English 2650 I Literature, Media and Technology I Fall 2015 I 1

The “Critic’s Blog” This aspect of the course is most central: it is from your blog that you will engage the readings and each other in ways that lead toward both a fuller understanding of the readings and the beginnings of your comic book review series. It is on the blog where you will work out your critical responses to the readings. A successful Crit ics Blog post does the following:

• Focuses response on the reading and its elements. • Connects or relates your response to recent discussions, your current coursework, something you might have

read elsewhere, and/or previous experiences engaging with material of this nature in other contexts. • Discusses how the reading contributes to your understanding of the human, how it expands your understanding

of recent discussions, or how it suggests ideas for your work moving forward. • Provides commentary rather than summary. We have all read the book, so we don't need much summary.

Instead, take particular aspects of the reading and make concrete, specific connections to your own experience inside and outside of class and previous readings.

• Hits the word count, which is ~500 words (word counts are a little arbitrary, but they encourage the kind of sustained attention that makes a good post).

• Uses hyperlinks when referring to a resource, web page, or other file type. Hyperlinks mean converting text to a link, not merely cutting and pasting in an URL.

• Titled to reflect the context of what you have written, not merely restating the name of the title of the assignment or reading. Interesting and informative titles draw more interesting responses from others.

To produce successful Comments:

• Read through all comments and replies in the thread. • Strive to be thoughtful and analytical in your comments. • Try to find something new to say instead of repeating what has already been said in the original post or in other

comments already posted. • Provide hyperlinks to additional resources on the Web that would better inform the discussion. • Contend with and/or support the original post. If you are criticizing what the poster has said, remember to do so

respectfully, as this encourages further dialogue. “This sucks” would not be an appropriate response. Neither would “That’s great!” if you don’t explain what you mean. But, be sure to keep in mind the course atmosphere detailed on the course syllabus; this is to be a place where you can openly question, discuss, and debate—even disagree. But, you must do so in a respectful and informed manner.

• Direct attention to related and relevant issues. You may find that none of the posts about a particular reading confront what you feel is an important issue on the assigned texts. As long as it is related to the general topic of the readings or the topic of this class, feel free to post a comment that turns the conversation in a new direction (use the subject line to clearly specify this new direction).

• Don’t just praise or complain in your comment. A good comment introduces new material. Its point is to contribute to and shape an ongoing conversation.

• Hit the comment word count, which is ~100 words.

“Boombox Robot,” Nigel Sussman