I want to let you know what this blog is about, so you don't start reading with the expectation of being entertained. This web log has been put together for a BYU General Education class I'm taking - English 312: Persuasive Writing. I'll put the assignment description here...
One of my major goals for this course is to help you develop an appreciation for the art of writing. I realize this is difficult to do when all of your writing is graded and you are therefore forced to focus on the end product ratheer than the joy of the process. In order to increase the amount of "free" writing you do on a weekly basis, 100 points (10%) of your grade will come from your creation and maintenance of a virtually ungraded blog.If you're looking for things that, as a friend, you might consider worthwhile and interesting to read, this may not be the most fertile field for you. That being said, there is always the chance that I will write beautiful works of prose on the open-writing days and ingenious analytical monologues exposing the genius (or idiocy) of various rhetorical media on the structured days. Where I feel my product was worth seeing, I'll post a link on my more recreational blog.
Twice each week, you will compose 200-400 word blog posts; they will be due each Wednesday and Friday at 5:00 p.m. To motivate you to put effort into these posts, I will assign grades, but only on a sparse scale. Each post will receive one of the following grades: A (if it is done sufficiently), C (if your effort is clearly perfunctory [what a great word!]), or F (if you don't do it). Please note that I will not accept any late posts.
The post requirements are as follows:
- One post each week will be a miniature rhetorical analysis. Sometimes you will analyze some instance of real-world rhetoric (salespeople, advertisements, etc.) and other times you will analyze portions of articles you will read for the class.
- One post each week will be whatever you want it to be; my only condition beyond the length requirement (which obviously does not apply to poetry) is that you write something interesting.
The title for this blog post comes from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, the existence to which I was alerted by Bill Cosby's film of the same title. My use of the title makes basically no reference to the film, and not much more to the poem (My Bed is a Boat), but the poem is one of my favorites, so I'm including it anyway right here...
My Bed is a BoatSo, my friends on shore, good night, and keep an eye out for lamplight in the captain's quarters of my brain.
by Robert Louis Stevenson
My bed is like a little boat;
Nurse helps me in when I embark;
She girds me in my sailor's coat
And starts me in the dark.
At night I go on board and say
Good-night to all my friends on shore;
I shut my eyes and sail away
And see and hear no more.
And sometimes things to bed I take,
As prudent sailors have to do;
Perhaps a slice of wedding-cake,
Perhaps a toy or two.
All night across the dark we steer;
But when the day returns at last,
Safe in my room beside the pier,
I find my vessel fast.
Author's word count: 219
