Welcome to Our Class Blog

Welcome to our online community, a public forum for continuing discussion. The blog exists so that our discussions of literature can be fluid, moving in and out of the classroom, and so that you always have a forum available to you. You will have insights come to you in class, but they will also come as you are reading, as you are going about your day, at 2 AM as you are lying in bed, etc. The blog is ideal for posting pre-class thoughts and impressions or for reflecting on our class discussions. Others will benefit from what you have to say, and you will benefit from their reactions.

Beyond self-initiated posts, which you may upload as often as you like, you are required to post one response per week to one of my writing prompts. I will be posting two groups of prompts each week, one for each class period. You may respond on both days if you wish, but you are only required to respond once. (You can also receive credit by commenting on the response of one of your classmates.) Each response should be somewhere between 200 and 400 words long, and it must be posted before class. In other words, if I post prompts on Tuesday night after our class, you will need to respond to one of them before Thursday’s class in order to receive credit. If I post prompts on Thursday, you will need to respond before Tuesday. We usually begin class discussions with your responses, so posting on time is crucial.

The cut-off time for posting is one hour before class starts, and these responses cannot be made up.

Please be aware that I expect these responses to be thoughtful and genuinely insightful. Don't just dash something off at the last minute and expect it to fly. Your responses should also be well-written. Do not assume that because you are writing on a blog you can abandon punctuation, spelling, grammar, and paragraph structure.

In order to join the blog, you must have a gmail account. If you don’t have one, you will need to create one. Once you have an account, send me your gmail address in an email (dwestover@uvu.edu). In return, I will send you an invitation to the blog. Accept that invitation by following the appropriate links and becoming a contributor. Blogging is a required component of this course, and you will need to contribute as early as next week, so please register right away.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to a great semester.

-Daniel