Yesterday, I received the permissions request from McGraw-Hill about using one of my blogs in their book "Writing for College, Writing for Life." This isn't the cool part. The COOL part is I got to see how they'll use it in context. Here's the opener:
Writing in Action: Convention in Genre and Design
One experience almost everyone shares at one time or another in his or her life is trying to find a job. In "Ed's Girl on the Hunt," the writer has shared her experience of searching for, and finding, a job in a Web log or blog, a Web site that is a kind of online journal to which anyone can post their comments. In the blog entry below, the writer tells of finally finding an internship at a magazine. Do these comments seem true to your experiences? How effectively does this writer relate her own joy at landing a summer job? Why do you suppose she chose to share her experiences in a series of blog entries?
[blog]
Considering Genre and Design
1. Sometimes bloggers make sensational statements to gain attention. Often these statements are unsupported or too revealing. How wold you define the tone of this blogger? Compare her tone to that of others, at other blogs.
2. Bloggers frequently include lists ("blogrolls") of other Weblogs that they like to read. Why do you think that this practice has become so common?
3. What can you point to in this blog entry that shows how the writer makes her own experiences interesting to the readers of the blog?
4. Would you like to read more from this blogger? Why? What about her blog entry makes you feel this way?
5. Given that family members and potential employers may read blog entries, what kinds of material would you not inlclude in your blog?
Hilarious, huh? I'm just excited that I get to participate in some college kid's boring homework. I always dreamed something I wrote would have a series of questions about it afterwards. It reminds me of Language Arts when we had to read bits and pieces of Of Mice and Men and comment after each chapter. This is EXACTLY like that. I'm in good company.
Speaking of good company, here's some pictures of the girls I work with at the magazine:
Here's the group of us at a bourbon media event. After we got there, I found out none of the other girls liked bourbon. From left: Alice, Sarah, moi, Sara, and Lindsey.
Here's one from the night we went to Mars 2112--an alien-themed restaurant near Times Square. (Sara, Alice, Lindsey)
Finally, this is from a grocery trip I took with Sara W. and Sarah D. to buy all sorts of food for our taste testing. Sara W. told us part of her always wanted to be a grocery clerk, so we let her scan everything. It was her "what could have been" moment. Unfortunately, she couldn't scan to save her life. This picture is of her in deep concentration as she spent two full minutes trying to scan this bag of candy bars with Sara D. laughing at her in the background.
