Writing 3: Comments

The Art of Dialogue, unknown artist, 1325

One of the ways you grow as an academic writer is through looking at how other writers have approached the same task. I’ve thus divided you into groups of four. I want you read the responses to Odell posted by the other three members of your group and to write a brief comment on each.

They will of course be doing the same, so by Thursday you should have three comments on your own Writing 2. I would like you to then add a comment to your own post in which you respond to what your readers have had to say about it—either one-by-one, as a group. You’ll thus write at least four comments for this assignment—although you can always write more, if the spirit moves you.

You are of course also free to read other responses to Odell posted to this site.) I’ll write a comment on each of your posts about Odell. If you want to respond to me, that’s great, but you don’t have to.

The aim of this all back-and-forth is not to determine who has written the best response to Odell, or to defend your reading of her book against all comers. Rather, it is to help you develop a sense of the possible range of approaches to Odell, to add to your understanding of what might be said about her book.

In drafting your comments, I’d like you to keep this idea of adding to in mind. You need to do something more than simply agree or disagree with what a writer has had to say. You need to push the conversation forward. Think about how you ordinarily talk with your friends or classmates: You don’t just say “yes” or ‘no”, you try to add to the conversation, to bring something new to it. You need to do the same in your comments here.

So there are a couple of requirements:

Each of your comments must be at least 75 words long. Don’t worry if they run longer.
You must quote directly from the post you are commenting on—even if you’re only repeating a key word or phrase the writer uses.
You must quote from a moment in Odell’s book that the writer you’re responding to does not discuss. In other words, you need to take us to a different place in How to Do Nothing.
While the tone of comments is often very casual and chatty, you still need to be professional. Proofread your comments before you send them.

My goal here is to hold in writing something like the kind of conversation we might normally have about Odell in a classroom, one in which a variety of views of and approaches to her book get shared. Remember that in a couple of weeks I am going to ask you to write a longer essay on Odell. This is a way to collect some possible ideas for that piece.

I look forward to reading your online conversations!