Blog Posts on Individual Blogs

YES THIS IS LONG. YES IT’S IMPORTANT TO READ THE WHOLE THING 🙂

Edited 10/13 to add: please consider enabling comments on your blog

Since one assignment is to comment on each other’s blog posts, it will help if you enable comments on your blog. Here is a video to walk you through it. In your dashboard go to Settings > Discussion. It’s totally up to you; you can require your own approval before any comment appears, and other options.

⬇︎⬇︎⬇︎ Original assignment description posted 22 September ⬇︎⬇︎⬇︎

A successful blog post gets people thinking about an issue, a document, an object, an event in more depth and/or in new ways. 

Your task IS to write between one and four blog posts inspired by and engaging the course materials. (See Grading below for more on how many.) By Midterm (Week 8), one to two of those posts are due. Each post should focus on one unit in the course. (So for Midterm, Units A, B, and C.) Post the link to your blog post in the Canvas assignment so I know how to find it.

Having a hard time thinking of something to write about? Reread the student blog and see what sparks interest.

Please do not quote or use anything specific from the blog on your own blog without permission. It is ok to say that in class discussions, your fellow students raised X issue, but please don’t quote or name anyone without their permission.

A successful blog post will have:

  • A key question, issue, dilemma driving the post (this is its focus!)
  • Analysis that engages & inspires the reader to consider what’s important about your topic and brings your own ideas in conversation with the course materials
  • Specific details from the course readings and other materials to support claims and questions being made.  
  • Clear writing free from grammatical errors so that the we all can understand the ideas
  • Good organization (1 paragraph per idea/topic)
  • Media: one or more images, videos, audio clips related to your topic(s), which are documented (where did you get this from? Document and link back) and not licensed in a way that prevents your use (is there copyright on the media? Is there a license that allows sharing? Be sure to add credit+license info on your blog!)
  • Uses tags and categories to organize the posts for readers & has an engaging title
  • Each post must be on a subdomain dedicated to this course OR use a category dedicated to this course. (We will have an online blog roll, and I’ll need to be able to grab your posts.)
  • 500-750 words NOT INCLUDING the reference list at the bottom
  • Abides by the guidelines for discussion we established for the class at the beginning of the semester.

You are welcome to provide links to outside resources/websites/articles/etc related to your topic(s).  Be sure:

  1. to explain how they connect to our course material, how they make you think about the topic in a new way/raise questions/clarify/etc. 
  2. the outside links abide by our own class guidelines we established
  3. the additional materials are from a reliable source

Documentation

What kind of documentation do you need for sources?

  • Quotes around direct quotes
  • In text citations for anything paraphrased OR referenced OR quoted directly
  • In text citations look like Author + page number for anything with page #s and/or a link for anything online with a link. Link can be in text (As Gallon argues, …) or in a parenthetical citation ((Gallon, “Making a Case”)). Some citations might have BOTH a link and a p #.
  • A list of references at the bottom of your post in whatever format you like as long as it’s consistent

Grading/Evaluation

All posts will be evaluated Incomplete/Satisfactory/Excellent based on the attached rubric.

  • Incomplete = Assignment submitted but does not meet requirements for Satisfactory
  • Satisfactory = Proficient or higher for criteria 1, 2, & 3; Proficient or higher for 5 of the remaining 6 criteria, with the remaining one being at Working toward Proficiency.
  • Excellent = Shows originality/complexity/excellence in at least 1 area and Proficient in the remaining.  

Incomplete (but submitted!) assignments may be revised using the Token system up to two times per post. (See the syllabus on the Token System.)  OR you can write an entirely new blog post on a different unit by the end of the semester and submit that one.

How many blog posts do you need?

  • For an A in the class: 2 on Units A, B, C + 2 on Units D, E, F at a Satisfactory or higher level (along with the other required assignments for an A in the course)
  • For a B in the class: 3 total with 1 or 2 on Units A, B, C + 1 or 2 on Units D, E, F at a Satisfactory or higher level (along with the other required assignments for an B in the course)
  • For a C in the class: 1 on Units A, B, C + 1 on Units D, E, F at a Satisfactory or higher level (along with the other required assignments for an C in the course)
  • For a D in the class: 1 on any at a Satisfactory or higher level (along with the other required assignments for an D in the course)

Excellent posts will earn Tokens and will be featured somehow on the course site & blog roll.

Do not count up points or percentages on the Canvas rubric. They are meaningless.   

Additionally as part of the blog assignment:

  • students need a coherent website (see the separate entry on website and Canvas)
  • students need to reply to their peers blog posts—not all but some; respond to what inspires you (see the separate entry on website and Canvas & the list of student websites here! –added 10/14)
  • a critical analytical reflection post, unless you’re doing a project (see the separate entry on website and Canvas)

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *