Formal Blog Post Instructions

For your formal blog posts, you will be responsible for writing about the two specific weeks that you signed up for, plus a third week of your choosing. To do this, reflect on the week’s discussions and readings and think about what interests you or matters to you most. Then, create a post that will lead the class into a related conversation. In some respects, this assignment is pretty open. You have a lot of freedom to write about what you like. Feel free to bring in ideas from Core 240, last year’s Core courses, your professional studies, etc. What I do expect is that you show me well-explained complex connections that reveal how you see content presented in this class connecting to other people, events, and ideas.

Because this is both a blog post and an academic exercise, the following elements are REQUIRED and will be ASSESSED:

1. You must specifically spell out your own thinking about the course content and its connections to your post in clear language that can be understood by a public audience
2. You must refer to and cite course readings in your post, using at minimum the author’s last name.
3. You must include a link to the Course Readings post in our class blog so that outside readers can access the full citations in MLA format.
4. You must find and include link(s) to external web-based content (articles, web pages, blogs, videos, music, etc.) that illustrates and/or illuminates your ideas and fuels further conversation. In my experience, some of the best conversation starters come in the form of an embedded YouTube video.
5. You must provide a citation/description of your linked outside content and clearly explain how it connects to your ideas from class.
6. The writing in your post should be free from spelling and grammatical errors.

Labels

For the purposes of this class, it is critical and required that you use the "labels" feature to identify each post as your own. This will help the instructor quickly find your posts for assessment purposes. To do this, after typing in the post itself, add YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME to the labels box that appears just below the text box.

You should also use labels to add key words which will help other readers find your post if it relates to a topic they are interested in. Separate each label with a comma. When finished, go ahead and publish your post, but be sure to view your published work to be sure your full name appears in the right location on the blog. Notice that when viewing the blog, you can see a list of labels in alphabetical order on the right side of the screen. You can click on any label item (which might be an individual author's name) to pull up all the posts that have been so tagged.

Here is an example of what to type in the label box: Cyndi Brandenburg, instructions, labels, key words

Check out this post's labels to see how it looks.

Quick Help Links

If you need help posting, blogger can offer plenty of assistance. The general help page is found here. Information on how to post is located here. You can also find details on adding links or videos, and even directions on how to post a video from YouTube.

Welcome to the 2009 Class Blog for COR 230-05

Throughout this semester, our class studying the Secular and the Sacred will create blog posts that elaborate upon course content and connect to other materials through links to outside sources such as articles and videos. We will use these posts weekly as a launching point for in class discussions, so it is important that you create posts that you think are interesting and relevant.

Your blogging contribution will consist of a minimum of 3 formal posts (each worth 5%of your total class grade). You will sign up in class to post for two specific weeks during the semester. Your third post will occur whenever you decide, as long as it is completed prior to course week 13. Detailed instructions and requirements for the formal blog posts can be found here. Of course, you are welcome and encouraged to blog more frequently if you wish!

You will also be graded on your blog participation--this means the frequency and thoughtfulness with which you respond to other students' posts (using the comments feature) as well as completion of occasional informal assigned posts (such as your introduction post, which was due on Tuesday, January 20th). Your active participation in the blog is worth an additional 5% of your total class grade.


Although it is a required course component, I hope you will approach this blog as an opportunity to show your unique perspective on the material we read and discuss, to be creative, and to personalize what we are doing in class in a way that interests and excites you. Have fun, and remember, you are literally writing for the whole world to read!