Assignment:

Over the next five weeks, you will write and publish five posts to your blog (one post per week). Each post should be 250 to 500 words in length. In addition, you will promote your blog, comment on your classmates’ blogs, and respond to comments made to your blog.

How to Proceed:

1. Create a website that will house your blog. WordPress and Weebly provide free websites that will serve the purposes of this assignment. Take some time to design the look of the page and name your blog.
2. Choose a topic for your first post and conduct some research to support it. Remember, the research you find should appear on a bibliography page as explained on the Blog Bibliography page, and as I’ve done here.
3. Write your post. Your posts should provide a unique perspective on an issue or argue for a position; however, the style of your posts will probably be different than what you wrote for your traditional research papers. Since each individual post is much shorter than your previous papers, and because you will be writing for a different audience, you will need to determine a rhetorical style and organizational pattern that will most effectively help you achieve your specific purpose. Consider the blogs that you have read and found effective to help you develop your style. You may also read the example posts I’ve written on this site as well.
4. Considering your target audience, develop a strategy for promoting your blog. While your classmates and I will be reading your posts, you should also try to build the audience for which the blog was designed for. This article by Christine Holley may give you some ideas on how to utilize social media to promote your blog.
5. Each week, read and post a comment to at least three of your classmates’ blogs. Although certain topics will be more interesting to you than others, comment to three different blogs each week to give your classmates a variety of feedback. How your respond is largely up to you, but try to leave more substantive feedback than “good job.” Instead, be specific about what you liked about their writing or thought could be improved and ask some questions to which your classmates can respond.
6. Respond to any comments left on your blog in a timely fashion. Doing so lets readers know that you are actively engaged with your blog and take an interest in what they have to say about it.

Evaluation:

I will be looking for:

• Effective writing with a clear sense of audience and purpose
• Quality research to support points
• Thoughtful and engaging comments posted to classmates’ blogs
• Clear and timely responses to comments