Class Summary and Homework 9/24 M & 9/26 W

Week 3:
Getting Started on the Writing/Publishing Process

1. How is your blogging? You should have 6 blog articles by the end of this week and 8 by the end of next week. I will ask for a Half-Way  Self-evaluation and Reflection, which will be due 10/10 Wed. By then, you need 10 articles or more with 100 words or more and meaningful content (6 fixed topics, 4 or more free/open topics).

Also, you should write comments on all blog postings of all partners (See below). Even short comments! Make sure you do it week by week.

Blog Comment partner groups (in alphabetical order of names):

1. Haruka, Jun, Kayano, Kumiko, Madoka

2. Mariko, Masaaki, Megumi, Moro

3. Nozomi, Rinako, Risa, Ryo 

4. Ryoko, Saaya, Saya, Shoto

5. Shun, Tsubasa, Yohei, Yumi

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2. Be an Author!
What do YOU want to write??
Liberate yourself! Don't limit yourself. No theme is too small, or too big!
Fundamentally...what is good writing? Let's brainstorm together a bit.

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3. What is the Writing Process? 7 Steps of Authors
Step 1: Brainstorm possible territories and themes (in notebook)
Step 2: Choose a theme and genre. Learn genres from mentor texts.
Step 3: Develop ideas and start a draft
Step 4: Get feedback in or out of class
Step 5: Revise the draft and get more feedback
Step 6: Edit the piece and submit to editor (me)
Step 7: Publish on our website or another medium!

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4. One Possible Pace/Schedule for Publishing 3 Pieces of 3 Genres

Piece #1  A Personal Narrative (Samples)
Draft by 10/1 M, Revise/Edit and Publish by 10/8 M

Piece #2  A Poem (Samples) or Haiku (Samples)
Draft by 10/15 M, Revise/Edit and Publish by 10/22 M

Piece #3  A Short Story (Short samples,  longer samples) or Essay (Sample)
Draft by 10/29 M, Revise/Edit and Publish by 11/5 M

Note: This is only one image of a steady pace. Different writers have different preferences and paces, and we will respect that. The pacing and genres are up to you, and how much content you write is up to you, too! This is one of the challenges of being a real author. I am not going to force you to keep the pace above or to follow those three genres. Each of you will work on your OWN themes and genres at your OWN best pace. Be original and make it work for yourself, but if you are not sure, try to follow the above pace.

But please remember that our final class is 11/12 M and that is the last possible day for publishing. Also, please note that it may be difficult to get feedback from classmates or myself if you don't give us sufficient time to respond to drafts in class or by email etc.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, produced in video on YouTube. Or just text.

A Man by Nina Cassian.