A central feature of this course will be the writing we do on this site. In what follows, I will outline three things:
- a rationale for why I ask you to blog in the first place, rather than write traditional essays
- a quick primer on how to create your first post
- a simple rubric to guide your writing + an example of a good-looking post
First things first: why blog?
1. Blogging is sharable: rather than have a private circuit between you and me, we have a much more dynamic conversation across the entire class.
2. Blogging is public, sort of: I like the idea that we are responsible for our ideas in front of broader audiences. In practical terms, I doubt anyone is listening in most of the time, but I think it’s important that we roll up our sleeves and defend our arguments in an open and public forum as often as possible. And of course, you can show your family/friends/pets what we’ve been up to in class. For those who have reservations about privacy, note that a) you can only be identified via firstname+last initial, so you have relative privacy beyond our class; and b) you are free to delete your posts at the end of class. If anyone has serious reservations despite all this, feel free to contact me. A fuller accounting of rights/responsibilities is here.
3. Blogging is sturdy: rather than forget the piece of paper once it’s been handed back, we can link back to prior statements or observations, or to each others’. If you like, you can leave your posts up for future students to see.
4. Blogging is responsive: rather than only getting comments from me, you’ll comment on and get comments on each other’s work.
So how do you post? Here’s a quick guide to posting on WordPress for newbies. It’s super easy once you figure it out the first time. So here goes:
1. LOG ON: anyone can see the blog site, but only those logged on as “authors” can post. If you simply click on the link you received when I invited you, you can follow the prompts to log in. Two helpful hints:
a) you can always tell when you’re logged in, since there’s a slim black bar across the top that looks like this:
and b), if you ever want to go straight to the “back end” of the site (called the “dashboard” in WP parlance), throw “admin” on the end of the URL. So, jallred.net/wordpress/faulkner takes you to the site, whereas jallred.net/wordpress/faulkner/admin takes you to the login dialogue and then to the “dashboard.” Try it.
2. START A POST: there are several ways to post. Here’s the easiest: click the <+ NEW> icon in the top middle of the screen and select “post.” It looks like this:
3. WRITE SOMETHING: “New Post” will take you to a basic text editor. So write something. If you want to get fancy, you can add italics, bold, indentation, insert images or other media, and whatnot. But most of the time you’ll just try to write some reasonable sentences. When you’re done, click PUBLISH on the right (see image below). Or, if you’re not quite ready, you can save it as a draft and reopen it later, via the “POSTS” section of the dashboard. Helpful hint: WordPress autosaves your work every few seconds, so it’s very, very rare to lose stuff. Nonetheless it’s not a bad idea to compose posts on a word processor and then paste them into WP just in case. I personally live dangerously most of the time and have never lost anything, but your call.
We’re good, right? Happy blogging.
What makes for an excellent post? For this class, posts should:
- contain 400-800 words (use word count in WordPress or your word processor)
- analyze a text’s form and themes, using quotations and paraphrases of the text with page numbers in parentheses
- engage the text critically, pointing out the particular ways it imagines, for example, racial or gender identities, relates to other texts we’ve read, harbors unstated assumptions, etc.
Here’s a simple rubric, adapted from Mark Sample, that I will use to evaluate your work (see how the academic blogosphere encourages sharing and exchange? I told you so!):
| Rating |
Characteristics |
| 4 |
Exceptional. The post is focused and coherently integrates examples with explanations or analysis. It moves beyond summary to engage the text critically, giving a sharp, original close reading. It makes useful connections to other texts and raises novel questions. It points out aspects of the text that will surprise and stimulate the casual reader: “why didn’t I think of that?!” |
| 3 |
Satisfactory. The post is reasonably focused, and explanations or analysis are mostly based on examples or other evidence. It provides a dutiful reading of primary text but fails to engage the text more than glancingly. The entry reflects moderate engagement with the topic and/or rehashes what was said in class. |
| 2 |
Underdeveloped. The post is restricted to summary, without consideration of alternative perspectives, and may contain misreadings of the text at one or more points. The entry reflects passing engagement with the topic. |
| 1 |
Limited. The journal entry is unfocused, or simply rehashes others’ comments; it fails to grasp fundamental aspects of the argument. |
| 0 |
No Credit. The journal entry is missing or consists of one or two disconnected sentences. |
Last but not least, here’s an example of a good-looking post. We won’t read The Unvanquished this time, so the particulars won’t be familiar. But note how the author:
- draws a tight focus on something “a bit weird” at the top: most casual readers won’t have focused on the way sleep is thematized in the text.
- uses quotations from different points in the text to show how the theme is threaded throughout the text.
- balances quotation/paraphrase and original analysis so we feel ourselves carries along by an argument, not just a grab-bag of moments.
Your results may vary, and that’s fine. I just wanted you to see what I consider strong work before you launch into it yourselves.
