A Closer Look at Kickstarter/ Daybook Check

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”  Mark Twain

Thinkwrite: Consider what Twain is saying. Can you think of a time that your choice of a word got you into trouble? Or perhaps you can think of examples of a situation when the word you might choose to write or say could have big consequences.

Open The Everyday Writer  to Section 23. Read and become familiar with what this section offers you. Skim over the exercises; I'll assign some of them later. For today, read and understand the main points.

Then you are going to spend the rest of class today and time over the weekend using Kickstarter and The Everyday Writer to fill out an assignment in Moodle called "Language Use in Kickstarter." Follow the directions in Moodle.

At the end of class, we'll look at daybooks. Is your name on yours?

NOTE: Here are links to two crowdfunded scams. They were identified by neuroscience writers (in my Twitter feed)-- the things these products claim to do are bogus. On Kickstarter, NeuroOn: World's first sleep mask for polyphasic sleep.  On Indiegogo, No More Woof. Can you spot problems with them?

Homework:

1. Complete the "Language Use in Kickstarter" assignment in Moodle, due Tuesday. As you work on it, confirm your choice of two Kickstarter projects you want to write about.

2. No word.

3. No typo.

Legos Due/ Next Genre

Organize your Legos to be ready to hand in.

Context is key to communication. What does that mean? How about assumptions? We watch Derek Sievers on assumptions.

Thinkwrite I: How did the Lego project go for you? Did you make any assumptions you were not aware of? How did you handle the nomenclature problem? Was it hard to give feedback AS you were building?

I show you the set of directions that taught me the key elements in this genre of writing (assembly directions with no pictures). I did not instruct you to do these; I was hoping you would discover them by trial and error. Key elements: ______.

II. Turn the final version of your directions over, and please write out an assessment of the directions you created. Which of the key elements did you come up with on your own? Explain.

When you are done, please hand in your Lego Project. Only leave the parts in the bag if you think I might need to build it.

To keep you thinking about the relationship between the key elements of a genre and effective writing (rhetoric in action), our next two writing projects involve another genre that none of us has written before.

Look at Kickstarter.com. Here's the information sheet (blue). Read it. 

Some projects I've found....#1 and #2 and #3 and #4.

Homework:

1. Go to Kickstarter.com and look for projects that interest you. Use "Search" or "Discover" to see completed projects. You are looking for two that interest you; one that succeeded and one that failed.

2. Daybook Check #1 is tomorrow.

3. TWFTD: crowdsourcing

4. There is a phrase of three words that would be considered a cliché in today's blog. Can you find it? No typo.

Tomorrow you will need The Everyday Writer for class. NOT Bedford.

Lego Build #2

From: http://www.psia-nw.org/newsletter-articles/blooms-taxonomy.

Ways of Thinking: How many ways can you think at once? Draw the above graphic into your daybook with Lego activities added on.

Bloom's Taxonomy is a way of classifying or naming the ways we think.

Again, I pass out a green scoring sheet, and you build, give feedback, and score/comment.

After you have built two, your project and all papers should come back to you.

Homework:

1. Read the input from your builders. If there were still problems, make further revisions, and discuss further revisions on the green "Revision Brainstorming" sheet given out yesterday.

2. Print out a single final version of your directions to hand in tomorrow. Bring ALL former versions to hand in, with ALL green score sheets, and the legos.

3. TWFTD: taxonomy

4. No typo.