Welcome!

Welcome to the course blog for ENG 11011. This is an interactive forum for reflecting upon and discussing the course material and sharing your experiences with writing. Ideally, we will all be active participants in an online community, responsible for both production and consumption of written knowledge. I expect you to respond not only to course material, but also to one another.

REQUIREMENTS

1) Weekly reflections on the assigned readings: You will be responsible for posting 250 words per week to the blog. Half the class will post on Monday and half will post on Wednesday. Specific due dates TBA.

2) In-class writing assignments: We will occasionally use the blog to write about topics in class.

WHAT/HOW DO I WRITE?

Your weekly blog posts will be responses to any aspect of the reading assignment. What did you think? Is there an idea you find interesting or problematic? You might connect the reading to other things you have read, or relate the ideas to your own experiences. You could also pose "food for thought" questions about the reading topics, or ask the class about ideas that confused you. You can summarize the ideas of the author, but I am most interested in your ideas. This assignment is open-ended and reflective, but I still expect you to engage with the topic. In order to receive credit, you must add something of substance to the ongoing conversation or move it forward. Be as clear and reader-friendly as possible. I will not be grading for mechanical correctness, but please try to keep your thoughts relatively focused and organized.

There are two ways to participate on the blog:

1) Create your own post. You can save your post before you publish it to the blog, and revise it at any time.
2) Use the "comments" function to post your reactions to other posts. Once posted, these cannot be revised, so choose your words carefully.

EVALUATION/GRADING:

• This assignment constitutes 15% of your overall grade.
• Blog entries are "graded" on a credit/no credit basis. You will receive credit for substantive, thoughtful entries. Each incomplete or missing entry will lower your grade.
• Grammar and mechanics will not lower your grade unless they detract from the clarity of your blog post(s).

RULES/GUIDELINES:

• This an open-ended, flexible assignment with only a few guidelines:
  
  1) Respect one another. Disagreement is welcome; inflammatory personal attacks are not. Just don't be a jerk.
  
  2) Exercise discretion. These discussions can and will be somewhat informal, but remember that this is a public web page. Your words reflect not only yourself but the class as a whole, so choose them wisely.
  
  3) Stay relevant. I welcome the unexpected diversions that will undoubtedly occur, but your posts and comments should be at least tangentially related to the larger discussion.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

• Audience - This is a public forum, so keep your audience in mind when you write. You aren't just writing for yourself or your teacher - you're writing for your classmates, and for any virtual interlopers who happen to stumble upon our blog!
• Participation - Those of you more reticent to speak in class may find this virtual space more comfortable than the physical one. Feel free to write more than 250 words if you are so inclined.
• Intertextuality - You may link to video, audio, images, or other web pages, provided the information is relevant to the blog dicussion.

Consider this blog an open space for all your questions, anecdotes, observations, advice, philosophical musings, and ideological assertions. Through continuous reflection, we can explore our individual identities as writers. Furthermore, the blog provides a vehicle for ongoing dialogue that will hopefully serve as a virtual construction of our classroom experience.

Talk to me if you need help. Any suggestions/comments regarding the weekly blog assignment are welcome.

I look forward to your thoughtful ruminations.

Phil