Blogging Assignment and Evaluation

Throughout the semester, we will engage with the ideas of the course through public blogging.
Blogs only work when sustained by an energetic (and perhaps even chaotic) community. You
will both post your own written responses to our class and comment on the posts of your
colleagues. In both posts and in comments, we will take the opportunity to practice the moves
we learn from They Say, I Say.

You will contribute approximately once a week to the blog, posting an approximately 300- to
400-word response to one of the days readings. In other words, you will write about either
Tuesdays or Thursdays readings. You can choose, most of the time. However, you may not
blog about readings from either They Say, I Say or Reading and Writing about Literature.

There are a number of ways to approach these open-ended posts: formulate an insightful question
or two about the reading and then attempt to answer your own questions; write about an aspect of
the days reading that you dont understand, or something that jars you; or consider the reading
in relation to other texts for the day or those that we have already read. I will occasionally
provide promptings for particular directions to take.

There are sixteen weeks in our semester. You must write on the blog during at least 9 of these
weeks. You might think this means you can take 7 weeks off throughout the semester, but some
of these weeks have no readings you can blog about (weeks 1, 8, 15, and 16). As such, there are
only really 3 weeks that you can skip; use these weeks wisely. To ensure that everyone has a
chance to read the blog before class, post your response by 9 pm on the day before the class for
which the relevant text has been scheduled (Mon. for a Tues. class, Wed. for a Thurs. class).

You will also comment approximately twice a week on a post written by your peers. Your blog
comments should directly engage with the content of your colleagues posts. These can be short
and informal, but shouldnt be flippant. What points do you find compelling? What further
questions does the post raise for you? By the end of the semester, you must have posted 20
comments to your peers posts. Comments must be posted by 12 pm on the day of class.

Grading

Comments on blogs will be graded on a pass/fail basis. Blog entries will be graded according to
the following rubric, adapted from Mark Sample under the terms of a Creative Commons license
(CC BY 3.0).

Rating Characteristics

4 Exceptional. The blog post is focused and coherently integrates

examples with explanations or analysis. The post demonstrates
awareness of its own limitations or implications, and it considers
multiple perspectives when appropriate. The post reflects in-depth
engagement with the topic.
3 Satisfactory. The blog post is reasonably focused, and explanations or
analysis are mostly based on examples or other evidence. Fewer
connections are made between ideas, and though new insights are
offered, they are not fully developed. The post reflects moderate
engagement with the topic.
2 Underdeveloped. The blog post is mostly description or summary,
without consideration of alternative perspectives, and few
connections are made between ideas. The post reflects passing
engagement with the topic.
1 Limited. The blog post is unfocused, or simply rehashes previous
comments, and displays no evidence of student engagement with the
topic.
0 No Credit. The blog post is missing or consists of one or two
disconnected sentences.

Pedagogy and the Class Blog

Julie Meloni over at Prof. Hacker has a good rundown of the kinds of questions a professor
should think through when he or she integrates a blog into the classroom. Ive been using blogs
in my teaching for several years now, so I wanted to share a few ideas that have worked for me.
Im no expert and Im still casting about for solutions to some of the more nagging problems, but
after thirteen course blogs spread across seven semesters (I just counted!), I have obtained a
small measure of experience. In other words, I keep making mistakes, but at least not the same
ones over and over.

My university has bought into the Blackboard machine and does not offer any non-proprietary
online platform. Since I refuse to restrict access to my content (and by extension, my students
content), I host all of my class blogs right here, on samplereality.com, using WordPress. Of
course not everyone is geeky enough to own their own domain name (although you should, you
really, really should), but there are dozens of places where you can host a class blog for free
so dont feel like you have to use whatever online educational solution your campus throws at
you. One advantage of hosting everything myself is guaranteed permanency I have a
persistent archive of my online class conversation that I will never lose, because nobody else
controls it. And in fact, former students have told me how valuable it is to be able to revisit half-
forgotten blog posts long after theyve finished the class.

Ive always used group blogs in my classes: one central, collaborative blog where every students
posts. I prefer this format over the hub model, in which an official class site links out to
individual student blogs spread across the students own preferred blogging platforms. If nothing
else, the group blog makes my job easier. I can read all the posts in one place. It also makes it
more likely that students will read each others posts, generating a sense of momentum that is so
important to the students buy-in of class blogging.
But what about that momentum? How do you get students to post?

How do you get students to do anything?

You grade it.

I dont mean to sound cynical so much as realistic. Its a fact: students need to know that what
theyre spending their limited time doing is valued by us, their professors. And how do we show
we value something in the classroom? At the most superficial level, by grades. So I typically
make the blogging a substantial part of the semester grade. For example, in my most recent
graduate class on postmodernism, I required once-a-week postings that would add up to 20
percent of the final grade:

Each student will contribute to the weekly class blog, posting an approximately 500-word
response to the weeks readings. There are a number of ways to approach these open-ended
posts: consider the reading in relation to its historical or theoretical context; write about an aspect
of the days reading that you dont understand, or something that jars you; formulate an
insightful question or two about the reading and then attempt to answer your own questions; or
respond to another students post, building upon it, disagreeing with it, or re-thinking it. In any
case, strive for thoughtfulness and nuance. To ensure that everyone has a chance to read the blog
before class, post your response by midnight the evening before class.

But how do you grade blog posts? Over time I devised a simple five-point rubric, ranging from 0
(no credit) to 4 (exceptional). Its quick and in roughly 1-2 minutes I know what to rate any
given blog post:

Rating Characteristics
4 Exceptional. The journal entry is focused and coherently
integrates examples with explanations or analysis. The
entry demonstrates awareness of its own limitations or
implications, and it considers multiple perspectives
when appropriate. The entry reflects in-depth
engagement with the topic.
3 Satisfactory. The journal entry is reasonably focused,
and explanations or analysis are mostly based on
examples or other evidence. Fewer connections are
made between ideas, and though new insights are
offered, they are not fully developed. The entry reflects
moderate engagement with the topic.
2 Underdeveloped. The journal entry is mostly description
or summary, without consideration of alternative
perspectives, and few connections are made between
ideas. The entry reflects passing engagement with the
topic.
 1 Limited. The journal entry is unfocused, or simply
rehashes previous comments, and displays no evidence
of student engagement with the topic.
0 No Credit. The journal entry is missing or consists of
one or two disconnected sentences.

I strive for as much transparency as possible, so its essential that your expectations (i.e. the
rubric) are explained to the students early on, and always available for them to review later. Once
I have a few exemplary posts on the blog, I like to walk the class through what makes those posts
exceptional (with the authors permission).

I mentioned that grades are a superficial way of showing students what we value. Direct and
immediate descriptive feedback does more than a single letter or number can. So to deepen
students understanding of their own work, I comment on every students blogging at least twice
throughout the semester. These are public comments, posted below the blog post, again
contributing to the collaborative and transparent ecosystem of the blog.

So we have grades, and we have comments, but these alone arent enough to make students
realize the value of blogging for a class. What we need is some reflection upon the part of the
student. To this end, about halfway through the semester I assign students a version of what
Sheridan Blau in The Literature Workshop calls an audit of their own work. I go meta with this
audit, making it a blog post on blogging:

Begin by printing and reading all of your posts and comments (you can access a list of your posts
from the Archive menu at the top of the site). As you reread them, take notes, critically reading
your entries as if they were written by somebody else (or at the very least, recognizing that they
were written by a different you at a different time).

Compose a short analysis and reflection of your posts. This meta-post is open-ended and the
exact content is up to you, although it should be thoughtful and directed. Feel free to quote
briefly from your own posts or to refer to specific ideas from the readings weve studied so far.

Some questions to consider might include: What do you usually write about in your posts? Are
there broad themes or specific concerns that reoccur in your writing? Has the nature of your
posts changed in the past five or six weeks? What changes do you notice, and how might you
account for those changes? What surprised you as you reread your work? What ideas or threads
in your posts do you see as worth revisiting? What else do you notice? What aspects of the
weekly blogging do you value most, and how does it show up in your posts?

This blogging about blogging invariably ends up being a pivotal moment in the students
relationship to the class blog. Its when they begin to have a sense of ownership over their ideas,
a kind of accountability that carries over into their class discussion and other written work. Its
also when they truly realize that theyre engaged in a thoughtful, thought-provoking endeavor.
Its when the blog becomes more than a blog.
Why Blog?
You might very well be asking yourself, why should I be blogging for an English class? And I
think its a fair question, so let me give you the best answer that I can.

In the first place, you should expect that a class in the English department will help you refine
your ability to write. From my own experience, I have found that the best way to improve ones
writing is to practice. Thus, this blog is a place for you to practice your writing. And not just any
writing, but careful and thoughtful writing that seeks to answer the two questions of literary
study: what? and how?

But why a blog? Why cant you just write assignments, print them out, and hand them in? While
literary studies might seem to be a very solitary taska single author responding on her own to a
single-authored textit is in fact a conversation. Of course, one is always in conversation with
the text being examined, but a good writer is also in conversation with others writing about the
same text. Youve done this in the past when writing research papers. When blogging you
broaden your audience: suddenly your classmates can be in conversation with youeven when
were not in the classroom.

Okay, so we want to practice writing and to engage one another in our understanding of the texts
at hand. But why do this on a public blog (i.e., not Blackboard) where *gulp* someone might
find what Ihave to say? Quite simply: the more the merrier in a conversation. If we draw
attention from the outside world, it will help us remember that college is not simply preparation
for the real world but that it is in fact a vital part of the real world.