Weekly Blogs

(25% of course grade)

Goals

The purposes of the assignment are to

· serve as formative assessment, so I can see what you're getting and what you're not getting

· serve as summative assessment instead of doing traditional tests, to hold ultimately accountable for mastering major issues of grammar and mechanics that are likely to appear in student writing at the secondary school level

· provide authentic and timely samples of your writing to work with in our workshops

· give you an opportunity to improve on your own sentence-level issues

· practice some stylistic moves you might not have the guts to try in your writing for other classes.

Assignment

Each week for ten weeks, write 300-500 words (or about 1 page, single-spaced, with line breaks between paragraph), summarizing, discussing, and showing examples of what you learned the past week. You need to close out with a question for someone in the class to answer, preferably something you're still not clear about.

The first and last blogs, however, have different topics. The first is a self-assessment piece and the last is a self-reflection piece, looking back on all your blogs to determine if you met the goals you identified in the first blog. (Also, on occasion, I may give a specific topic I'd like for you to write on instead of the generic one.)

Please write your blog in a word document first, double-spaced. Print it out and tuck it into a folder that you keep in your Course Pack for future workshops. Then single-space it and post to your blog.

Finally, you need to respond to one other person's question--and to anything else the writer has misunderstood as evidenced in his blog. Please do not respond to someone who has also been responded to--unless you see that the response is also amiss in some regard.

Due Date

Initial posting due by noon, each Sunday, for ten weeks. Response posting due by midnight, the same day. (That way, I can read them all on Monday morning and give the class feedback immediately.)

Rubric

Each criterion rated check-plus, check, check-minus, or zero.  Please note: I grade holistically, so these criteria do not carry equal weight necessarily.

1. You did both the initial and response posting on time.

2. Your blog is substantial and authentic; it doesn't sound like you padded it out to make 300-500 words.

3. You are making progress on mastering course material, demonstrating that you are learning from week to week, in part by being able to discuss covered material with a degree of accuracy and confidence and in part by slowly identifying and ultimately improving on your sentence-level issues.

4. You experiment with your own prose style.