ENGL 3246 Blogging assignment directions Worth: 40% of your final mark (overall; parts of this mark are

described below) Due: on Wednesdays throughout the term (see below) Grade breakdown Overall, blogging and related activities are worth 40% of your final mark. That 40% is further broken down as follows: Blog posts: 30% of final mark Commenting on other blogs: 5% of final mark Attracting comments to your own blog: 5% of final mark

Specifics General You should sign up for Google Reader and for your blog by the end of week 3 (2/3). See instructions in D2L. You should, by then, also send me a link to your blog. If you are late in doing so, your final grade will be penalized. You should subscribe to all student blogs by the end of week 4 (2/10). Blogging will start in week 5 (2/13). Blog posts You must write six blog posts for credit by the end of the term: two by week 7; two more by week 10; and two more by week 15. You are free, of course, to write as many posts as you like, but only six will count towards your final mark. You may only write one post for credit each week. You cannot make up for missing posts early in the term by writing extra posts late in the term. This assignment is ongoing. Your posts are due by Wednesday evening (8.00 pm) in a given week. Posts received after the deadline will not count for that week (the idea being that your peers need time to see your posts before class on Friday). You should notify me by email when you want me to mark a post (again, by Wednesday at 8 pm). Provide a link to the post in your email. Each post should be 300 400 words long and should discuss the relationships between our class reading (fiction and non-fiction) and some item of current baseball news (that you learn about through one of the blogs you follow). Note: you should include links to relevant news items in each post. If you fail to link to a story, you will not receive credit for the post. You need not make an argument, although you might. You should address how our texts raise issues that are related to the current debates about baseball taking place in the mainstream news and in the blogosphere. Each post will be worth 5% of your final mark and will be graded A F (without any plus grades or minus grades). The letter grades are worth the following %s: A = 100; B =85; C = 75; D = 65; F = 0. You will be marked on how interesting your subject is; on how well you connect the course materials to contemporary baseball issues; on your linking to news articles or blog posts; and on the quality of your writing/formatting.

Note: with regard to the last thing on this list: your writing need not be scholarly, but it should be edited, proofread, and spellchecked. It should conform to the rules of English, etc. Note: also with regard to the last thing on the list: your posts should be well-formatted. Links should not simply be pasted URLs. Use headings, bold, italics, etc. when appropriate. Both Wordpress and Blogger have WYSIWYG HTML creators. Use them. Figure it out. Commenting on other posts In addition to creating your own posts, you need to read your peers work and comment on their posts as you are inclined. There is no rule on how many comments you must make per week, but figure on 1 2. You comments need not be long, but they should be more than simple endorsements or rejections of the posts contents. Your comments on other posts will be worth 5% of your final mark. As the term progresses, I will keep track of how frequently you comment on other blogs and on the quality of your comments. At the end of the term I will review the comments on each blog and will give you a score of 0 5 for your work as a commenter. You should comment on your peers posts throughout the term. I will not award credit for people who come in at the end of the term and make a bunch of comments. Make sure I know your username so that I can properly keep track of your comments. Ideally, your username will be some version of your real name. Along these lines: to comment on posts you will need to be logged in to whatever blogging platform the blog is written on (either Blogger or Wordpress). If you do not have an account on the platform, create one. Its simple and free. Abusive behavior will result in a loss of all points in this category and possible further sanctions under the CU Classroom Behavior policies. Long and short: do not attack anyone. Behave intelligently. If you have a problem, assume the best and try to work it out. If you have a problem please let me know privately, preferably with screenshots of the offending comments. Attracting comments to your own blog As described above, you must comment on blog posts by your peers. Moreover, you should try to attract comments to your blog by writing interesting posts (good titles help in this endeavor as well). At the end of the term, I will look at the comments your peers have made at your blog and give you a score of 0 5 based on the number of comments others have contributed to your blog, the quality of those comments, and your responses to those comments. There is no single formula for success here, but I expect that you will want to have attracted between five and ten thoughtful comments to your blog. Note comments from people outside of our class will count towards your total, but only if they actually address the content of your post in a meaningful way. You will not earn full points for this part of the blogging assignment if all of your blogs comments appear in the last weeks of class. You may adjust your comments settings any way you like on your blog, but be sure to approve comments that contribute to the conversation or no one will be able to see them, including me.