SA2: Blog Response
Due: by 2:00 p.m. on this course blog on Thursday 1/25
Assignment
Posting to this Blog
As a reminder, you must accept the invitation from blogger.com to be able to post. Refer to the handout of blogging instructions in our Canvas "Handouts" folder. Please also sign your posts!
Enjoy!
Assignment
Folks, for your second Short Assignment (SA2) I want to give you all an opportunity to show off your critical chops by writing a blog post that:
(1) Makes a critical offering (a.k.a., articulates some non-obvious discovery) based on this week's theories. Here, "critical" means you are applying the terms, concepts, and theories of others to something you have read in order to understand it more fully. What has reading Foucault and Lyon and Olson contributed to your understanding of the topic or the course or the case study so far? How does one of these texts relate to other readings in the course so far? What do you understand about something that has been perplexing you? Please make a specific discovery, and don't just talk generally and vaguely about what you have read. But also, please make this discovery meaningful, and perhaps even challenging.
(2) Communicates how one theorist helps you understand another theorist’s ideas, or extends or complicates or challenges them, specifically by practicing some of what Joe Harris calls "moves" (see Rewriting pp. 1-4, 20-33).
(3) Foregrounds your discovery by articulating it early on in your blog post (rather than making us wait to the end to know what you have discovered).
(4) In some way, demonstrates or performs your critical offering. You might apply that critical offering to other texts you read or encounter, you might do a rhetorical analysis of another text or situation as a way of demonstrating one of our theories, you might embed links or images where you think we need intertextuality, or you might do other things. In other words, what you write and how you write should be intrinsically linked -- they are both a part of your critical performance.
(5) Is well developed, ideally ~3-4 full screens' worth in length; however, you may need to exceed this in order to fully articulate and demonstrate your critical offering.
(6) Is smartly and thoughtfully composed, where you make specific claims from the text (not vague generalizations), and where you offer context and details so that an unfamiliar reader would know what you're discussing or describing.
(7) Is polished, where paragraphing, spelling, and accuracy all matter.
(8) Is titled creatively and formatted well. Check out the "using our blog" handout in Canvas for formatting tips on working in blogger. Please especially review instructions on how to reformat posts if you are copying/pasting your text from a Word document or text file. Also, the best titles forecast your argument, rather than merely repeat the content of your post.
(9) Shows academic integrity. Please refer clearly to the text you are discussing, be accurate with names and titles, and include page numbers where relevant. You don't need a works cited list, but if you refer to someone else's (published) reading of a text, you should mention this outside source.
Be creative in your contributions to the blog, but please remember that this is a public space which requires tactfulness, civility, and diplomacy. It is also a decontextualized space that may require you to provide context for why you're writing and what we have been reading.
(2) Communicates how one theorist helps you understand another theorist’s ideas, or extends or complicates or challenges them, specifically by practicing some of what Joe Harris calls "moves" (see Rewriting pp. 1-4, 20-33).
(3) Foregrounds your discovery by articulating it early on in your blog post (rather than making us wait to the end to know what you have discovered).
(4) In some way, demonstrates or performs your critical offering. You might apply that critical offering to other texts you read or encounter, you might do a rhetorical analysis of another text or situation as a way of demonstrating one of our theories, you might embed links or images where you think we need intertextuality, or you might do other things. In other words, what you write and how you write should be intrinsically linked -- they are both a part of your critical performance.
(5) Is well developed, ideally ~3-4 full screens' worth in length; however, you may need to exceed this in order to fully articulate and demonstrate your critical offering.
(6) Is smartly and thoughtfully composed, where you make specific claims from the text (not vague generalizations), and where you offer context and details so that an unfamiliar reader would know what you're discussing or describing.
(7) Is polished, where paragraphing, spelling, and accuracy all matter.
(8) Is titled creatively and formatted well. Check out the "using our blog" handout in Canvas for formatting tips on working in blogger. Please especially review instructions on how to reformat posts if you are copying/pasting your text from a Word document or text file. Also, the best titles forecast your argument, rather than merely repeat the content of your post.
(9) Shows academic integrity. Please refer clearly to the text you are discussing, be accurate with names and titles, and include page numbers where relevant. You don't need a works cited list, but if you refer to someone else's (published) reading of a text, you should mention this outside source.
Be creative in your contributions to the blog, but please remember that this is a public space which requires tactfulness, civility, and diplomacy. It is also a decontextualized space that may require you to provide context for why you're writing and what we have been reading.
Posting to this Blog
As a reminder, you must accept the invitation from blogger.com to be able to post. Refer to the handout of blogging instructions in our Canvas "Handouts" folder. Please also sign your posts!
Enjoy!
-Dr. Graban