Overview
This semester you will be required to maintain a blog for English 278. These blogs are your own. I encourage you to publish whatever observations, questions, arguments, etc. that you have about/with this semester’s material. I also encourage you to contribute via links images, texts, video, and audio that you find relevant to our work this semester. Your audience is everyone in this class. But beyond us, you’re writing for the world.
Perhaps a useful way to think about your blog is as a breeding ground for the more substantial essay you’ll produce for class. It’s a place for quick thoughts, ill-considered reactions, near-misses (and near hits), introspective quicksanding, A-plus thesis thinking, and just about anything in between.
Initial posts will anticipate what we will discuss in class. Writing these posts should allow you to develop ideas, questions, and arguments for class. Also, I hope to use some of the ideas and questions from blogs in the class. In some sense, this is your own way of helping to set the class’s agenda.
Posting Deadlines
You will be required to post two entries on your blog each week. The first of these weekly posts will respond to a prompt or question I give you. These posts must be at least 300 words in length.
Your second post should be a response to a blog from your small group. You should both quote and link to the blog that you’re responding to. Your response should in some way build upon, re-think, or disagree with (respectfully!) with the original post. These posts should be at least 150 words.
Your post in response to the class prompt is due the Thursday before class each week. Your small-group response is due the Tuesday after class. If your post appears after a deadline, it will lose a point for each day it is late.
Requirements
These blogs are not freewrites, nor are they formal essays. Rather, they should be structured, thought-out, informal writing that exists somewhere between the two extremes. At the start of some classes, or if discussion seems to drop during others, I might ask you summarize and comment on your blog post (though not simply recite it). You should be able to talk for about two or three minutes.
Grades
Posts will be evaluated on a scale of 0 to 10. If you choose to do more than two posts during a week, you may receive extra credit.
0 = Not completed
1-5 = F
6 = D
7 = C
8 = B
10-9 = A
