Athens Farmer's Market

For those of you interested in frequenting the Farmer's Market, click here to get more info. As it turns out, some vendors set up indoors during the winter. Genius!

MLA Formatting Tutorial

Watch the video below to help you format your spacing and headers according to MLA.

The Writing Center

In case you didn't know, the university has a Writing Center on the second floor of Alden. Go there any time you want extra help with your papers!

Evaluate a Source

Ok, so you've found a source that you might use for your research project. But is it reliable? Write a few sentences below about your source's reliability. How do you know it is reliable? Where did you find this source? What do things like the publication, the style of writing, images, etc. say about this source?

(respond as a comment below)

Sustainability Issue: Mountaintop Removal

HW: Due before class on Wednesday

As a comment, explain at least two research topics that you'll be exploring during our library sessions. Explain your topic and discuss why you are interested in it. What do you know about it? What questions do you have about it?

Is rhetoric to blame?

(If you're looking for your homework post, scroll just past this post.)

This is one of the many images that has forced the media and the general public to examine the effects that rhetoric has on us as humans/citizens/voters/etc. What are we to do about this? Should we hold public figures more or less accountable for their rhetoric? Is it right to criticize the rhetoric that may or may not be to blame for terrible social acts like the one in Tucson? Could rhetoric be a possible factor in such instances?

Oh, and there's more:

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

And...

Wendell Berry Response

Select at least two quotes from Berry's essay "Preserving Wilderness" and respond to them. What does he mean? Is there something you don't understand? What stands out to you?

Respond as a comment to this post, and again, I'd like to see sincere interaction with the text.

Links for Campus History Project research

Use these sources to piece together your unique history of campus:

Ohio University Compass/Outlook Archives

OU Archives (images with descriptions/information)

OU Yearbook: Athena (Archived Online)

Relationship with Place

My relationship with "place"? When i see that question, I see it as asking what is your position in this world? This is a very good question to ask everyone and not just one person, because I believe that everyone has a "place" in this world and has a purpose or a job to do while they are here. But more specifically, I believe my "place" or relationship to it is to help others in this world. I was raised by my parents to be selfless, humble, and to always know that someone else has it worse than you. My parents used to say when I was younger, "If life was all about you, then God wouldnt have created everyone else". I have always kept that thought in my mind whenever I come into contact with other people. I also would say what determines your "place" in this world, is all the problems, situations, hard times, and struggles that one person goes through. Every day that you live, you get to learn more about yourself and how much you are capable of getting things accomplished.

You can probably already see what Im going to say about the importance of having a sense of "place". Having a sense of who you are, what you want to do with your life, and who you want to become later in life can give you an identity to yourself. Like I said earlier, you go through life figuring out who you are by living life and facing problems as well as getting past them. So having a "place" here is not something that can be rewarded or earned, but only realized and recognized. And once you do figure out who you are, you get to spend the rest of your life working hard to make it perfect or as close to perfect as you can.

Orr Reading Response (HW)

Write two questions and/or comments about the Orr article below as a comment.

I was originally going to provide an example, but I don't want to limit the possibilities of your responses. So let's keep it open. I do, however, expect to see sincere interaction with the texts. So if you're confused, angered, fulfilled, uplifted, intrigued, etc. with the text, explore that! What makes you feel like that? Why? Since this kind of exploration can be extensive and maybe even exhausting, your responses should be more than a couple sentences long. If you have a question, explain it and give context for your question so we can provide a better answer.

Happy reading/responding :)

Eco-Event Example

As I was doing some class planning recently [you should provide a more specific date or time frame], a story on ABC's "Nightline" caught my ear. In this expose, a former nature documentary producer reveals that a portion of his work (and other nature docs) are not natural at all. Take a few minutes to watch the story here. [Keep in mind that if you're using a video from youtube, you can/should embed the video; since mine is from ABC, or if you're sharing an article, link it up as I did here.]

[This is when I give me reaction to this eco-event.] While watching this, I felt really frustrated and deceived. Part of my interest in the environment, eco-composition, and sustainability has sprung from watching films like this. The beauty and wonder they convey is enough to make anyone care about basic environmental concepts like "wildlife." But the fact that I'm essentially basing my career off of a *sometimes* false pretense is incredibly frustrating. (Keep in mind that he only represents his production company; I refuse to think about Planet Earth being "faked.")

So for me, the dilemma becomes this: does it really matter if this stuff is fake? If these faked documentaries inspire people like me to do real work in sustainability, then is anything lost? Are they deceiving us or inspiring us to care?

blog info

http://chadbigler.blogspot.com/

McDonalds: An ever-changing audience

Welcome In.

Hi all. Welcome to our class blog. Here we will do in-class pre-writing and other things. Once you get your individual blog set up, post a link to it as a comment to this post.

Happy blogging!