Blog Posts

Rotating Due Dates

Over the course of the semester, each student will be required to post several times to the course blog. Posts are due by midnight the night before class meets. This is to give the rest of the class time to read your posts before we meet. Late posts will be penalized.

Before you make your first post, you must be added to the course blog as an author. Sometime during the week before you are scheduled to make your first post, you will receive an email from me inviting you to be an author on the blog. Click on the link in the email to accept. If you do not have a Google account you will be required to sign up for one, otherwise you will be able to log in to blogger.com using your gmail user ID and password.

Your post should be 250-500 words in length (3-4 paragraphs), or about a page or two in Microsoft Word using a standard 12-point font and double spacing. Sample topics might include (but are not limited to):

• responding to one of the reading questions posed in Reading Narrative Fiction
• examining how the author employs one or more of the critical concepts or techniques we have read about and/or discussed in class
• identifying a particular scene / image / piece of dialogue / etc. and an examination of that moment’s importance to the overall work
• posing a thoughtful question about some aspect of the reading that seems strange or curious and speculating about why the author made that particular set of choices

Your posts should not be based simply on whether or not you liked the reading, nor should they focus on things other than the reading (such as biographical / historical details, etc.). 

Blog posts will be scored on a scale of 1-10 in accordance with the following rubric:

• 0: The post was not attempted.
• 1-4: The post was incomplete or unsatisfactory in some substantial way (such as not focusing on the reading).
• 5-7: The author focuses on the reading, but offers analysis that is erroneous, unsubstantiated, or banal. Claims might not be supported with evidence from the text. The post may rely primarily on plot summary or irrelevant information rather than posing an interpretation of the text. The post may contain awkward or inconsistent formatting and/or errors in spelling and grammar.
• 8-9: The post poses a thoughtful interpretation of the reading that show the author has engaged seriously with it. The author supports all interpretive claims with specific evidence (such as quotations) from the text. The post is cleanly formatted and relatively free of errors in spelling and grammar.
• 10: The post poses a thoughtful, surprising interpretation of the reading that helps me to understand the piece in a new and unique way. The author supports all interpretive claims with specific evidence (such as quotations) from the text. The post is cleanly formatted and free of any errors in spelling or grammar.