BP#1: Your First Assignment

Today we will begin blogging.
Please remember that all of your posts should go on your own blog rather than the class blog. The class blog will be used only for instructional purposes.

A few words about your blog posts. Because we are dealing with an online audience, your posts should be concise and relatively short (between 100-150 words). This will mean that you will have to be very precise in your writing. Get to your point quickly, adding only those details necessary to describe or explain the main focus for your entry. Before you begin writing, take a look at the following website which will link you to a number of blogs written by teens about books and reading (look in the sidebar for "Book Review Websites & Blogs for Teens").

NOW, find a quote on the internet that displays well your feelings about books, or your relationship with books. Once you have found a perfect quote, make it the subheading of your blog (give credit to the author of the quote as well).

NOTE: To do this you will need to go your dashboard where you will find your 'Settings' button. This will allow you to change your title and add the quote as your subheading.

THEN as your first blog post explain why you selected the quote you did. Make a personal connection to the quote and what it tells your readers about you and your relationship to reading. Be sure to include the quote itself as well as the author and a link to the source you borrowed it from.

an example of a level four response to this assignment:

"In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you." -Mortimer Adler

I do not read books as if it's a competition to see who can get to the end the fastest. It doesn't even have to be books, they can be articles, myths anything writen. For you can read something quickly countless times but still know nothing of what it is saying. Instead why don't you take a few extra moments, read it slower, then you take in all of what the words are saying to you and then later you don't keep having to flip back to the text saying: I read this in this part, but what did it say? Then you have to spend more time on it. I know people who race through many books a week and enjoy them, but then you ask them what it meant, they don't know. Some people are okay with not knowing exactly what the book was trying to convey, but that's not me. I would rather read one book and take it apart word for word. If I don't do that, then I don't see a point. Books are writen to serve a purpose. If books don't tell you something or if they don't give you that feeling that hits you deep down, then it's not the author's fault, it's yours. So search for it. And let the meaning get through you .

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/22395.Mortimer_J_Adler

E. M. 2011

About the Home Page

This page will be where you will find the reading assignments you will complete this year.

The other pages listed in the side bar to the right (called "Get Your Blog On!") will provide you with introductory activities to get you ready to manage your own blog.

As your first task, click on the page entitled "Introduction to Blogging" to begin your journey into the weblog world. When you are done reading what is required on each page, follow the instructions at the bottom to complete your next assignment.

Good luck and have FUN!!!

Oh, and make sure you vote on this week's poll (found at the right hand side of the blog).