The class blog assignment asks you to write a brief (300-600 word) response to class reading and discussions each week, and post that summary to our class blog.
This post should reflect on rather than simply summarize what we did during this week. Here are some things you could do to achieve this (not an exhaustive list, nor a series of prompts you must follow, choose one of these, or do something similar these prompts inspired you to think about):
- Connect something we learned about or did during the week to an interest of your own. This could be a personal, educational, or professional interest (for example, you might think about how the digital mapping we worked on in class might apply to your future professional life)
- Discuss what you think the larger implications of something we did or learned about in class might be (for example, what might be the larger implications of something like text analysis or metadata be?)
- Ask a question about something we learned about or did, and try to answer this question as best you can
- Connect something we learned about or did during the week to something you learned about in another class. Compare and contrast how this idea was dealt with in this class and your other class.
- Connect something we learned about or did during the week to a recent news story or piece of pop culture. How does these two things shed light on each other? What new insights into the news or culture do you get from our class material or vice versa?
None of these reflections need be profound nor do they need to be written up in a perfect or highly polished way. They should be clear and show me your detailed understanding of the class work for the week. In other words, as much as possible, avoid vague statements like “everything we talked about this week really made me think” and try your best to include details like “when we learned about creating individual map layers in a mapping project, it made me think about all the ways lots of different documents in our lives are multilayered…”
Instructions
Setting Up Your Account
I will send you an invite to the class blog before our second class meeting. You will need to set up a password for the class blog, as it is independently hosted and does not use your WCU credentials. Do not re-use your WCU password for the class blog. Be sure to remember your username and password for the class blog, as you will need them to complete the blog assignment.
Once you have your account, log in to the class blog using the “log in” link in the “Log in link for students” section of the left hand column (under my contact information). Once logged in, go to the “users” section of the dashboard (look for the link on the left once you’re logged in) and select “your profile.” Fill out your first name and last name, or a nickname I will recognize you by, and then use the “display name publicly as” drop down to set your display name for the blog.
It’s important for you to complete the step above, since setting your display name will allow me to easily identify your posts. If your publish your posts without setting your display name, they may not be counted for credit.
Blog Post Creation and Formatting
You will complete one blog post each week during weeks 1-11 of the semester. This means you will complete 10 blog posts total for the class. Blog posts should be submitted before 11:59pm each Friday.
To create your blog post: Log in to the class blog and navigate to the “Posts” section of the left-hand bar. Choose “New Post” and compose your post using the editor which appears.
Blog title: Give your post a title beginning with “Blog Post Week N” where N is the number of the current week. Then append more interesting and personalized title to this following a colon (for example “Blog Post Week 2: Adventures in Distant Reading” or “Blog Post Week 3: Gettin’ Archival With It”)
Blog category: To get your blog post to appear in the “weekly blog” section of the site, be sure to select the “weekly blog post” category from the right hand tool bar before publishing.
To publish your blog post: When you’ve completed your post click the blue “publish” button in the upper right of the editor. A blue button labelled “submit for review” will appear. Click this to submit your post to me for evaluation. Once I evaluate your post, I will publish it for the class blog, so your peers and others can read it.
Blog Evaluation
Each post is worth up to ten points. Posts will be scored as follows:
- 0 points: Post not completed
- 5 points: Post less than half the assigned length, very sloppy and difficult to understand, or lacking any concrete references to class readings/discussions/activities
- 8 points: Post complete, and clear, but lacking specific details about class readings/discussions/activities
- 10 points: A complete, clear, detailed, post that engages with class readings and activities and demonstrates your unique learning
If you score less than 10/10 on a given post, I will leave a comment on the post explaining what you need to change to improve your score. If you post a revised version within 1 week of receiving my comment, I will revise your score accordingly.
If you do not post by the 11:59pm deadline, your post will lose 3 points from its score for every 24 hours it is late. After 3 days, a score of 0 will be assigned.
I will drop the 2 lowest scoring blog posts from your final blog post assignment score.
