Activity in lieu of first day

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Hello, Writing for the Public students! Here’s where you’ll post your write-ups of your activities. To post your write-up, go into your “Dashboard” and under “Posts,” click “Add New.” Then paste in your writing. Choose an interesting title for your post–something other than ” Activity in lieu of first day.” Please let me know if you have any trouble with registering, posting or commenting on this site. Don’t forget to comment on one of your peers’ posts! (Please note that I have to “approve” your very first comment on the blog, so it won’t show up immediately after you post. This keeps spammers out and will only affect you the first time you comment on the blog.)

Here are the directions I sent you via email:

1) Go to the homepage of a major newspaper such as the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, or LA Times or your hometown paper. Read through the headlines. What are the concerns of the readers, as the paper sees them? In Pittsburgh, for instance, the current headlines of the Post Gazette suggest that we’re concerned with the toxicity of our food, sports-­‐related concussions, natural gas drilling, equity in the offerings of local high school classes, corruption in local government, etc.

2) Read several of these stories and follow one of them in more detail: read other stories related to it, learn a bit about the sides of the issue.

3) Then find a website, Facebook or Twitter account, or Kickstarter campaign, YouTube video, or some other online/digital space where the issue is talked about and watch/read the material there and the comments. Think about what you’ve read and seen: Who is directly involved in causing this issue? Who is affected by it? What other issues are related to it? What possible solutions do others see to resolving this issue?

4) Write a short 300 word summary of the issue providing links to the news stories you read. Your goal is merely to describe the issue and find its people, places, and parameters—not to weigh in on it. (In fact, you’re better off choosing an issue you don’t know much about or don’t have strong opinions about already.) Bonus: include a picture that represents the issue in some way (be sure to cite and link to where you got the image from). Post this summary (and pic) to the class blog: http://annettevee.com/2014fall_writingforthepublic/ (Note that you’ll need to register for the blog before you can post to it)

5) Then, respond to a classmate’s post by offering more information about the public issue or your impressions of the stakes of the issue. For instance, if a classmate posts about water quality as a public issue and you are studying to be a civil engineer or you are from an arid region with water shortage problems, share some of what you know about that issue. If you don’t have additional knowledge or experience with any of your classmates’ public issues, then do a little bit of research beyond Wikipedia and share something you learned (don’t forget to give links to your sources).

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