A couple more tips…

When we refer to a writer by one name instead of their full name, we use the last, not first, name. It’s thus Kipling, not Rudyard. It’s Dickens, not Charles. Etc.

When you include a poem in your blog or in a paper, be sure to keep the original formatting. I have noticed that students tend to center an entire poem even when the poem was originally left-justified. It really matters how a poet chooses to format a poem, so please stick to the exact original.

When you quote more than one line of a poem, you need to put a space and then a slash and then a space to mark the spot where the line breaks appears in the original, for example, “Roses are red / Violets are blue.”

There ya go!

About commenting on each other’s blogs…

I’ve just finished another round of grading, so you can go to our Blackboard site to see how you did. I saw definite improvement class-wide on this assignment. Some of you are still not quite getting the idea and are writing too general or poorly edited posts, though. This time I was a little more lenient in allowing some of these posts to earn credit, but if there was a problem with your post, I either emailed you or posted a comment to your site to give you a heads up that next time this won’t fly. Keep trying to stretch yourself and post thorough and unique responses to the poems you are reading.

By the way, I am REALLY enjoying reading the poems you have selected. This is a definite fringe benefit for me.

Okay, so a brief note on posting comments….

(1) Please try to comment on more recent posts rather than older ones. Remember, I have to find your comments to grade them. As we go further and further along, it will be harder for me to backtrack every week. So please comment on the most recent posts, please. If you decide to comment on an earlier post and I miss it, it will be up to you to let me know I’ve missed it and where to find your comment. We’ve got 28 students, and there have been 4 posts so far (that makes about 112 posts I’ve graded, not to mention revisions). And with 2 comments per week and three weeks of comments due so far, that makes about 168 comments! So PLEASE help me keep things straight by commenting on the correct post. Thanks!

(2) I noticed that only one person is consistently responding to comments on her blog. Since I know the class is new to blogging, I guess you don’t realize that it is considered bad form not to respond to comments with at least some type of acknowledgment. You don’t have to go into depth or anything, but a brief, “Thanks for the comment” is a bare minimum. A lot of bloggers will reply to multiple comments in a single response comment. They will name each commenter and after each name and a colon, they will include a little message. Easy to do and polite.

(3) Overall the quality of comments is pretty good. I am looking for something substantive, and usually that is what you are writing. Good work, folks!

Onward, now. I look forward to seeing what you come up with next, and I hope everyone is now well settled into the blogging assignment!

Hints for posting a great poetry response…

Well, I’ve read everything that folks listed on my blogroll have posted so far. Overall, this is a good group of responses.  If you are looking for come terrific models, go to Blog to Pass the Time, Artsyames, m1ssyou, or She Breathes Art to read some super good examples. If you look in the Grade Book section on our class website on Blackboard, you can see if you earned points yet for your post (30 pts possible) or if you need to revise (grade left blank). Some of the reasons you may need to revise include the following:

1. Your post includes too many typos or grammatical/punctuation errors. If you fail to capitalize “I,” for instance, you will have to revise (pet peeve of mine!) and you might even be forced to wear a funny hat in class next time!
2. Your post is too general and merely summarizes the poem. Please go back to my assignment handout on the class website on Blackboard and re-read the assignment for ideas about what sorts of approaches you can take with this assignment
3. Your post had some good stuff in it but was underdeveloped. Take your time. Explore a little more and share what you discover with your readers!

A few more miscellaneous points:

• You need to change your settings to let comments appear without awaiting moderation (or you need to be checking every day and releasing comments from peers regularly). I can’t grade peer comments if I can’t see them! Click on Dashboard and then click on top right “settings” button. Then click on Discussion. One of the sections on that page is “Before a Comment Appears”; click ONLY “comment author must fill out name and email.” That should do the trick.
• Don’t forget when you are writing your post to create a category (or a tag) or two. This is one of the nice additional benefits of this assignment — it gives you the chance to think about what descriptive terms to use to get at the essence of a poem (and it shows me how you are thinking of the poem).
• Already I notice that strangers are starting to comment on your posts. I hope you enjoy the feedback! If you feel uncomfortable with anything someone writes, you have the option of deleting it. In the Dashboard section click on Comments. When you find the offending comment, just click on “Delete” at the far right.
• Finally, if you want to change the look of your blog, from the Dashboard click on Design and go to Themes and see if any of the examples look good to you.  Feel free to select a different one than the default!  You can also change the title of your blog or the tag line “Just another wordpress blog…”  Really, there’s a lot you can play around with.  Ask me before or after class if you need help, or just play with it and enjoy!

So, we’re off to a good start!  I know some of you are working ahead and have completed Blog post #2 already (due Monday morning).  I’m glad you are working ahead!  If you didn’t earn credit yet for these posts, it’s okay.  Everyone has until next Sunday (9/21/08 at noon) to revise blog posts #1 and #2, if necessary. As always, feel free to contact me if you have questions.  I tried to give some suggestions for revision on my comments to your posts, but I did not usually remark on sentence-level errors.  So be sure to edit carefully!

Now that you’ve started a blog…

I’ve added everyone’s blog address to my blogroll (at the right of your screen), at least everyone who has sent me his or her URL so far. If you haven’t done that yet, please send it to me a.s.a.p.

Now the fun part … reading each other’s posts, playing with your “theme” design, learning about blogging and poetry and each other, and all that. Since I’ve linked to your classmates’ blogs at the right, you can now click there to visit two blogs, and then post a comment in response to your peer’s post. See my assignment handout on-line if you are confused. (The assignment explanation is on our course website, you know, the one on Blackboard that is password protected.)

We will visit our blogs in class sometimes, so there’ll be other opportunities to ask questions about how to navigate the site and fix settings and all that. For now let’s just write and read…

Hello, students!

Please respond to this post and give me your blog title and URL. I’ll add you to my blogroll, so we can all find each other!