Reading should never be a passive experience. In order to encourage active reading, I’m asking you to participate in discussions via posts on our class blog. On assigned days, you will either develop an original post that responds to the reading, or you will respond to one of your peers’ posts. This will also be helpful as we consider what it means to think consciously about our writing practices.

FIND YOUR OP DATES HERE BY CLICKING HERE.

As an Original Poster (OP), your responses should be around 1000 words, and should answer the following questions about the assigned reading:

• What is your immediate reader response to the works presented?
• What is the tone of the works presented?  How does this affect the reader?
• Who do you think the intended audiences are for this piece?  Do you feel that you have been “reached” as a potential target audience?
• What is the effect of the pieces on the reader?  Do you think that you are affected in the ways that are intended?  
• What is the central purpose of the text?
• Do you agree/disagree with the authors’ arguments and/or claims? Why or why not?
• What connections can you make between the main idea of this piece, and other things you’ve read lately – either for a class or outside of school?

Please pay careful attention to the Homework and Course Schedule page of our course blog, as semi-weekly due dates for these responses will vary. All original blog posts must be time stamped by the time indicated in the course schedule; all responses are due by 8am on the due date. (Remember that your peers need time to respond to your work if it your day to be the OP; the earlier you post, the better.)

I will assign nine blog interactions throughout the course. You will be assigned as an OP once; the rest of your posts will be comments. You only need to comment on one post if you are not the assigned OP. Comments should be thorough and thoughtful – around 400 words.

You are more than welcome to post something extra that is relevant and interesting to you, even if you are not assigned. (Extra blog posts can gain you a small amount of extra credit; see my comments on grading for more detail.) This blog should be an outlet for analysis and conversation about readings and writings; so feel free to interpret the reading response questions creatively. Keep in mind the typical genre conventions of blog posts, and feel free to write in a conversational yet appropriate tone. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about things you don’t understand, and certainly don’t hesitate to make connections to things we’ve discussed in class or things you’ve read outside of our class. Images, video, audio, and links to other pages are welcome in your posts. (Indeed, some prompts will ask you for these elements specifically.) The sky’s the limit, as long as you post on time.

*EXTRA CREDIT – News Responses: Looking for an extra way of participating and contributing to the class in order to boost your contractual standing? This is it. Find a news article from a major print-based source – NY Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Economist, a local newspaper, etc. – that deals with a topic related to the one you’re addressing in your major assignments. Write a post on our class blog that links to the article, analyzes the article, and makes connections to what we’ve been talking about in class. Ask questions for your classmates to think about and possibly respond to.