Weekly Blog Post

Each week, you will respond to our readings and class topics on our class blog (which can be found at TMA112winter2012.blogspot.com). These posts are a place for you to synthesize the things we read together with your own experiences with digital media in order to concretely reflect on the things that you are learning.

Writing is a form of discovery, a way for us to articulate clearly and think deeply about the topics that we explore in class. As such, you should approach these posts with the same scholarly rigor as you would approach a traditional paper. Each week, you will have a guiding prompt to consider and answer, though if you merely go through each question I ask and answer it in one sentence, you will not have paid the assignment the attention it demands.

The advantage of a blog over a traditional paper is its ability to include texts from a variety of sources. Some posts will require you to search for and embed video or other digital texts; you are encouraged to make your posts as multi-mediated as they need to be. The blog post is worth 15 points weekly.

A fantastic blog response will be between 300-500 words (and yes, we count; also, in this instance, a picture is certainly not worth 1,000 words). Your blog will be due BEFORE the lab on Thursday, and you should be prepared to share and discuss what you posted there (though we will not always have time to do so).

Another advantage of the blog format is the embedded ability for class-wide sharing and discussion. Each week, you should read and comment on one of the blog posts from someone who is NOT in your section of the class. These responses should be thoughtful considerations of the things that the author has said, not merely facile agreement or back-patting, and should be between 50-100 words. This comment portion is worth 5 points weekly.