This is for Michael Borgstrom's engl522 class, Fall 2005 at SDSU. There are three activities: blogging about class and readings, writing a thesis statement or question about the readings, and voting on which statement or question interests you the most.
By 11 a.m. the day following each class, post a 200-word (minimum) post to your blog about reactions to the class and/or reading for that class. Give me the address to your blog so I can link to it here. If you don't want me to use your name in linking to your blog, give me an alias to use instead. Blogger.com is a good site to use to make your blog. If you have problems with this, let me know.
By 11 a.m. the day preceding each class, post one question or thesis statement related to the readings for the upcoming class to your blog. Also, post this question to the yahoo group.
If you have problems joining this group tell me.
Paste the statement or question into the subject header and the body of your email. If it is elaborate, put a short version in the header and the full version in the body. Include a link to the blog post in your email. Don't put anything else in the email.
Discussion of each question can then occur on the blog of the person who posted it. To keep email levels down, don't discuss questions on the list.
Don't submit a statment or question that has already been posed! Think of a different one.
To include a link to the blog post of your question or statement, you'll need to find the "permalink" to that blog post. On blogger.com blogs, it is the timestamp at the bottom of each post. Many web browsers let you right-click or ctrl-click (macs) to copy the URL or address of a link.
Remember, to respect each other's time, only the pre-class questions should be posted to this list. I may post a newsletter highlighting some of the blog posts on occasion. If you would like to announce something to the class, let me know and I will include it in that newsletter post.
You will probably want to filter your email from this list to a separate folder, or read the messages on the web.
By two hours before the class, email me, not the list, the email address of the person who wrote the statement or question that interests you the most. The subject should contain only "522" and the questioner's email address, for example: "522 sam@rohan.sdsu.edu".
In the body of your message, paste the statement or question and the link to the corresponding blog entry (just copy this from their email).
I am writing a proposal to teach English 220 ("Introduction to literature") next semester, and I'm considering incorporating these activities into my proposal. So I'm testing them on myself with a class I'm taking and on anyone from that class who is willing to do this too.
The purpose of these activities is to encourage: reading, thinking about the reading and about the class session itself, and learning from our classmates.