Reading – Worth 20% of your grade.

For 10 weeks you will be assigned several pages of reading. You will compose a response to the reading and post it in the Reading Discussion Board. To receive credit your response must:

• meet the word-length requirement of 500 words
• use short quotes to support your response

Blog Posts -- Worth 20% of your grade.

The success of a blog hinges on many things, but most of all it hinges on the blog posts themselves. Without content, readers will soon click away from your blog and on to blogs with more to say. Therefore, the bulk of your grade for this class will be based on your writing within the blog posts. This class teaches you blogging techniques, but our most important lessons will come from the composition of blog posts. Ten times during the class you will write a 500 word blog post on a topic related to your blog mission. Your post will be graded on content, mechanics, style, and voice.

Workshop -- Worth 20% of your grade.
You will prepare written workshop responses for all of the people in your group. You will post all of your comments in one post in the Workshop forum in BB. To receive credit your response must:

• meet the word-length requirement of 500 words per post
• use short quotes to support your response
• offer suggestions for revision

Reading, Blog Posts, & Workshop are each graded out of 10 total posts.

Planning -- Worth 20% of your grade.

The purpose of Planning is to contextualize your new blog. You will have a better chance for success with a blog if you create a clear and specific audience and purpose. Reasons to start a blog include: to connect with family and friends, to journal through a process (such as raising a child, fighting an illness, etc), to promote a business, to make money, to create a niche, etc. Other choices that you must make are: where to host your blog, what design to use, how often to post, special features in the sidebar, and many more.

Part 1--First, you will find 5 blogs that are of interest to you and analyze them based on these criteria: blog mission, author’s credentials, blog design, style of blog, voice in blog posts, audience and purpose. You will prepare a report that discusses these attributes. Based on that report, you will draft a 500 word mission statement for your blog. Describe your ideas for design of the blog. List special features you hope to have. What do you envision for the style and voice of your posts?

Part 2--Next you will choose a blogging application, blog name, and you will set up your blog. You will also refine your mission statement. Before posting your work to Blackboard, please make sure you have set up your blog and you have a URL that you include in your post.

The purpose of the portfolio is to think critically about the process of starting and maintaining a blog. Some questions to consider when reflecting on your blog are: What are the most important things you learned about blogging? How satisfied are you with your blogging application? Would you consider changing it? Why? What was most difficult about writing blog posts? For this assignment you will discuss the choices you made in drafting your mission statement, choosing your blogging application and blog name, and writing your blog posts. You will write a reflection on your new blog and your blogging experience. You will also post a revised version of your mission statement based on your blogging experience. Please see our Blackboard course for the full Portfolio Assignment.