It's your blog: no need for iambic pentameter

Basic Ground Rules:

Each of your daily blog entries must contain at least one paragraph that relates to class reading or discussion.

Your blog entry must be your own writing, not a cut-and-paste of text found elsewhere. Briefs quotes are fine, but the entry must reflect your own thoughts and writing.

Remember, you want to get academic credit for each post. That means I need to be able to assign a grade. Obviously, I can't give you academic credit for random snapshots of yourself, odd news items completely unrelated to the class, or musings about your cat.

In a previous post I suggested that you think of your posts as short class presentations. Since then, I have been thinking about the issue of "staying on-topic." If I insist that you always stay precisely on-topic, I may well end up inhibiting your best creative energies, and turn potentially dynamic, exciting blogs into ho-hum book-report blogs. What a shame that would be.

I remember what it was like to be assigned to write a poem in iambic pentameter. "The discipline will be good for you," I was told. Maybe — but I was never tempted to write another one. Rigid limitations can either stimulate or crush creativity, depending on the author's inclinations.

So how about this: try to stay on-topic as much as you can, but don't hesitate to include comments that you believe fit into the flow of your blog entry. After you compose your blog entry, read it over and ask three questions:

(1) It is good?
Is it thoughtful, creative, insightful, stimulating, original, worth reading?

(2) Will my classmates think it's worth reading
as part of their course work, and that it relates (even indirectly) to the course topics?

(3) Can my prof assign a grade to this?
Or is it not really an example of "informed discussion and analysis" specifically relating to the academic focus of the class?

If the answer is YES to (1) and (2) but NO to (3), simply write another short blog piece — even one short paragraph — that is "gradable." That way, you'll have the editorial control you need and deserve, but I will still have a basis for fairly and objectively assigning grades.