Priya Rathod: http://priyarathod.blogspot.in/2014/09/compose-your-first-paragraph-for-your.html
Ayushree Ganga: http://ayushree-gangal.blogspot.in/2014/09/peer-review.html#comment-form
Koishore Roy: http://koishore.blogspot.com/2014/09/thesis-statement.html#comment-form
Nainika Dinesh: http://nainikadineshashoka.blogspot.com/2014/09/introduction-to-essay.html?showComment=1411802980852#c4943832821061173070
I know that we were supposed to refer to style, invention, and arrangement in our responses, but I found that challenging to do. First of all, because I didn't want to use terms that the students may not be familiar with. Secondly, because I was more interested in their content than in their conventions. However, I thought I'd do some reflecting here on how I saw those elements come through in these blogs.
I began by reading Ayushree's post on her peer review process. In this blog post, I saw a lot of invention and thinking about arrangement. Although the post itself wasn't remarkable in it's presentation, I could see that Ayushree was thinking about how to present ideas and what it meant to write for an audience, which was mainly what I wrote my response about. I thought she did this quite well.
I then read Koishore's "Critical Thinking and Home." I couldn't see his process/invention, but I commented on an element of style at the end of the interaction that really made it sound like him (even though I don't know him). I'm not sure if it is appropriate for his audience because I don't know to whom he plans to write, but it made me more interested and I felt a stronger connection to him. Perhaps this is a subtle way that he developed ethos in his short piece of writing.
My third response was to Priya whose definition of home I found interesting, but I struggled with a lack of clarity in some of her ideas. This could be an underdeveloped sense of style or arrangement; but since she is early in the writing process, I know she can revise for this. Much of the rest of the paragraph is very articulate and shows strong style and arrangement.
Finally, I responded to Nainika because she read and responded to my blog. Her "introduction" (which was more of an essay) was more developed than the other three, so I really got to see her ability to arrange her ideas, respond to her sources, and flesh out her ideas. Because this was clearly not the beginning of her thought process on "home," I can't say that I saw invention, but style and arrangement were very strong throughout. I loved the analogy she drew between our personal definitions of "home" and Microsoft's use of "home" in their systems. This helped to draw in the reader (arrangement) and get her interested. Her language was clear and strong (style) and the sources she used were varied, which would appeal to a larger audience. Overall, I thought this was a very strong draft.
This was a really fun blog post assignment. I really hope to make time to read more of these student's writing throughout our class!
Thanks for commenting on Indian students' blog posts and thinking about differences between our rhetorical moves. Students there need to focus on issues surrounding the canons of rhetoric, in particular, as well as the appeals. A lot of these students do use very descriptive writing. Perhaps that's a difference--the tendency to tell a story or a narrative seems greater in India than in the US in terms of rhetorical differences. Perhaps their background isn't the same with regard to thesis statement writing and development, as well, which could be a different educational system generally but cultural differences specifically. There may be less emphasis on a thesis after an introduction here, for instance, than perhaps later or as implied in a persuasive essay. I read through your comments before writing my own comments, and found your's to be very helpful and useful to me as well as to my Indian students. Thanks. Okay not to have included too much information about style, arrangement, etc. Perhaps that comes with my assessment of their essays, themselves. Excellent work summarizing your analysis of their blog posts. There are certainly differences in how we're using rhetoric. Glad this worked well for you!
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