last.updated 9.15.13

Blog Entries

Purpose

Research shows that one of the best ways for writers to think through an issue is to write. When we write, we often imagine an audience who has to understand what we are composing. And as we try to have our writing make sense to various audiences, we think about the logic of what we write. As a result, the process of writing about the issue helps us to refine our thinking about that issue. The blog entries provides a relatively low stakes opportunity for you to think through certain processes you will engage in, as well as the topic you will be writing about this semester.

First you will establish a blog on Blogger or another application that facilitates the posting of blog entries. You can set your preferences to make your blogs public or private; however, the instructor recommends setting your preferences to public so that you can learn the impact that your writing can have.

Throughout the semester, you have two types of blog entries to compose. First, there will be Prep Blog Entries to help you prepare for and get feedback on thinking you are doing for assignments you will be doing. The purpose is to use these entries to practice applying or working with a new concept. The evaluation of these blogs is weighted low to encourage you to take risks with your thinking. The second type of blog assignment are Research Blog Entries in which you will read five texts on the topic you are studying (3 popular texts and 2 academic texts). Each entry should be 300-500 words long.

Use the guidelines below to help you compose your blog entry.

Prep Blog Entry
Instead of submitting new ideas and your understanding of new concepts in your final assignments, the Prep Blog Entries give you the opportunity to work with an idea and get instructor feedback on it first. Writing done for these blog entries should be revised (based upon the instructor's feedback and inserted into or used to inform your final drafts of corresponding assignments.

Research Blogs

A significant feature of academic writing, like the IMRAD essay, is the literature review in which the writer explains what other scholars have written on the topic; this is a way to show how their own research fits into a larger academic conversation. These blogs entries will give you the opportunity to work through your understanding of the texts that you choose, as well as provide your opinion of the text. Like the Prep Blog Entries, you encouraged to appropriately insert revised portions of these texts into your entries.

For these blog entries you will be responding to five texts–three popular texts and two academic texts (one academic text can be replaced with a government report). In 300-500 words, you will...

• provide a citation of the work (not part of the word count)
• explain the author's argument; in what way does the author try to get you to think or act a certain way?
• summarize the evidence and/or logic the author uses to arrive at this conclusion
• provide a review of the text and explain your reasoning. You might address the following questions: Do you think this is a reasonable argument? Why? From what you can tell, was evidence collected well? How do you think the authors of other articles that you have read on this topic would respond to this argument?

Definitions

Popular source–A source that comes from from a organization or press that is not subject to peer review (often mostly subject to an editor) and is written for the general public. It is recommended that you choose a popular source that comes from a reputable source (i.e., news organization, government organization, magazine, interest group) that "try" to present objective facts and arguments. However, if you feel that you will benefit from exploring a clearly biased source, you may do so as long as you can justify your decision.
Due Dates: October 21, October 23, October 28

Academic source–A source that comes from a university or academic press. They are often found in academic journals, edited collections, and monographs–academic books written or co-written by the same author(s). These sources have been peer-reviewed by experts in a specific field. Your second academic source can be replaced by a government report.
Due Dates: October 30, November 6

Peer's Blogs

Criteria

Logistic:

• 300-500 words, please note this is an exercise in detailed brevity
• single-spaced
• Due on the days listed above (see also the calendar).
• 150 points

After you compose your first entry send an email to the instructor directing him to your post by placing the URL in the body of a message. You do not need to send a message for subsequent submissions, but you need to have your entry written and posted by the due date and time.

Prep Blog Entry

The Prep Blog Entry assignment will cumulatively be worth 50 points. All students will start with 40 points and your grade will be adjusted according to the evaluation of each of the ten entries. If the instructor adds any entries to the assignment, these entries will be opportunities to build upon the score you earning for the assignment; the total for the assignment will remain 100 points. Each entry will be graded using the following scale...

check (or 0) = You did the work satisfactorily and on time. If it is an earlier entry, use the instructor's comments to guide how you compose future entries

+1, +2= You demonstrated various degrees of engagement with the ideas and you turned it in on time. Use features that the instructor liked as a model for future entries

–1, -2= Your work demonstrates a misunderstanding of the assignment or minimal effort, shows that you do not understand what an academic text entails, or was not turned in on time.

- 4 = No submission

Research Blog Entry

The Research Blog Entry assignment will cumulatively be worth 100 points. Each entry is worth 20 points. Entries that demonstrate evidence that they are the appropriate kind of text, have no less than 300 words, and the writer made an effort to fulfill the three writing criteria for the assignment will receive no less than 15 points. Late submissions will be docked points and non-submissions will be given no points.

Overall

In addition to the general evaluation criteria, the instructor will be looking for evidence of...

• a sense of audience–do you provide enough information and detail that your audience of peers can follow your line of thinking or understand the content of the text you chose? Likewise do you only focus on important information?
• a genuine attempt to understand the article's content as exemplified by your attempt to look up information and ask questions of the text
• do you provide a substantiated opinion of the text or demonstrate logical connections to other texts you have read?
• a professional persona and an understanding of the discourse community
• appropriate use of conventions, including MLA or APA citation formatting