Website and Blog Assignment
Introduction:
In Humanities Core, you will engage in various forms of writing and creativity. As you might expect, you will be writing a number of academic essays. While these will be directed toward an academic audience, they will differ in their disciplinary methods, formal conventions, and treatment of evidence. In addition to these academic essays, you will create work for a broader, public audience and write in less formal contexts. By writing in multiple genres, you will learn how to identify your audience, craft your voice and purpose to appeal to that audience, and tailor your work to new writing situations. Your capacity to adapt in this way is one of the most important skills to learn for college and your career thereafter.Assignment:
Your first assignment is to write a blog that connects your intellectual experiences in Humanities Core with your private intellectual life and public events. There are many forms of blogging, but this particular form does intellectual work. It requires that you think about how your learning applies to your lived experience, that you make those connections explicit, and that you articulate them in an intellectual, but not necessarily academic, voice.Before writing in what, for many, will be a new genre, you should read “Blogging and Web Design.” This will assist you in setting up your website, understanding the blog-writing process, and interpreting web-design. As with writing in other genres, blogging and website development force you to plan, write often, receive feedback, and revise. As you gain new experiences, read new texts, write new blogposts, and converse with your readers, your purpose and voice will likely change. This transformation over time defines the writing situation, one in which your ideas develop through the process of writing.
Your blog will develop over your entire year in Humanities Core. Unlike other writing assignments, it is meant to serve as a site of reflection, through which you can mark your intellectual development over several quarters. At the end of each year, students are often amazed to see how far their thinking has come. But, the end of the year does not determine an end to your thinking and writing. We encourage you to continue your blogging conversations after you leave Humanities Core.
Each quarter, you will be required to write a minimum number of blog entries that should pose and engage humanistic research questions. Your seminar leader will determine the number of blog posts, whether or not they will be prompted, and when they are due. Your blog posts can be posted at any time before the due date. Your instructor will give you details about how you will receive credit for each.
In all sections, final websites are due during the last week of each quarter. To receive credit, please paste all blog entries into a single document and submit it as a Turnitin Assignment submission on your seminar Canvas site.
Grading
| Fall Quarter | 6 entries minimum | Blogs: 25% Writing grade Website: 5% Writing grade |
| Winter Quarter | 6 entries minimum | Blogs: 25% Writing grade |
| Spring Quarter | 4 entries minimum | Blogs: 15% Writing grade |
Resources:
Blogging + Web DesignHumanities Core Research Blog
Website + Blog Assignment Rubric
