Blogs (20%)
Throughout the class you will be composing short writing assignments on your personal blog website. That means you will have to create a website on Weebly or Wix and choose the blog theme. I will not be grading you on your website’s professional quality. I will be grading you based on completing the blog and meeting the blog requirements. With that said I encourage you to put real and meaningful effort into making it representative of you and making it the best it can be.
Your blog will serve as a learning tool for you to interact in a virtual space and consider the audience, tone, and multimodality of your writing. You can find specific deadlines for each below and in the class schedule.
Requirements:
**Important: Submit a link to your specific blog post in the Canvas “Discussions” tab so I can see it and grade it and your peers can see it and reply to your post. Note that when you reply to a peer, you should be directly replying on their website but please provide the name of the student whose blog you commented on. All blogs are due by 8:00am on their respective due date.
Blog #1: Who Am I?
Tell us about yourself. When you think of yourself, what do you think of? What are your passions? What makes you happy? What makes you sad? What’s important to you? Likes, dislikes. Defining moments. You don’t have to answer all of these questions, these are just ideas to get you started. Please provide a picture of yourself as well.
Due: Friday, Feb. 16th
Blog #2: Literacy Narrative
Examine the relationship between social, family, media, and school influences and your personal attitudes toward writing and reading. Specifically, you will focus on a connection to a cultural community. This could be how certain cultural influences have shaped how you read and write, or how reading and writing have given you access to a specific cultural community. For some, these feelings about reading and writing may come from a time when they discovered a favorite author or book. For others, current attitudes about writing may come from classroom experiences, good or bad, that occurred in high school or grammar school. Perhaps a teacher encouraged or discouraged your interest in writing. Perhaps you discovered that writing and reading took you to places where you could live out adventures from your imagination, or perhaps a family member’s struggles with reading or writing or their love of reading or writing influenced you. The main purpose, however, should be to demonstrate a connection between your experiences in reading and writing and your cultural experiences. Use vivid examples to support your narrative, analyze your feelings about writing and/or reading (and their origins), and try to trace those feelings to a specific event or events that you can describe for your reader.
Due: Wednesday, Feb. 21st
Blog #3: Meme Rhetorical Analysis
Blog #4: Pop Culture Timeline + Collage
From the year that you were born to today (2023), create a timeline in increments of 3 years and define the trends during that time/ beliefs (food, fashion, media, language, activities, etc). You can do this by creating an actual timeline with years and lists of trends/ beliefs or use another method that you think is appropriate.
Then you will make a picture based collage that represents pop culture in 2023. You can use whatever editing/creating platform you would like: Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Canva, Procreate, Photoshop, do it by hand and scan or take a picture of it.
Due: Wednesday, March 6th
Throughout the class you will be composing short writing assignments on your personal blog website. That means you will have to create a website on Weebly or Wix and choose the blog theme. I will not be grading you on your website’s professional quality. I will be grading you based on completing the blog and meeting the blog requirements. With that said I encourage you to put real and meaningful effort into making it representative of you and making it the best it can be.
Your blog will serve as a learning tool for you to interact in a virtual space and consider the audience, tone, and multimodality of your writing. You can find specific deadlines for each below and in the class schedule.
Requirements:
- Minimum 300 words
- Must include 1 visual/multimodal element (picture, art, video etc.), a heading, formatting (spacing, bullet points, indentations where you see fit).
- Must include 1 link relevant to your post (a link from a source that you learned from or a link that supports or elevates your post).
- Reply to one of your peers
**Important: Submit a link to your specific blog post in the Canvas “Discussions” tab so I can see it and grade it and your peers can see it and reply to your post. Note that when you reply to a peer, you should be directly replying on their website but please provide the name of the student whose blog you commented on. All blogs are due by 8:00am on their respective due date.
Blog #1: Who Am I?
Tell us about yourself. When you think of yourself, what do you think of? What are your passions? What makes you happy? What makes you sad? What’s important to you? Likes, dislikes. Defining moments. You don’t have to answer all of these questions, these are just ideas to get you started. Please provide a picture of yourself as well.
Due: Friday, Feb. 16th
Blog #2: Literacy Narrative
Examine the relationship between social, family, media, and school influences and your personal attitudes toward writing and reading. Specifically, you will focus on a connection to a cultural community. This could be how certain cultural influences have shaped how you read and write, or how reading and writing have given you access to a specific cultural community. For some, these feelings about reading and writing may come from a time when they discovered a favorite author or book. For others, current attitudes about writing may come from classroom experiences, good or bad, that occurred in high school or grammar school. Perhaps a teacher encouraged or discouraged your interest in writing. Perhaps you discovered that writing and reading took you to places where you could live out adventures from your imagination, or perhaps a family member’s struggles with reading or writing or their love of reading or writing influenced you. The main purpose, however, should be to demonstrate a connection between your experiences in reading and writing and your cultural experiences. Use vivid examples to support your narrative, analyze your feelings about writing and/or reading (and their origins), and try to trace those feelings to a specific event or events that you can describe for your reader.
Due: Wednesday, Feb. 21st
Blog #3: Meme Rhetorical Analysis
- Pick one meme that resonates/ stands out to you.
- Include the meme/link.
- Answer the following questions:
- Where did you find it?
- What kind of responses/comments does it have? Are they positive or negative?
- What multimodal elements does it have and why are they effective/ineffective in relaying the author’s message?
- How does it fit into society and culture at the moment?
- What message is it sending?
- Why do you think memes are such a big part of our culture right now?
Blog #4: Pop Culture Timeline + Collage
From the year that you were born to today (2023), create a timeline in increments of 3 years and define the trends during that time/ beliefs (food, fashion, media, language, activities, etc). You can do this by creating an actual timeline with years and lists of trends/ beliefs or use another method that you think is appropriate.
Then you will make a picture based collage that represents pop culture in 2023. You can use whatever editing/creating platform you would like: Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Canva, Procreate, Photoshop, do it by hand and scan or take a picture of it.
Due: Wednesday, March 6th
Previous Student Sample Blogs:
Cams: tsunamisblog.weebly.com/
Susan: shardswriting.weebly.com/
Ellery: elleryintheroom.weebly.com/
Johnny: jwilliamchapman.weebly.com/
Justin: jufin.weebly.com/
Weebly tutorials to create your own website:
Weebly Tutorials for Beginners
How to Create a Blog on Weebly
How to Add a Comments Section in Weebly
How to Change Fonts
Cams: tsunamisblog.weebly.com/
Susan: shardswriting.weebly.com/
Ellery: elleryintheroom.weebly.com/
Johnny: jwilliamchapman.weebly.com/
Justin: jufin.weebly.com/
Weebly tutorials to create your own website:
Weebly Tutorials for Beginners
How to Create a Blog on Weebly
How to Add a Comments Section in Weebly
How to Change Fonts