Setting up your blog

This being a writing class, it stands to reason that writing will be a major part of the coursework. The best way to become better as a writer is to write. And write some more. That's why you'll be doing blog posts over the course of the semester—to make sure you get in your writing practice. I'll be having you do about 3 per week, so make sure to check back often (generally Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

Go to Blogger and follow the instructions there to set up an account. It's a fairly simple process. Yes, you need to set it up through Blogger, and yes, you need to set one up just for this class. When the whole class is on the same platform, it makes it easier for me to track. And it's cool if you already have a blog set up that you use all the time, but I'd like it if your blog where you'll be doing work for this class is specifically for the work we'll be doing here—I don't want to have to wade through posts about your personal life (some of which I probably shouldn't see as your teacher) in order to read the stuff I asked you to do. Cool?

Two EXTREMELY Important Notes:

1. When you set up your blog, put your blog's address as a comment on this post. If you don't, you won't be able to get credit for your blog entries.


2. It's okay if you set your blog to private, but make sure you add me on the allowed viewers list. If you don't, you won't be able to get credit for your blog entries.

Otherwise, I don't care what your blog is called or what your blog looks like (as long as I can read it—if I can't read it, you can't get credit), so feel free to personalize it and make it your own.

One Not-So-Important Note

• This is the only time you should have to leave your blog address and comment on a post. After you do that, you'll just do the blog entries on your own blog (the one you're setting up) and I'll come look at them. Sound like a plan?

Blog posts aren't going to be graded in the traditional sense, where each one will be assigned a letter grade. I'm not going to go crazy on grammar or anything like that, either. Blog posts will be a credit/no credit thing—you either do them or you don't—but that doesn't mean you just need to slap up a couple sentences and call it a day. I'm expecting you to put forth the effort to provide at least a few paragraphs each time, otherwise I'm not going to count it. And if you've checked the syllabus, you know that the blog is worth 15% of your grade, so you can't afford to lose that much of your class grade without it having an impact on the outcome. And just because I'm not strict with the grammar on these doesn't mean I don't expect you to at least make an attempt to write in complete sentences to the best of your ability. Basically, I just want you to sound like you have a college education.

Now that you've got your blog set up and you left your address in the comments on this post (you did that, right?) I want you to make a post on your blog telling me about yourself. That's your first assignment—get your blog set up and make a post by the end of the day Wednesday, August 24. Then make sure to check back every couple days for your blog post topics.