Blog #4: IMHO. (No seriously.)
I've had a lot of students complain that academic writing is dry and boring. They don't want to read academic writing, and they definitely don't want to write it. Apparently I'm restricting their creativity when I require them to adopt an objective tone and use qualifiers and cite other sources. What about their opinions?
And I say I don't really care about their opinions. And then I laugh and say I do care, but I don't want to see it in the paper.
Academic writing reinforces apparent objectivity, along with evidence and logical conclusions based on evidence, and that is pretty dry. It minimizes emotional responses and emotional opinion making, which honestly are a lot more exciting.
And after a while students adapt. As they taken on the academic genres and academic discourse, they begin to adopt the norms, values, and ideologies associated with opinion writing, and opinion writing gets hard.
Blah. Blah.
Read all those editorials I posted on Bb under week 2 readings, and then I want you to begin thinking about characteristics of this genre. Think structurally. Think creatively. Think about rhetorical strategies and think about the appeals (not the same things). Think about who reads these opinion pieces and how the authors are persuading. Think about the values and ideologies reinforced and minimized by this genre. Think about how this is different than academic writing or poetry or any other genres you might be thinking about.
Think about all the things, and then come up with a response to this prompt. Oh, you can also think about what you're going to write about because now I want your opinion.
Academic writing reinforces apparent objectivity, along with evidence and logical conclusions based on evidence, and that is pretty dry. It minimizes emotional responses and emotional opinion making, which honestly are a lot more exciting.
And after a while students adapt. As they taken on the academic genres and academic discourse, they begin to adopt the norms, values, and ideologies associated with opinion writing, and opinion writing gets hard.
Blah. Blah.
Read all those editorials I posted on Bb under week 2 readings, and then I want you to begin thinking about characteristics of this genre. Think structurally. Think creatively. Think about rhetorical strategies and think about the appeals (not the same things). Think about who reads these opinion pieces and how the authors are persuading. Think about the values and ideologies reinforced and minimized by this genre. Think about how this is different than academic writing or poetry or any other genres you might be thinking about.
Think about all the things, and then come up with a response to this prompt. Oh, you can also think about what you're going to write about because now I want your opinion.
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