Suggestions for Your Blogs

I have now received the web address for 21 students in the class (out of 24), and have read, evaluated and commented on the initial posts by the six students who have begun writing on the readings. These first few posts have been good starts, and demonstrate a few techniques that others should emulate.

First, focus! Rather than trying to make a few comments on the dozens of poems by Blake or William Wordsworth, pick a single poem and go into greater depth in your analysis of it. As a general guideline, say more about less in these posts.

Second, specify! Don’t rely on a generalization or summary of a text, but quote a particular passage and discuss it. When you put a passage in your own words, you already begin to change the meaning. The words the author chose contain the meaning, so pay attention to them.

Finally, find a way to engage with the text! The text comes alive for you when you connect it to something in your own experiences or observations, and your readers won’t know about the connection unless you share it. Blogs are by their nature a more personal genre for writing, so this sharing is entirely appropriate. Just be sure not to get so wrapped up in telling about your life that your don’t remember to connect that anecdote to the text. You need to bring your comments back to the readings.

I look forward to reading your posts! If you have not gotten started, be sure to begin as soon as possible so you can get your 20 posts completed before June 24th. Read the posts of your classmates, or of students from previous students, if you are not sure how to approach this assignment.

Corrections for Podcast #1

Five years ago, when I first piloted the online version of ENG 264, I recorded the podcasts that still provide the lecture component of the course. In the first podcast I introduce myself and share some details about myself, my family and the course. Over the years that information has become a bit outdated. Here are some revisions and corrections:

 

• I am now a full professor (not associate professor).
• I am no longer Director of the First Year Seminar program; I am now, however, the Director of the Writing Program of the College of Liberal Arts.
• My wife and I are now celebrating our 25th anniversary on Monday, May 31 (not our 20th anniversary). We will be going to Asheville, NC, but I will be back in time for our chat session on Thursday, June 2nd.
• My son Carlyle is now 20 (not 15) and my daughter Ellyson is now 17 (not 12).
• The band I play with performed at Lake Oconee (at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge) throughout January, February and March, but we do not have a current gig lined up in the near future.
• While ENG 264 is still a course that fulfills a general education requirement, it is no longer mandated for English majors; ENG 263 is the only required survey for those majors.
• I believe I have now taught ENG 264 around 30 times (not 21), and this will be the fifth summer I have taught the online version.
• My original envisioning of this Session 3 course is still partly correct: most of the reading and discussing of the the materials will take place during the time period of Session 1, but the research paper and comments are due midway through Session 2, not at the end.
• The other podcasts deal with the readings rather my personal life, and so should not require this sort of updating.

 

Back from Asheville

I am back from the trip to Asheville, NC my wife and I took for our 25th anniversary. We had a great time, and I highly recommend the city for good weather, great food and very interesting people and stores! I intentionally left my laptop at home for the trip, and since my return yesterday evening I have been working on getting caught up on reading and responding to posts on the class blogs. I last checked blogs around lunch time today, and because of an eye doctor’s appointment I did not get to read any arrivals later than that (my eyes were dilated by the doctor as part of the check up). I will start replying to newer posts tomorrow.