One requirement of this
course is to write a weblog to record your thinking
over the course of the semester. Don’t
worry if you’ve never blogged before. It’s a
lot like breathing. Okay, maybe a better analogy would be thinking.
Everyone can think. I will provide the software; all you need to do is write. You could raise questions from your reading or from
what we do in class; you could talk about interesting issues you’ve come
across; you could also respond to a classmate’s blog posting in the class. There are no right
or wrong answers in blogging, so just give it an honest try. We will
start blogging the second week of class.
You should post at least once
per week to your blog. I will read all
postings as they are published, but will only grade your blog at the end of the
semester, based on the postings you want me to evaluate. To that end, you should choose one or more
postings per week you want me to see.
(The easiest way to do this will be to tag the appropriate postings or
create a category “Portfolio.”) You may
also select comments on other people’s blog posts, but you’ll have to include
their complete url. As long as you identify at least one posting
for each week for me to review, the number of postings you submit won’t be a
consideration in the grade. To grade
your blog I will look at several factors:
·
How engaged you
seem to be with the issues you blog about.
·
The depth,
thoughtfulness and creativity of your postings.
·
The progress in
thinking and learning your blog reflects.
Blog Commentary
The purpose of this assignment
is to make a case for your intellectual growth this semester. To that end, please write a reflective essay,
which addresses the following issues:
·
Why did you
select the blog posts that you did?
·
How do they
illustrate the intellectual growth you experienced in this course?
·
Some people find
that blogging is not their cup of tea.
Fair enough. If you are one of
those individuals, explain how your intellectual growth was reflected in your
other contributions to the course: the graded papers, the expert study, your
class participation. If your
intellectual growth was not reflected in any of those ways, how did it manifest
itself?
Your blog portfolio (and
commentary) will be due by the last day of class. That is, you’ll need to let me know in
writing which posts to review by Thursday, December 7. This will be worth 25% of your final grade.