentence strips" Harper mentioned briefly. Interestingly, Christensen spends the early part of the article lamenting the state of "writing instruction" at the time, a discussion reflected in Chapter 2 of Because Writing Matters.

Anyway, I was thinking about this when I realized that I should post the Christensen article to the "online reader" I am slowly compiling for my "Composition Studies" class in the fall semester. Then, I thought, as long as we are discussing annotated bibliographies, I should introduce everyone to the nifty little online tool I am using for the online reader, CiteULike. In short, CiteUlike will store online articles with bibliographic information and summaries of the article, whatever you deem fit to add. To get an idea of what it might look like, have a look at my AEGL 360 CiteULike area. Of course, you can post as many different kinds of web sites as you like and share them with whoever; it's called "social bookmarking" and there are plenty of other sites like. I just like this one the most. I just created an account and went at it. Kinda fun, in a strange sorta academic way.

Okeedokee. This is a very basic set-up for the content management system called Drupal. The web site will allow users to create and post to blogs, comment on others' blogs and some other cool stuff. Right now, we are having trouble with the email settings, and, as a result, I will have to approve all users. So, once you create an account, I will receive an email and "approve" you. That way, we will be able to make sure that we don't have any interlopers floating around here.

Given the time, I will update the site regularly. Better yet, though, please pass along any ideas, suggestions, etc. For example, in light of Lynne's demonstration this morning, we can set up the web site to allow folks to post images, photos, etc. Let me know if you think it's worth doing so.

In the meantime, play around and let me know if I can do anything to help out.