A core part of this course is the blog posts that you will write in response to the readings.
You will set up a blog and, for every week that you have contracted to do so, you will write a post of c. 400-500 words or embed a video blog of 5-10 minutes in response to some aspect of that week’s text. You will also, those same weeks, write comments on at least two of your classmates’ blogs posts.
You can set up a blog on just about any platform (except for Tumblr or, it also turns out, WiX). I recommend one of the following: UBC Blogs, WordPress, or Blogger. Feel free to customize your blog in any way you fancy: make it pink! Upload cat pictures! It’s all good.
Note that these blogs will be in theory at least visible to the world. If you want you can be anonymous or adopt a pseudonym. That’s fine by me, so long as I know who you are.
If you want to use a blog that you have already set up earlier (whether for personal reasons or for another class), that’s fine, too, though you will have to a) tell me that this is what you are doing and b) mark your posts for this class with the “tag” or “category” “span312.” (See below for more on tags and categories.) Frankly, it will be easier to set up a new blog just for this course.
All blog posts (except for the first week’s) are due Monday night, i.e. by 11:59pm on Mondays.
Week one: By Wednesday night (11:59pm, January 11), you will have 1) written a post introducing yourself to the class, telling us something of your expectations for the semester, and perhaps responding to the first, introductory lecture. You will also 2) have sent me (at jon.beasley-murray@ubc.ca) the address of your blog.
Then, by some magic of the Internet, I’ll arrange things so that your blog posts show up here, on this site.
Thereafter, you will be writing your blog posts, commenting on the reading, by Monday night at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) at the latest. Your aim with these posts is to spark discussion. Tell us about what you noticed, what you found interesting, what you liked, what you disliked what you found puzzling, what you want to talk about in class. Comment on the video lectures or conversations if you wish, or make connections with other weeks’ readings, or with similar texts you may have read.
Each blog post should also include one question that you want us to discuss collectively.
Video blogs: If you want to do so, you are able to submit videos for your weekly reading responses. A video blog should be 5-10 minutes long, should fulfil the same function as a written blog (sparking discussion and so on), and should also include a question. You should upload it to a video site (such as YouTube or Vimeo) that allows you then to embed it within your blog. Then, publish your blog post with the embedded video in it, again by 11:59pm on Mondays.
These posts and questions are not graded for quality, or even for grammar or spelling etc. Write them quickly, as soon as you are done with the reading or viewing! The point is to get some first ideas and impressions down, while the texts are still fresh in your mind, and to begin preparing for in-class discussion.
I would like you to use “categories” and “tags” on your posts: you should use categories according to the author’s last name (e.g. “Borges”). You are encouraged also to you use tags to indicate the themes or topics that you are highlighting (e.g. “gender” or “play” or “modernity” or whatever). You may want to consult the list of concepts that I think are important for the course, or come up with your own. Either way, these tags will constitute a tag cloud visible on multiple pages on this site.
After our Tuesday class, you then should write comments on at least two of your classmates’ blogs posts. These comments should be added by Wednesday night at 11:59pm.
One more thing…
Comment moderation
It will make everything immeasurably easier if you remove comment moderation from your blog, so that you do not have to manually approve each comment as it arrives.
On WordPress blogs (wordpress.com or blogs.ubc.ca), this is how you do it:
a) go to your Dashboard
b) go to Settings > Discussion
c) click “E-mail me whenever Anyone posts a comment”
c) unclick “Before a comment appears Comment must be manually approved”
d) unclick “Before a comment appears Comment author must have a previously approved comment”
That’s it! Good luck!
