Blog Guidelines

Blogs (original writing and response writing)

Due according to the revised course schedule

What is the blog? You will write short blogs based on course readings, on articles you find in the public media and on class readings. You will be required to write your own blog posts, as well as respond to posts of their classmates. In these blogs, you are the author. Your audience is your classmates. These blogs are low-points, low-risk assignments.

What is the purpose of these blogs? The purpose of these blogs is to stimulate your thinking about issues, questions and problems raised in the reading and to help you begin to develop your ideas for the essays. By writing blogs, you will:

  • Learn to respond to papers as you read them—allowing you to think and share your ideas with others in the class, so that our class discussions will be more fulsome;
  • Learn to develop a perspective and support it with data or evidence;
  • Develop ideas that you will expand more fully in the comparative essays.

What are you required to do for blogging and responding?

  • Read the assigned reading (if you wish to write on an outside reading, read that, as well);
  • Your blog will be about 500 words in which you engage your classmates in thinking about the course material by doing one (just one) of the following:
    • Describe a question that the reading or article makes you ask: describe possible answers to your question and how those might be answered, based on the data and evidence (from the days reading or other articles);
    • Describe how the article made you re-think one of your ideas: evaluate the evidence on which you based your previous thinking and the data or evidence that made you re-think your ideas;
  • Within 48 hours of the due time, read your classmates blogs and respond to 2-3 of them.

How will you be evaluated on the blogs?

Unsatisfactory Underdeveloped Satisfactory Proficient Exceptional
1 2 3 4 5
Post is unfocused, or simply rehashes previous comments, and displays little evidence of engagement with the topic. Post asks a question or states a new idea; data and evidence are descriptive, rather than evaluative; few connections are made between ideas. The post reflects passing engagement with the topic. Post is reasonably focused; with a clear question or new idea that are well described; evidence or data is evaluated with respect to the question or idea; alternative answers or explanations are considered. The post reflects moderate engagement with the topic. Post asks a question or presents a new idea that is evaluated with evidence or data; post demonstrates of critical thinking skills, identification of underlying assumptions, and evidence evaluation. The post reflects good engagement with the topic. Post poses a question or a new idea that coherently integrates examples with evidence, data and critical analysis; writer demonstrates awareness of limitations or implications of question or idea. The post reflects in-depth engagement and understanding of creation of new knowledge on the topic.

Rubric originally developed by Mark Sample, Chronicle of Higher Education Sept 27, 2010.

Note: Unsubmitted blogs or blogs that only contain a few disconnected sentences will receive zero points.