This semester, I will ask you to keep a blog that will serve as a digital commonplace book. Commonplace books, popular in Early Modern Europe, were scrapbooks of sorts where writers could compile quotes, letters, lists, prayers, poems–basically a curated collection of literacy artifacts. Your blog will act as a commonplace book centered around your work for this class. At the beginning of the semester, I will ask you to respond to specific prompts introduced in class. But, eventually, you’ll be posting your own research. These “commonplace posts” must identify, respond to, and reflect on at least 2 artifacts (blog posts, scholarly articles, videos, tweets, music, images, etc.) relevant to your focal topic and/or current project. You can choose to post artifacts that are shaping your thinking, or perhaps materials that you may want to re-use later. Either way, each of the two artifacts must be in a different genre or medium (you can’t post two video ads for example), and you must write around 500 words of your own commentary and analysis.
I will list when blog posts are due on the schedule, but typically you’ll post once a week or so.
Criteria for Evaluating Commonplace Posts:
- Engage with multiple sources of information, including academic, peer-reviewed journals
- Be thoughtful and thorough
- Include commentary and analysis of your thoughts; does not simply “repost” what others’ have written
- Contain titles and tag/hyperlink media so the post is organized, easy to search, and clear
English 213 