Thursday, May 29, 2008

Summer Guidelines

Over the summer, each of your teachers will choose a broad theme and post 4 blog entries and related questions for you to read and respond on our class blog (2 in June, 2 in July).

Each of you will view and post a response to any 4 teacher postings over the summer. You must post something (comments, ideas, questions, responses, your own links, articles, or other sources related to the topic) twice before July 2nd, and twice before August 20th. Your postings must show that you have read, understood, and have answered "So What?" in relationship to the postings and related postings (your teachers’ ideas, the ideas in the postings, and other students’ ideas).

The goal for our class blog is to create conversation among our class members—it’s our classroom in virtual space and time. Remembering this, ideally you should respond to one another and to your teachers, adding new ideas to our continuing conversation, and, even though you are only required to post 4 times, the more you read and participate, the richer all our experiences will be. Check the blog often, post often, and engage yourself, us, and each other!

Visit this blog often to read, view, and think about the comments and postings! It might be a good idea to subscribe to the posts, just so you can see when new postings appear.

Your participation will be made much easier if you have a Google account. This will allow you to post with a username (not anonymously), to access other Google resources we’ll be using later on in the year, and even to create your own blog. We’d recommend you sign up for a gmail account, too. To create a Google Account, visit the account-creation page.

We will also be asking you to read a group text: UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. You can access the book's website at http://www.factcheck.org/unspun/. There you can read sample pages and reviews. More information will be coming once your copies of the books are delivered.

Your comment postings will be evaluated on the following criteria:

Conciseness: Post is brief, meaningful, and to the point.

Claims should be supported with relevant evidence. Substantiate your position! Defend your argument!

Post is logical and makes sense.

Purpose and audience are considered (language is appropriate); use your best judgment.


8 comments:

Maddy said...

So...
how exactly do we subscribe to this blog?
I need to know when things are being posted and stuff.
I looked all over the page, and that flag thing isn't it, and there was this subscribe to blog link and I don't understand whats going on with that because it showed like an overview of each post. I don't know if it automatically put me on a mailing list or what. If someone could e-mail me or just tell me. Thanks!
(MaddyMae0915@aol.com)

Maddy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Maddy said...

Wait... I figured it out. You can click the box to subscribe to follow up comments. But thanks anyway haha.

Unknown said...

Thanks Maddy....when exactly are there going to be the 4 postings from the teachers? I really want to get all of my summer projects out of the way :)

Ms. Stotler said...

Oh, Andrew, you big suck up! OK, I've posted my first summer project, and I'll expect YOURS to be done by Monday! Just kidding, you know I love you...I'll give you until Tuesday. ;-D

Anonymous said...

So is it okay if I respond to posts from May and June even though it's July? -Jess Meyers

Ms. Stotler said...

Yes, Jess, that's fine. They don't have to be new posts.

Anonymous said...

thank ya! =)