In this post I’m going to recount how to do your blog post assignments and describe what you need to write about and when in blog posts. This includes your book-based research project. Be sure to click the “read more” to read the rest of this post.

How to Create A Blog Post Assignment

A significant part of the your course grade involves writing posts and your project on your own blog. Just a reminder that your blog is a different website than this site. If you haven’t already logged in to use your blog see these posts about How to Use Your Blog, How To Login to Your Blog, and How to Use Your Blog.

So let’s assume you’ve got your blog already. What do you need to do with it for this course?  For this course, you’ll be creating at least 5 blog posts on your own blog.  Remember this is your blog and you can use it as a personal website. Post what you like. But of course you don’t want your personal posts ending up in this course discussion, so let’s quickly go over the few steps needed on your blog to create a post that will count for this course.

1. login to your blog -see How To Login to Your Blog
2. move your cursor to the “+ New” on the black tool bar at the top of the screen. >> click on “New Post”
3. complete the four steps needed to create your new post:
   1. write a title and hit the “enter” button
   2. enter your text and write your post in the large text box
   3. on the right side of the screen, go to the “Categories” box and be sure that “ECON 260” is clicked. This is what will connect your post on your blog to this course hub.
   4. click the big blue Publish button on the right side.

That’s it.  Now let’s look at how many and what the subjects of your posts should be.

The Blog Post Assignments (5 minimum)

There are a minimum of five blog post assignments, meaning you need to create at least 5 blog posts. You may create more posts than five if you wish. For example, you may wish to create your own blog posts as part of participating in the weekly conversation.  For now, I’m going to describe the minimum requirements for the five posts.

So far, you’ve been reading links to articles or blog posts that I (Jim) have created and assigned you. Then you join the conversation and by replying or posting in the coursehub with your thoughts and reactions to that assigned reading.  You’ve been essentially reactive – reacting to research (finding the readings) that I’ve done. With your blog posts, you’re going to become more of an active researcher. The blog posts will capture thought you have and your ideas, supported by research you have done. One of the five blog posts will be a very significant piece of writing. It’s your book-related project. The last blog post will be a lengthy reflective piece on what you’ve learned in the course. The last one is done in the last week of the course.

The other three posts, the first posts are really up to you. You can write whatever you wish as long as it’s related to this course. Here’s what I suggest as possibilities for your first three blog posts:

• Write some short posts (length is not an issue) with whatever preliminary thoughts or reactions you are having to the book you are reading as you read it.
• Find some other article on the Web that relates to either the one of the topics we’re discussing class OR that relates to the topic of the book you’re reading.  Write a short post to the article to introduce it to your fellow students and include the link to the post.
• Write about some news story that you’re interested in that’s related to economic systems (there’s a LOT happening in the US now!) and link to the story.
• Find some interesting data on the Web that relates to either a topic we’ve discussed or the topic in the book you are reading. Write about it, describe it, and link to it.  By data, it could be numeric data, but oftentimes graphs and data visualizations are even better. It could be an interesting graph in a news article. Link to it.

For these three (or more) early blog posts, there is no minimum length requirement. Just say what needs to said for your fellow students or other folks on the Web to understand your point. I do expect you when referencing other posts, articles, data, and sources to include a link to them.  Use the “link” icon in the editing tool bar to insert a link.

Your book-related research post is the big post you’ll need to do.  It needs to be completed before the end of the 14th week of the semester (two weeks before end of finals).  There are more detailed requirements for your book-related post, so there’s a separate page describing your book related research and post. See it for details. I suggest reading those instruction pages closely before getting started on your book.

The last post will be a lengthy reflective piece/essay about the course and what you’ve learned. It will be due during the last week of the course (finals week). It will also double as the final exam.  You will be given questions to answer and a writing prompt when we get to finals week.