Self-Directed Journaling Requirements

Overview & Rationale

Inquiry demands engagement because exigence doesn’t happen in isolation. Exploring a topic, becoming informed, and finding motivation to think and write happens in cooperation (and conversation) with other voices, ideas, research, and writing. Knowledge (episteme) is negotiated in language–it’s created, extended, and applied in the symbols we use to communicate. For that reason, you should think of language surrounding your topic as a conversation (between thinkers, ideas, positions, etc.).

To motivate and document your engagement in topical conversation, and to explore ideas in writing (and about writing), you will keep a self-directed journal from now until the end of the semester.

Requirements

For our purposes, weeks end at 11:59pm on Sunday evenings. Each week, you should write two posts—one about your reading, and one about your ideas.

You must begin your self-directed journaling beginning week 5, which means you should write your first two ‘official’ posts—one in each of two categories, reading and ideas—by 11:59pm on Sunday, 9/25.

To achieve the highest grade in the “journaling” category of your semester grade, you must write one reading and one ideas post (2 posts total) ~~8 out of the 10 weeks left in the semester~~.

Update, 11/18. For those students who have met requirements so far—meaning they’ve written one “readings” post and one “ideas” post in 6 of the 8 weeks starting Sunday, 9/25 through Sunday 11/13 (minus a few required posts that took the place of one weekly post, all indicated on the course schedule)—you may be done with blogging to focus on your final essay.

For students who have not yet met requirements, you may continue blogging for the last few weeks of class in order to meet post quotas.

Aim for ~400-600 words, though I understand that sometimes you’ll have more to say, and sometimes you’ll have less.

After the week is “over,” posts cannot be “made up.” In other words, if you fall behind and write nothing for two weeks in a row, you cannot catch up by writing six posts the following week.

Additional requirements: Good post titles and correct category tags (see below).

Time & Effort Required?: Significant

According to the Provost’s Memoranda on “Policy and Procedures: Definitions of a Credit Hour”:

“The course syllabus must document an average of not less than two hours of out-of-class assignments each week for fifteen weeks per semester, or adjusted equivalent for other delivery modes, for each credit hour. Out-of-class assignments may include readings, research, homework assignments, research papers, interactive tutorials, study groups, or other activities appropriate for the course.”

Categories (2)

About Your Reading

Provide links to and brief summaries of interesting texts you’ve read related to your topic. Respond to the ideas, put them in conversation, comment on what they say, how they’re written, etc. You may choose a single, “rich” text, or a couple of shorter or more superficial ones (shorter texts, or those that demand less thinking). In general, these posts will require you to work closely with texts as you develop functional, critical, and rhetorical literacy surrounding your topic.

What I’m looking for: Evidence of sustained engagement with your topic, critical reading, analytical and rhetorical thinking.

About Your Ideas (and/or Writing)

Write down what you’re thinking about your topic—think out loud (on screen). Freewrite, prewrite, invent, generate, ruminate, organize, ask questions, throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks… you can also reflect on drafts, writing assignments, work-in-progress, writing problems, etc. Spelling and grammar don’t matter, complete thoughts aren’t required, and not everything has to be in paragraphs or sentences (but it has to be understandable to an outside reader). Messy thinking is encouraged.

What I’m looking for: Evidence of sustained, critical thinking about your topic and your writing.