COMM 337: Your first blogs, a note on grades

Time to close the books on the assignment I gave you last week, which was to create a blog and post your answers to the question about Donald Murray's last columns to the blog. I think we're off to a halfway decent start, although I do kinda think it might have been a better start if more of you had bothered to do the @#$%! assignment. Some overall observations after reading your responses.

What I like about your blogs.

When I assigned you to read stuff by and about an 82-year-old man, I wasn't sure whether his stuff was going to bridge the generation gap. And I'm never sure how much my students are going to like the same things I do. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. It's always a gamble.

This time I thought the gamble paid off.

Something I didn't expect: Most of you commented on Murray's way of life, the way he dealt with personal matters or the way his writing reflected his way of living. His writing tips are good, but I think what he really has to offer is in the attitudes he brings to the craft. And it sounds like you're picking up on that. Good! It's a surprise, but I like surprises (well, most surprises). And I encourage all of you to look for surprises, to delight in surprises as we go along. We'll deal more with surprise as we go along.

Some of your reactions that I liked:

"While reading all of Donald Murray's articles, I got the sense that he thoroughly enjoyed what he was doing," said Christina Ostermeier. "He brought his love of life and writing out in every word he wrote. Although at times I felt a hint of sadness in his writing when mentioning his wife, who passed away before him, I think he still just loved the fact that he got the chance to mention her in his articles."

Christina went on to say that's something in Murray's writing we can all model in our own, writing about the things and the people we know and enjoying it to the hilt. I agree 100 percent.

Other comments that I liked: Ben Harley said:

... What I truly learned from him, and I think I should try to integrate into my own life, I found in his obituary.

"My parents and teachers got together and decided I was stupid," he wrote last year. "My response was to develop a private mantra: 'I'm stupid but I can come in early and stay late.' Surprise. It worked. Good work habits will beat talent every time."

I try to use this idea at work too. This is just a great mantra. Hopefully I have talent, but in case I don't I can still succeed as a writer.

Agreed. Didn't somebody once say success is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration?

Michele Bearss said there was advice in Murray's columns she could use, but "I would only use it on a personal level." She added:

Within the columns that we were assigned to read it sounded almost like Murray's preparation to leave this world. Almost as if it was his last advice to his readers. Throughout his 82 years of life, Murray wrote a lot of articles and toward the end of his life they were focused mostly on the advice he would want to give to his young readers before he past. In the article titled, "Adventures Close to Home" Murray writes, "Do I stay at home or go out? Each invitation has its own challenge, peculiar to our combination of ailments, discomforts, indignities. The easy way is to stay home watching soap operas as my father did in his last years. But I want to live the life I have been unexpectedly given as fully as possible."

Amen. Good advice for all of us. I like the quote, too, and what he said about life being unexpected. Kind of like surprises.

If you want want to see a model for what a good blog item for class can look like, visit Robert Schwartz' blog. I'll just quote the whole thing:

The one thing I found interesting about Donald Murray's obituary was this quote:

"Each time I sit down to write I don't know if I can do it," he wrote. "The flow of writing is always a surprise and a challenge. Click the computer on and I am 17 again, wanting to write and not knowing if I can."

Even at age 82, he was never sure he'd be able to complete his next assignment. Not because of any physical ailment, but because of the uncertainty that comes with the blank page -- something that all writers share at some point or another, if not all the time. It's interesting to know that even someone of his age and experience would continue to face that problem up to his death.

That blank sheet of paper may turn into a blank computer screen with changing tecnhology, but it never goes away.

What I didn't like.

I would have been happier if more people had done the assignment. This is a writing course, and I don't know any way to learn how to write without doing some writing. If you don't write, you can't learn to write. It's not rocket science, is it?

A word or two about grades.

It would be a violation of federal law for me to post grades to the internet, but I am allowed to make some general observations. One is that you have to do the assignment to get a passing grade. If you don't do an assignment, you get a zero. If you do half the assignment (if you create the assigned blog but don't bother to post anything to it, for example), you get a grade of 50 percent. If you consult our syllabus for COMM 337, you will see the following notice in the section on means of evaluation: "The instructor's grading scale is as follows: A = 100-90. B = 89-80. C = 79-70. D = 69-60. E = 59-0." Do the math.