Proposal For a Radical Change

Every semester students go through the process of being kicked out of the University due to underachievement on the academic side. How might we fix this problem? My goal is to raise awareness for the Academic Skills department. Academic Skills is a resource free to all students. By raising awareness for Academic Skills I hope to allow students the opportunity to improve there academics and continue their college experience. Need help with math, science, or even writing a paper? Look no further than Academic Skills...

Next Stop? -PUBLIC DISCOURSE-

**Just a refresher..
Public Discourse can be defined in a variety of ways. In general it is any utterance in an oral, written or visual piece that appears in and throughout a public sphere. Again, public spheres include but are not limited to the following...
-Community radio broadcasts
-web pages
-political debates
-advertising
-etc...

***Lets try this to begin..
Refer back to your writers notebook that you've been keeping and in it think about a time when you personally have participated in public discourse (some examples: writing a letter to an editor, attended any sort of rally, distributed or posted flyer's) or a time you thought about doing so but chose not to. Think about the reasons for your decision and actions. What were the consequences for participating or not participating in public discourse? And what, if anything, might you do differently in retrospect?

****Some things to think about while writing
What were motivations for participation or for lack of it?
What were you feeling afterwards?
What, in general, are the "best" and "worst" circumstances in which to participate in public discourse?
-The "best" and "worst" possible consequences?

*****To get you started I have compiled a few to get those creative juices flowing

*confronted the teacher in my high school responsible for the year book about false quotes that were published every year throughout my years of high school
*the various pep rallies I was part of ranging from Jr. High to High School
*hanging signs and posting banners in high school as a part of my Key Club Officer duties
*wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper about his favoritism for the St. Louis Cardinals and leaving out the Chicago Cubs (my team!)

******Sit down and take some time to work on this. What you come up with here will come in handy as an awesome resource tool as we move forward with our Autoethnography piece..******

And the comments go to...

After looking over the MASTERBLOG site for our class I began looking over other blog pages from the class and I've commented on these so far...

*Wildcat's Blog Analysis.......Cleveland Cavs
*Mikes 101 Contributions Blog Analysis....Blackjack
*Cdill Blog Analysis.......Lunch is Not a Date



**Thanks in advance to anyone who has/or will comment on my page**

Here's to you Ace (Analyzing A Blog)

Analyzing A Blog
After careful examination of numerous blogs on globeofblogs.com I came across a very interesting one. The immediate attraction was the fact that it was dedicated to all kinds of sports. The author of this blog spot is also a student. It is really cool to come across someone at complete random and to find that they have some of the same interests as you. Ace of Sports, the author of this page, is a college kid living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Through the many blogs I glanced over you can tell he absolutely bleeds Maize and Blue (Michigan’s colors). This conclusion was based on the fact in a matter of twenty-four hours he had posted a blog about his Michigan Wolverines. Ace states in his blog on Monday February 16 that freshman quarterback Steven Threet will transfer (Ace, 2/16/09). Not only is this a glaring piece of evidence of the authors credibility, but you can also tell that his Michigan ties go further than the University. As you first enter his page you see icons of the Detroit Red Wings (hockey), Detroit Tigers (baseball), and Detroit Pistons (basketball). As you sift through some of the older blogs you can tell that the author is also a die-hard Tigers fan and I predict that in the coming months this topic will rule his board.
You can tell right from the start that if you are not entertained by sports then this is not the blog for you. It is intended for sports fan but it also has a unique twist to it. You do not have to be a die hard sports fan to love this site. As a sports lover I despise Michigan because I am all for Indiana University but it just shows another layer of depth that the site has. It also appeals to anyone who has the slightest draw to Ann Arbor and the fact that it’s one of the best “college towns” in the country. Sure sports dominate the postings, but you will find a wide range of other informative facts. Like the blog that was posted Friday February 13th titled “Forbes Tells Us What Michigan Fans Already Know”. In the article Ace reports that Forbes stated that Ann Arbor, Michigan is the best college sports town of 2009. It beat out Palo Alto (Stanford) and Madison (Wisconsin). He reflects on his childhood also giving us an insightful view of the college town of Ann Arbor (Ace, 2/13/09).
If you’re not a Michigan alumni or care about sports then take this as a warning and steer clear of the site. For those who are interested, it saddens me to see that hardly anyone comments on any of Ace’s blogs. For the first 8 posts that are on the main page there was not one single comment. Ace is very informative to his audience and a little feedback would make this site even better.
With all of these aspects going on it might be hard to pull a meaning out of this page. Ace does a terrific job of giving his readers a number of ways to fall in love with his sight. He provides a page for sports fans in general, for the University of Michigan sports fans, and lastly he includes the college life of the fabulous city of Ann Arbor. The message of the blog is quite simple. College campuses and sports go hand-in-hand and he capitalizes on this market. However, he also tries to tie in the college and city to give non-sports fans a chance to fall in love with his sight. He is providing a main-stream avenue for Michigan sports news to travel through. His sight might be more successful if he could get into larger spheres of influence and post his flyer for others to see.



WORKS CITED

Of Sports, Ace. “Forbes Tells Us What Michigan Fans Already Know.” Weblog Entry. The Ace of Sports. February 13, 2009. February 15, 2009.

A List That Concerns You...

In your notebook, take a few minutes to generate a list of issues that interest or concern you personally. These may include social or policical causes that matter a lot to you, or simply problems or events that are on your mind. You might want to generate a list of organizations whose agendas are consisten with your interests (if you know of any) or public spheres where you could "publish" your concerns.....think back to the previous exercise

Once you've identified ways in which your interests are also public interests, you can begin to focus your attention on discussions of those ussues, keeping an eye and ear out for opportunities to contribute to them as you read the newspaper, walk to school, talk with friends, and so on. There might be meetings, public lectures, fund-raisers, or other events or projects related to your public interests that you could participate in-or better yet, whose efforts you could assit by contributing your writing skills and rhetorical knowledge...
**Again the possibilites are endless so get creative and start you list! Here are a few that concern me...**

*Why do we only get ice and never any good snow?
*How many people lost power because of our ice storm?
*Who is my future wife (if I ever get married)
*Why does USI's student section for basketball games suck so much?
*How long will my mom live?
*Will they ever come up with a cure for diabetes?
*Will the Chicago Cubs ever win a World Series?
*When will I move out of the house?

Public Spheres That You Come Across Daily...

Try out this exercise to see what you come across...

Over the next few days, carry a writer's notebook, journal...(anything for you to take a few quick notes...) with you around your campus, neighborhood, or city. Write down as many different "public spheres" as you can find. If your confused on the meaning public spheres don't be. These simply may include places or forums in which people publish opinions, ideas, and information. They may also include (but are not limited to) newspapers, television channels, newsletters, bulletin boards, community centers, websites, and local events. As you record these observations, think about how and why these public spheres differ in format and location, as well as the kinds of interests, concerns, or populations they represent...

Here is what I came up with...
At/Around my college campus:
*any bulletin board around campus (in library enterance, 3rd floor of Education Building by the Education Dept., Math Dept. hallway, all around the health professions building)
--basically where there is a particual deptartment your going to find a different public sphere...
*on the campus student log-in page (current campus events and whats coming up)
*the T.V's all around campus are billboards for certain organizations, clubs, and other education oppurtunities
*campus newspaper

In hometown:
*the largest hub I found was at our public library (the bulletin board when you walk in has atleast 20 different spheres!!)
*at high school basketball games (informs citizens of upcoming events and certain businesses go the extra mile to reach out)
*The paper that our city provides plus the county paper
*on doors of gas stations as your enter/exit
*inside any fast food establishment (for example our Mexican restauraunt, Mickey D's, Arbys, and Dairy Queen)
*every Wednesday night the large churches have youth group meetings that a majority of kids living in the city attend