The blog offers us a space for wrestling with abstractions, extending unfinished class discussions, and inventing connections between our critical texts and case studies, or between our critical texts and other texts. It also offers us a space to perform critical thinking and critical analysis, and that is one of the main reasons I am asking you to blog. You don't have to have all the answers; you just need to be willing to work it out and work it through! Nine times over the semester, I'll ask you to compose one high-quality post and then to respond in-depth to another post, specifically taking up the issues, themes, or questions from our readings during that week. Both your posts and your responses should be smartly and thoughtfully composed, and you should give yourself plenty of time to write and revise them. You should also plan to have the readings at hand when you work on the blog. (Please see our Class Schedule for required blogging dates.)
1. Making Critical Connections: Use Your Posts to Invent Something Worthwhile
I will not prompt you with prescribed questions; instead, your goal is to articulate the complexities of what you read in an interesting and organized fashion, guided by some kind of a claim statement or specific realization. Your goal is also to write something that will elicit a response. These posts are your critical
offerings to the rest of the class, where critical means you are
applying the terms, concepts, and theories of others to something you
have read in order to understand it more fully. You might
start a conversation on a neglected topic, or draw our attention to a
new way of thinking about a specific dilemma we could not solve in class. You might try putting words to something that perplexes you, or
demonstrating concepts you understand as a way of teaching others what
you know. You might apply knowledge you've gained in class to knowledge you are gaining out in the world, or vice-versa. Whatever you do, you should engage your reader and keep your reader engaged. You should not simply generalize, opine, or editorialize. Feel free to embed hyperlinks to other sources, images, or illustrations if you feel like those would aid your explanation of difficult concepts (you can do this by using the "Link" icon in the blogger toolbar when you compose).
2. Discussing Texts Together: Synthesize, Don't Just Summarize
I am expecting you will write for critical depth and synthesis, which means you should not simply summarize the articles, or regurgitate what we have discussed in class. Instead, you should plan to put several texts into conversation with each other, and that means you may need to read them more than once before you compose your post. By "conversation," I don't necessarily mean "dialogue" (although that is an option), but I do mean discuss several theorists or questions together, or help us to understand how one text extends or complicates
another. This kind of synthesis will help you find your realization or claim.
3. Showing Your Sources and Influences: Attribute Your Texts
While you don't need a formal Works Cited list at the end of your blog post, you should mention the full names of authors you quote or paraphrase, and the titles of articles you discuss, somewhere in the context of your post. Remember to enclose chapter and article titles in "quote marks", and to italicize the titles of films, periodicals, or books. Include page numbers when you quote or paraphrase. If you refer to something we haven’t read, provide us with either the citation so we can find it ourselves, or a hyperlink allowing us to access the document--especially images and video where you use them.
4. Catching the Reader's Interest: Insert Jump-Breaks
Due to the large number of participants on this blog, we want the look of the home page to be streamlined and clean, but we also want to entice readers to keep reading. To accomplish this, we'll insert a "jump-break" strategically in every post. This means that you will need to ensure your post has a meaningful (even provocative) opening paragraph. After that paragraph, hit the "enter/return" key, then insert a "jump-break" by clicking on the jump-break icon in the blogger toolbar (this is the icon that looks like a sheet of paper splitting in two). Then, just continue composing.
5. Fulfilling the Task: Write Enough
Setting word limits in electronic mediums can be pointless and problematic (since it isn't like setting word limits on a printed page), but you should plan to write at least a couple of screens' worth, as you are aiming for a fairly expert level of discussion. This often comes to ~800 words, but I urge you to simply write enough, which may mean writing a bit less or a bit more.
6. Being Accurate: Write with Clarity
Everyone's challenge is in genuinely communicating their thoughts, ideas, values, and arguments to unfamiliar readers. That said, your posts should be polished so that they communicate well. You are writing for a public audience, and this isn't Facebook! Paragraphing, spelling, and accuracy all matter in this context. Try stating your main claim early in the post to help us follow your thought process. Be clear about the full names of authors and titles of articles you are discussing (check all the details). If you are responding to part of someone else's post, please copy/paste that part for others to see, or embed a link to their post, and provide some context for it.
7. Forecasting Your Argument: Title Your Posts
You're attracting readers with your titles, so they should be creative and interesting (not vague or generic), reflecting what you have thought or written or are trying to argue. Make them relevant, but have fun with them! Try distinguishing your particular post as uniquely as possible from all the others. If desired, you could title your posts according to the materials you demonstrate or the cases you use, for example: "Authors, We Need You (Sometimes!)" "The Ethic Uncovered (and Then Recovered, and Covered Again)""Louis C.K. Always Gets It Right!" "Is the Cabin in the Woods Really A Trope?" [Those are examples from previous classes, so I believe they're already taken. :) ]
8. Being Transparent: Sign Your Name (or Pseudonym)
Please remember to sign your name (or your pseudonym) to every post and every response so that other readers and writers know who left it.
9. Getting Beyond I Agree/Disagree, I Like/Don't Like: Respond Productively
Remember that your responses to other writers' posts should be as critically thoughtful as your own posts, and they should go into some depth on what you read. Rather than just agreeing or disagreeing, liking or disliking, I'm looking for you to continue the conversation in the post, offer something in return, point our attention to another part of the passage the writer overlooked, raise a new question -- really, anything to keep the discussion moving forward!
10. Being a Citizen Blogger: Follow Good Civil/Civic Discussion Practices
We will spend some time discovering what these are, but for now please remember that the aim of our discussions is to exchange ideas and help others understand why we think the way we do. In one sense, what we do is like diplomacy. Flaming, aggression, hate speech, inside jokes, or tactics that cause others to feel marginalized or excluded will not only not be tolerated by me, they will also shut down conversation and undermine your discussions.
