Previously, I highlighted key elements of good blogging.  These notes were rather generic and perhaps did too little to clarify how to blog and more to the point how to assess quality work in the context of this class.

To my mind good writing on a blog or the printed page displays several important features:

• Creativity
• Critical Thought
• Clarity
• A cohesive and cumulative argument
• An interpretation grounded in evidence
• An awareness of social location and historical structures
• An effort to connect local circumstances and global conditions
• An adherence to stylistic conventions
• A unique, ideally empowered, voice

Above all else, the blog as text and practice should engage:  initiate dialogues, continue conversations, go beyond reading and interpretation, respect and respond to other perspectives and people, reach out to the world, think critically, and creatively work for change.

To assess our work this term, we will employ the following rubric:

KNOWS WHO SHE OR HE IN A COMPLEX, UNEQUAL, AND UNEQUAL WORLD

EXAMINES THE INFLUENCE OF THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

IDENTIFIES AND ASSESS SOCIAL NORMS AND ASUMPTIONS

ASKS RELEVANT QUESTIONS AND FORMULATES ANSWERS GROUNDED IN EVIDENCE

ACCESS INFORMATION TOOLS TO GET RELEVEANT ANSWERS

ACTIVE AND CRITICAL DISCUSSION OF ISSUES