First Assignment

Welcome to English 263: The Vampire Novel!

Every week, I will post a few questions on here to get you thinking about your own blogs. For our first week of class, we have quite a bit of house-keeping to do, so please be patient with the new technology and the various assignments. Below is your first introductory assignment. Please read through it carefully. If you have any questions, feel free to post them on the Help forum. Happy blogging!

Your First Blog:

Write a brief paragraph that will introduce yourself to your fellow bloggers. Below are some questions to get you started, but feel free to write what you think will best represent you.

Give us at least three interesting facts about yourself. Explain why you signed up for the course and what you hope to get out of it (please refrain from just saying it fulfills a GER credit. That’s pretty obvious). Discuss what is your favorite novel and why? (If you do not have a favorite novel, describe a movie that you particularly like). What certain kinds of books do you find yourself drawn to and why? What are your expectations of a novel? In other words, when you open a book, what do you generally hope to get out of it? You might also want to explore what is your personal history with English classes? What sort of English classes have you taken and what sort of literature have you read? How do you think this online literature class might be different from other literature classes you have taken? What sort of perspective or point of view are you bringing to this class? In other words, what do you already know about vampires, vampire literature, and literature in general? If you don’t have any background in these things, what about your background will help contribute to our online discussion? What sort of online communities do you belong to already? (i.e. facebook, chat forums, etc. do you already keep a blog?). What’s your experience with online communication? Has it been positive? Negative? What do you find works best in an online community?

The following questions are just to get you familiar with some of the functions blogger has to offer. If you get stuck, do a search for answers or post a question to the help forum on my blog.

Post a picture of a place you’ve been or a place you’d like to visit. Explain why. (Let’s keep these next few things somewhat PG-13, please).

Post a link to a website you tend to frequent. Explain why you like it.

Post a youtube video that you like or you think is particularly interesting. Explain why you like this video.

Post *something* (a link, a photo, a youtube video, etc) of one of your favorite vampire characters. Explain why you like this character and what attracts you to him or her (or it!).

Discussion Assignment:

By Friday at 11:59 pm, make sure you visit the chat forums for the course. Remember that participation in the chat forums is mandatory, but there is no requirement of length or frequency of posting. Posting to the chat forums is like participating in class. You will be graded holistically by the quality and frequency of your posts, the depth of your analysis, your attentiveness to other students’ ideas, and your enthusiasm and engagement in discussions.