I would make a lengthwise cut along the part of it that will be in the soil. I would put most of it in the soil and keep in well watered. I would not remove all of the leaves, but probably most of them, and I would do it in the proportion to which you live in a desert climate.
John S
PDX OR

Thanks John, will do!

Have had great success with rooting hormone and blackberries, darn near 100% success rate.

I bought two bkackberry plants from a nursery here in early summer, placed the pots in sun and continued watering during the summer not hoping to have any fruit the first year. Winter is coming so I thought to move the pots a bit. I noticed that some branches had curved over to the ground and the tips had rooted well. I cut the branches leaving a foot in the ground hoping that these will become new plants.
Tip rooting has been mentioned often for blackberries propagation.

Some blackberries (Triple Crown in particular) are very hard to keep from rooting. After planting them last year, I had a lot of the canes tip root. I feel guilty about ripping blackberries out (even small tip roots...), so this year I decided to do my best to prevent it (keeping them tied up on a trellis). Even so, there were still 10-15 canes which tip rooted by growing quickly enough to reach the ground while I wasn't looking.