Greetings from the Blog-o-sphere

Welcome to our class blog. As contributors to this blog, I hope that you will all not only use this place as somewhere to post your writing assignments throughout the semester, but also as a place where you can feel free to publish relevant writing of your own. Please, no Robocop Twilight fan-fiction. However, any academic discussion of what Twilight's popularity means about American culture is welcome. Also, if you would like to publish your longer essays on this blog, they would be entirely appropriate. Since this blog is public, any writing you publish here will be open for the world's consumption.

You might have noticed that above I used a text effect called "strikethrough" which is fairly common in blogs. You may also notice that I have posted a picture to the right. While you are certainly welcome to post more traditional, text-only posts, I also wanted to make it known that the use of different types of communication in your posts is also possible. While they shouldn't be relied on too heavily (your entire argument can't be constructed with an image, as we want to cultivate writing skills) the use of these web authoring tools can certainly supplement your writing well.

Most importantly, though, is that this blog is a place for the class to interact. I am a big proponent of the idea that you as students can teach each other just as much as I can teach you, so I have decided that a portion of your participation grade will be based upon interacting with other students' posts using the blog's comment function. Of course, this conversation should be considerate, so please try to keep all commenting in the realm of constructive criticism. This doesn't mean that your comments need to be devoid of emotion or opinion - that type of feedback is whole-heartedly encouraged - merely that you should keep in mind that your comments are a type of written rhetoric, and derogatory or spiteful criticisms are not an effective way to voice your opinions. If you disagree with someone, respect them and respect yourself by phrasing your commentary in an insightful, logically-driven, and kind way.

Enjoy! I am looking forward to an insightful and exciting semester with you all.