2.12.2: Activities

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Activity: DISCUSSION about Goals\(^{54}\)

Take two or three minutes to list as many of your own current goals that you can think of. These might be academic goals, professional goals, or personal goals. For instance, you might want to learn more about a certain academic subject or achieve a degree or certification. You might want to advance yourself in your current career, or you might want to find a job in a completely new field than the one you’re working in right now. You might want to gain a new skill that will help you with a hobby that you enjoy.

Now, consider how writing might be a useful tool in helping you to achieve some of these goals. Can writing help you to explore, to create, to understand, to persuade, or to share in ways that can help you reach some of these goals? You might be asked to discuss your thoughts with some classmates in a small group, and if class time allows for it, your small group might share some conclusions about the value of writing with the whole class.

Activity: Journal or Blog\(^{55}\)

Consider the value of keeping a journal or a blog. How can you use this form to help in your other writing? To reflect on experiences? To sharpen your observational skill and engage your world on a daily basis?

Today there are a lot of options for journaling, and it can be private or very public. Many people choose to keep blogs that cover adventures, traveling, daily life, and relationships. They may chronicle small adventures on social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Tumblr. Sites like Blogger and Wordpress have provided a direct forum for those who want to go public with their most private thoughts.

Activity: Personal vs Academic\(^{56}\)

What is “personal writing”? What is “academic writing”?

For this activity, write about the terms “personal writing” and “academic writing” and what they mean to you.

The goal of a freewrite is to keep your pen or pencil to the paper (or fingers typing) for the entire length of time. It is natural for the mind to wander. Often in life we are thinking of many things at the same time: class, how hungry we are, what time it is. When you feel as if you have run out of things to say or you find you can no longer focus on the topic, don’t stop writing! Simply continue to write about what is distracting you and carefully make your way back to the topic.

These pieces are not collected or graded, so do not edit yourself. Write whatever comes to mind in response to the prompt. We will try to define the two terms as a group based on everyone’s contributions.

\(^{54}\)The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

\(^{55}\)Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

\(^{56}\)Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.