About the Blog
The blog is a place where you can break out of the academic tone we will be practicing in our more formal writing and engage with the ideas of the course in a more conversational, and dare I say, exciting way. We are all writing all the time—in text messages, emails, tweets and status updates—and the blog posts I ask you to do are intended to build a bridge from the informal writing you are already comfortable with and doing all the time to the more formal academic prose we will be working on together in class. I encourage you to post pictures and videos to accompany your posts and to comment on each other posts—our blog will be as fun and interesting as we make it! You can either click the “Add Media” tab at the top of the input page, or simply cut and paste the URL to embed youtube videos. Blog posts should be at least 2 developed paragraphs long and are due by 12 pm on the day before they are listed as “writing due” on the syllabus. Sometimes I will ask you to respond to specific prompts, like the “representing consciousness post” I asked you to do for your first blog post. Otherwise, there will be 3 types of blog posts:
- Free Choice: In this type of blog post, you can explore any of the ideas we’ve read about, discussed or that you’ve been thinking/ talking about on your own (related to class material). This blog post can be anything you want it to be!
- Reading Log: Alternatively, you can choose a reading we’re doing that week and share your experience with it. Was it challenging? fun? Did it make you think of anything else we’ve read this semester or that you’re reading/doing/talking about outside of class? What do you think the author was trying to accomplish?
- Reflective Log: When this type of blog post is assigned, I’d like you to reflect on your writing process—what is going well? What isn’t? You can also ask questions or for advice. Use your community!
