Daily Writing Feb. 24th

What is the status of your NOFO? What kinds of changes have you been making over time? What have you contributed to the writing of the NOFO? What has been your single biggest contribution to the process?
--Our NOFO is in the last revision process. I feel that we are almost at the final copy with very little revisions. We have changed almost everything in our NOFO. The biggest change was narrowing the issue down to medical and psychological needs of the homeless, which was actually my biggest contribution. I also helped with finding statistics and doing the research.


You are also working on your graphical representation of your SPB's writing process. What is the status of that work? What do you need to do in order to complete it? What does the group as a whole need to do to be able to complete it? What has been your single biggest contribution to the graphical representation?
--We have ideas for our graphical representation, but are not very far along on this process. We need to get together, take pictures of our group doing the process and compose a document including these photos. I need to take part in this group effort. I believe that we all contributed the same. I drew pictures, representing the process but the group has decided to take actual photos instead so, so far I have not contributed too much but I plan to when we actually do the assignment.

Daily Writing Feb 17th

Imagine that you are volunteering at a USFSP community partner dialogue and find yourself in conversation with the executive director of the Pinellas County branch of Volunteer Match. In this conversation, you are asked to describe the Student Philanthropy Boards and the NOFO process, which you do. You are then asked to describe the current NOFOs that will be made available to the public on 26 February. In this daily writing, describe that conversation. Be sure that you include brief descriptions of each of the 4 NOFOs being offered by SPBs 1-4.

I would describe the Student Philanthropy Board as a part of our Leadership program. I would describe how we discover and research the issues in the Pinellas and Hillsborough community. We then narrow down the issues to furthermore find a specific critical need of the community. The issue must be able to be solved or helped with our government grant of $5000. The NOFO process is fist deciding our issue. Then we narrowed it down to the specific critical need. We write a problem statement by researching the issue and declaring how it effects our community. Then we decide what the program should entail to create a solution. We must look at the different factors such as sustainability, proposal requirements from the different organizations and provide restrictions for these.

The first SPB worked on homelessness. They want to help provide a place for homeless people to regain their lives and overall positively impact their well being. They will maintain an existing program by helping it stay alive and will also include programs that will help with their success in the working world.

SPB 2 also wants to help the homeless. They want to give them the skills needed for a career, such as increasing their knowledge in technology. They also discussed transportation to get to these jobs and a place to keep clean.

SPB 3 worked with domestic violence. They want a safe place for women that are being abused and a place for their children as well. They want to have a place for women ages 18-30 to go to learn to be independent.

SPB 4 wants to clean the environment and focus on the litter. They discussed creating a program to keep the community beautiful by picking up litter and educating the people about recycling and maintaining the health of the environment.

Daily Writing Feb. 12

Based on your work as a student board (in both classes) how can you work toegether as a team today to get your draft written. Consider such aspects as research, statistics, writing styles, writing expertise, editing skills, listening skills, connections between categories for evlauation and problem statement and leadership. How will you help to facilitate this process? What can you do to contribute to your board today? In what areas do you need others to contribute to balance off your strengths and weaknesses?

We can work together as a group to finish the NOFOs by compromising. If we each find statistics and facts we can compile it together into one. ALso, if we chose the strongest writer than they can word it professionally. I will help by bringing up ideas and points to discuss. In order to balance my strengths and weaknesses, I need people to come to decisions because I am very indecisive in this process.

After Lunch

I thought that this lunch was very informational and productive for narrowing down our issues. I learned about Keeping Pinellas Beautiful, ASAP, Angels on Call, and the Center for Victims Rights. This made me even more supportive of homelessness because I did not realize how prominent it is in our community. I learned more about the issues in the community and what we can do to help. Overall it was very helpful.

Sources for NOFO

http://www.cafelaw.com/domvio.html

http://www.acadv.org/facts.html

Before Lunch With Organizations

From this lunch I hope to find out the issue that affects our community most.I want to know statistics about each issue to have a deeper understanding of each issue so that I can be more passionate about one and hopefully focus on one issue. I think is is very important to find out what is being done about the problem already and what needs to be done. I would also like to narrow down the issue so that funding a smaller issue within the problem will actually create an solution.

Some questions that I still need answers are:
-What are the narrower problems within the main issues?
-What makes this issue important to our community?
-Who is being affected by this issue and the solution?
-etc.

Daily Writing Feb. 5

Outside of writing classes, we don't often see writing that is purely one genre; typically, writing draws on qualities from different types of writing, juxtaposes them, and creates a specialized genre for the "work" the writing is doing. Constructing the NOFO/Request for Proposals requires that we bring together writing traits from the explanation of cause and effect, evaluative, and problem/solution writing. Looking back at the qualities of effective writing for all of these types of writing, first, list the qualities you think are most important to include and then explain how you see these qualities working together in a way to create a new genre.


Most important qualities:
-Clearly stated claim of relationship of cause and effect.
-Sufficient evidence
-Clear logical thinking.
-clearly defined problem
-Well explained/convincing solution
-Documentation
-Clearly defined and explained criteria
-Comparisons based on the criteria.
-Evidence that supports your claim.

These qualities work together to create our NOFO because discussing the negative cause and effect of a situation introduces the problem. We evaluate this relationship and compare based on our criteria. Using evidence and logical thinking about the problem can help declare a convincing solution. Therefore, we will create a different genre from evaluating cause and effect and furthermore solving a problem.

Ch. 9 Evaluation Writing:

Qualities:
-Clearly defined and explained criteria
-Comparisons based on the criteria.
-Evidence that supports your claim.
-An analysis and explanation of how any visual elements affect your evaluation.
-Clearly stated judgment.

Rhetorical Knowledge:
-Audience: who needs to make decisions about the subject of evaluation?
-Purpose: Convince reader to agree w. judgment.
-Rhet. Situation: Consider many factors that affect where you stand.
-Voice&tone: dont be a know it all
-context, medium, genre: Present evaluation best. (Graphs, charts, tables)

Critical Thinking, reading and writing:
-Learning: Observe subject of evaluation to gain deeper understanding.
-Responsibility: Consider all aspects of the item.
-Reading and Research: Examine in detail.

Writing Process:
-Invention: brainstorming, listing, clustering.
-Organize ideas: think about various aspects
-Revising: Read work w. critical eye
-Work w. peers

Conventions:
-editing: effective word choice.
-Genres
-Documentation

Daily Writing February 2nd

Choose a story from today's St. Petersburg Times that focuses on a problem where you can begin to think about causes and effects. Write a brief summary of the article. What is the main issue? Then talk about how the writer establishes cause and effect and clarifies this relationship. Include quotations from the article.

Given the sports section, the only problem I have discovered was USF's basketball team's fight to be recognized as a contender in the Big East and the overall nation. In summary, the article focuses on Dominique Jones, who is quoted as being possibly "the nation's best shooting guard," yet he is still not satisfied. The writer discusses how his determination inspires him to be better, and therefore increasing his averaging points per game. Jones states that from all his hard work, an effect will be taking his team to the NCAA tournament and leaving with USF basketball being "a winning program where (they'll) always be a contender in the Big East and the nation." Working hard in college basketball, may result in him achieving his main goal of being an NBA allstar.