Notes from our non-class of Wednesday, Sept. 11

Here's the text of an e-mail I sent to all students on Friday, Sept. 13

Hi everyone,

Okay, I'm finally back on the grid after a couple of days of craziness that unexpectedly took me out of the classroom on Wednesday morning.

I'm disappointed that we missed getting together so early in the course but we'll be fine. I appreciate your patience. In the meantime, I have a few things for you to do for our next class so we keep moving forward.

Here goes...

1. If you have not sent in the press release writing assignment or the blog address, please do that as soon as possible. I'd like to have everyone's blogs in the directory by our next class. If you're having trouble, please let me know and we'll figger it out. Thanks!

2. The reading assignment for the Great Missed Class of Sept. 11 was to get through the end of Chapter 7 in the Ben & Jerry's Book. For our class on Wednesday, Sept. 18, please read up until the end of Chapter 9, which is Page 120 in my edition.

Please note that these two chapters (8 and 9) are about stock market issues and might seem a little dry at first. But take time to read them carefully, as you can learn a lot from this part of the book. We'll talk about it in class and answer any questions. Just stick with it.

3. In terms of our next writing assignment (given out in class on Wednesday, Sept. 11), it was going to be writing the script for a radio commercial to promote the move of Ben & Jerry's into the Boston area, as described in Chapter 7.

We'll talk about radio commercials and audio scripts during the next class, and then you'll try your hand at writing one. The most important thing to keep in mind is how you only have 30 seconds. What are you trying to accomplish? How can you do it in 30 seconds? What's the message? What must be included, and what can be left out? How can you make it compelling and memorable? How can you use radio's "theater of the mind" to your advantage?

Notice that all those questions really have to be asked and answered BEFORE you actually write anything. It's the THINKING that comes before the writing. Remember, writing is thinking on paper. And having to do it in just 30 seconds is excellent practice in keeping things short, too!

4. Blogs: You should have two posts by the time of our next class. We'll be looking at them and I'll have a couple of things for everyone to do that will improve your blog. But we need material to work with, so keep at it with the blogs!

I've gone on long enough so I'll stop here. But could be some more notes this weekend and the beginning of next week prior to class. Until then, have a great weekend!

All the best...

Jeff R.

Sorry, but no class on Wednesday, Sept. 11

Here's the text of an e-mail I just sent out. Posting it here to try to reach everyone. Will log into Blackboard and put it there as well.

Hi everyone,

I apologize for such late notice, but I have a family situation that is preventing me from being on campus this morning and holding our class as scheduled.

I'll be in touch about assignments and work for this coming week and what to do to prepare for our next class on Wednesday, Sept. 18. We need to keep reading the Ben and Jerry's book and also push ahead with a second posting on your blogs.

On the blogs, I've enjoyed checking them out so far. Let me know if you're having problems getting yours to work the way you'd like. Pretty much everyone seems to be doing okay, with a few stragglers I haven't heard from.

I have to run right now but expect more info later today. Again, I apologize for the lack of notice but it's one of those things. Thanks for understanding!

More later today...

Jeff R.

Notes from class on Wednesday, Sept. 4

Nice class! And full attendance, which is great. We're off to a good start.

Below is a round-up of what we're working on and when it's due. Let me know any questions.

First, let me say I hope the stuff involving the orange and its various by-products made sense. I kind of like referring to weak or ineffective writing as "Orange Crush" and really good writing as "Naked."

It's a good way of looking at it because Orange Crush is cheap and not good for you and represents really very little connection to the original orange.

But Naked represents writing at its best, at least in juice form: it concentrates the best part of the orange, and also adds other things to it. The best writing not only captures the essence of the real thing, but also makes use of your own knowledge, perspective, or experience to make the drink—er, the writing—worthwhile.

Also, on the postcard exercise, the point of that was to show how useful it can be to start thinking before you start writing. Consider:

• Does your recipe follow the standard format for recipes? This means listing all the ingredients first and then writing what to do with them.

• Is your recipe short enough to fit on the postcard legibly? Is your message likely to be garbled or scrambled along the way? Remember how the post office printed crap over some key words?

• In a multi-platform world, is the postcard really the best place for a recipe? Or would it be more useful to draw attention to a website with a lot more detailed information?

Short is beautiful: Try to remember what Einstein and Winston Churchill had to say about writing.

• Einstein apologized for writing a three-page letter about atomic energy. If he had more time, he would have written a one-page letter. In other words, being concise takes more work. Einstein was serving Orange Crush, but he wanted to serve Naked.

• And Churchill asked the head of the British admiralty this: "Pray tell on one sheet of paper the state of Her Majesty's Navy." In other words, he didn't want to swill down a whole two-liter bottle of Orange Crush. He wanted to sip Naked.

Okay, here's what's due:

1. Press release writing assignment: Please follow the handout in class and get this to me via e-mail no later than the end of day on Monday, Sept. 9. (Earlier is always better!) The goal here is to try coming up with an informative press release that is formatted in a way that will make sense to decision-makers at news organizations. We'll look at a few in class on Wednesday and see how you did.

I was asked to post the location of the Amtrak press release online, so here's a link:

Amtrak Press Release Page

But the website of pretty much every large company will have a place where press releases are posted. Check out a few and see how they differ.

2. Reading assignment: Please read the Ben & Jerry's book up to the end of Chapter 7, which is Page 89 in my edition. Be ready to discuss what's in the book. We'll be having a quiz with a few questions on this material, and our next writing assignment will draw from it as well.

3. Blogs: This week, I'd like you to set up your blog online and try making a first post. As we discussed in class, you have several options for setting up a free blog. The most common places to do this are www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com. I'd prefer you use blogger.com because it's the one I use and I'm most familiar with it, so I might be able to help you more.

To use these services, they do require you to set up an account with an e-mail. Blogger is part of Google, so they need you to set up a gmail account if you haven't already. But again, it shouldn't cost you anything. Ignore any options that suggest you pay for extra features. They're not needed for the class. :)

Working through the menu options, you should be able to set up an account without any specialized technical knowledge. Have fun and experiment. You really can't break anything, so try different settings out and see what they look like. You can always change again later.

Once you set up your blog, you should have a blog address. For anyone using Blogger, it will look like this:

http://thisismyaddress.blogspot.com

Send this address to me via e-mail so I can put it into the director of student blogs that's one of the standing pages (at right) on our class blog. Thanks!

I'll look to see what you've done by Monday, Sept. 9. Please block out a few hours to sit down and do this. Take time to play with the interface and explore how it all works. Knowing your way around will save you a lot of time later, and will allow you to better concentrate on your writing rather than on the process of posting, etc.

I think that's all. I'll be adding the syllabus and some other content to this blog in the next few days, and I look forward to receiving your assignments. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions. Thanks!

Jeff Rapsis

Welcome to our class blog!

Hi everyone, You're creating your own blog as part of the class, so it's only fair that I do one, too. So here it is!

This blog will function as a kind of clearinghouse for material, notes, and other information as we work our way through the semester.

It will include our class style guide (on a standing page to be found at right), a directory of all your blogs, the class syllabus, and week-to-week notes about assignments.

I'll also be using Blackboard, but not really that much. More to come on that.

 For now, let me just say it was nice to meet everyone at our first class on Wednesday, Aug. 28, and I look forward to working with you on your writing in the weeks to come.

For class on Wednesday, Sept. 4, please bring the Ben & Jerry's book. We'll go over the first three chapters and base our first writing assignment on them. We'll also be talking about the postcards with the recipe on them, blogs, and some other things. And we'll take our first quiz!

See you on Wednesday morning.