Blog Assignment

(taken from Mark Sample’s Graphic Novel course at George Mason University).

Your groups will also be assigned a weekly blogging role that rotates week-to-week. Students in these groups will contribute to the class blog. The blog will begin on the second week, and I will have a schedule for blog groups prepared by the end of the first week. For examples of good blog posts produced for a class audience, look at this, this, this, this, and this.

First Readers: These students are responsible for posting initial questions and insights about the week’s reading to the class blog by Monday night. These initial posts should be about 250 words and strive to be thoughtful and nuanced, avoiding description and summary. Check out this handout from the University of Mary Washington on the difference between plot summary and literary analysis.

Respondents: Students in this group will build upon, disagree with, or clarify the first readers’ posts by Wednesday night. The respondents can also incorporate elements of Monday’s class discussion into their posts. These posts should be about 250 words.

Searchers: Each student in this group will find and share at least one relevant online resource with the class in time for Wednesday’s session. These resources might include news stories, journal articles, podcasts, archives, webcomics, and so on. In addition to linking to the resource, the searchers must provide a short (no more than a paragraph) evaluation of the resource, highlighting what makes it worthwhile, unusual, or, if appropriate, problematic.

Weekly Roundup: In a group blog post due by Saturday at noon, students in this group will each highlight a key moment from the previous week’s online and in-class discussions. These might be moments when there is a dispute over meaning, confusion over an idea, a sudden understanding, or anything else that strikes individuals in the group as especially noteworthy. Follow this formula for the highlights: describe the moment (provide the context and the facts about what you saw, read, or heard), interpret the meaning of the moment (what does it mean?), and evaluate its significance (in other words, why was the moment important?).