First Blog Assignment
Due: March 10 12 by 11:59 p.m.
- What you’ll do for this assignment
- How you’ll do it
- How your post will be evaluated
- A blog post template
What you’ll do for this assignment
Write a few paragraphs (about 500 words, but don’t get hung up on numbers) in which you reflect on your learning in the course so far. There isn’t one right way to do this, but however you do it, make sure that you
- Look inside yourself. Ask yourself how you’ve changed or grown.
- Be concrete. Give specific examples of new knowledge or skills and why they matter to you.
- If you use generative AI to help you complete this assignment, include in your post a description of just how you did so. Was it to outline? Brainstorm? Organize your thoughts? Improve grammar/punctuation/usage/flow? Which GenAI tool(s) did you use? If you used GenAI to “clean up” your prose, give at least one before-and-after example of how GenAI improved one of your sentences.
- Show care in your writing. Care is different from grammatical correctness or correct punctuation. Careful writing reads like time and thought went into it, not like it was tossed together in a hurry. In addition, careful writing doesn’t feel generic. It carries the mark of the writer’s individuality Individuals have bumps and warts. They take risks. Bumps, warts, and risk-taking make writing enjoyable and interesting to read, because they convey the humanity of the writer.
- Remember that your post will appear on a public-facing blog, where anyone in the world who finds it can read it.
There are a couple of things you should be sure not to do:
- Don’t mention me by name. This post is about you, not me. Focus on what you’ve learned from the course or how the course has changed you so far, not on anything I’ve done or said or taught.
- Don’t write things you think I want to read. Write what’s real. Write honestly. Your post will not be evaluated based on whether you’ve said the “right” thing.
Below are some questions to prompt your thinking. Don’t construct your post by answering these questions one at a time! They’re meant to help you reflect, not to organize your post. You don’t have to answer all of them. Maybe one or two will suggest a theme for you to explore about your learning so far. If so, you can focus on that theme and not worry about questions that aren’t related to it.
- What are a few important things you know now that you didn’t know before the course began? (Important to you, that is. And why are they important to you?) You don’t have to limit yourself to things we’ve done or discussed in class. Maybe the most important things you’ve learned have been in the books assigned or the course website.
- What are some connections between computers and the humanities that you see now but hadn’t seen, or hadn’t given much thought to, before?
- Has what you’ve learned so far affected your confidence or your facility in using your computer? How?
- Has what you’ve learned made you pay attention to things outside this class that you hadn’t paid much attention to before? (These could be facts/ideas in other classes, things you notice in the news, things you notice on social media, or other things.)
- Has what you’ve learned so far spilled over into any of your other coursework, reading, or activities? If so, how?
- What are some things you find yourself wanting to know now or be able to do that you hadn’t much thought about knowing or doing before?
How you’ll do it
- Draft your blog post in one of your journal files using Markdown. Use the preview pane in VS Code to make sure everything looks right.
- Register an account on the English @ SUNY Geneseo website (if you don’t already have one from another course) and join the group Digital Humanities. (Be sure to follow the instructions for two-factor authentication. Note: You won’t be able to set up 2FA until you’ve joined Digital Humanities.)
- When you’re happy with what you’ve written, log into the site, go to the group’s blog, Digital Humanities at Geneseo, click
+New
in the black ribbon at the top of the site, selectPost
, and paste your post content from VS Code into the editor there. The editor understands Markdown! Use thePreview
button in the post editor to see how your post will look when published. - When you’re ready to submit your post, click
Submit for Review
.
Come up with a short title that succinctly captures the thrust of your post. Avoid at all costs a generic title such as “Blog Post 1.” Put your post title in the title field in the post editor. Don’t repeat your title in the body of your post. Don’t put your name in the post body, either. It will appear automatically once your post is published.
How your post will be evaluated
You can earn up to 15 points for this assignment. In evaluating your post, I’ll be asking myself the questions below. It’s a good idea to ask yourself how you would answer these questions before submitting your post. I’ll send you my answers to these questions together with a brief comment and the number of points you earned.
In your blog post, did you …
Not really | A little bit | Somewhat | Pretty much | Yes! | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
give concrete examples of skills or knowledge you’ve obtained in the course so far? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
explain why the skills or knowledge are important to you? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
address yourself to one or more of the assignment questions meant to prompt your thinking? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
write authentically, in your own voice, using your own words, about your learning? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
document any use you made of GenAI? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
write about how the course has changed you (if it has), avoiding any direct mention of me, the instructor? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
use care in the composition of your post? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
give your post a short title (in the title field, not the post body) that succinctly captures its thrust? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
format your post appropriately using Markdown? | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
A blog post template
The template below illustrates, in skeletal form, with mostly placeholder text, one way that you might approach this blog post. Copy it and paste it into VS Code. If the long lines aren’t wrapping to the width of your VS Code window, use option-Z
(Mac) or alt-Z
(Windows) to wrap them. (You can use these commands to toggle between wrapped and long-line views.)
Click the Preview icon in VS Code to see how the content would look with the Markdown rendered as HTML.
The template illustrates a few things to keep in mind as you draft your post:
- There is no title in the post text itself. Your tilte will go into the Title field in WordPress. Don’t repeat it in your post. A good title for this template post—one that captures the post’s main idea—would be “Lost and Found.”
- Since the post has a title, the highest-level heading used in the post is a level-two heading, with the heading text preceded by
##
. - The post uses headings to organize the content so that a reader can easily follow the thought. A list helps to do the same. These features are completely optional. They’re being used here merely to remind you that Markdown is one tool at your disposal for making your post engaging and easy for a reader to follow.
- Paragraphs in the post are separated by empty lines.
Once you have a decent draft of your post in VS Code, go to WordPress, start a new post, put your title in the Title field and paste your Markdown into the editor.
The editor will display your Markdown symbols (such as ##
), but these won’t be displayed when your post is published. To get a peek at how your published post will look, click “Preview.” A preview of your post will open in a new tab or window.
You can return to your post and continue editing it in the editor. If you do, be sure to click “Save” periodically.
When you’re satisfied with your post, click “Submit for Review.”
In *Walden*, Thoreau writes:
> Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
I began this class feeling very lost. There was so much I didn't understand about how we were being asked to use our computers. I'm beginning to find myself and understand at least a few important "relations." Maybe they're not "infinite" in their extent, but they seem important. I mean, for example, how parts of my computer are related to each other, and how computing is related to the humanities.
## My computer
Here are a few things I've learned about my computer:
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
- Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
- Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue.
### Lorem impsum dolor
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor.
### Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor
Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium.
### Etiam ultricies nisi
Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi.
## Computing and the humanities
Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. *Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus.* Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. **Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis** dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.