I've Been Swamped with Blog Posts!

Dear class,

I am pleased that after a slow start, so many of you made or came near to the 20 posts required by the blog assignment. Unfortunately, several of you posted all, or nearly all, of those 20 posts in the last few days before last Monday's deadline. I have been working my way through the posts, reading and evaluating them, but it looks like I will not be completely through before this evening's chat session. I will finish up this weekend, though.

Thank you for your hard work. I know that writing 20 posts seemed like a daunting task! Many of you did great work which I found very impressive, and I enjoyed learning from your insights and observations. You will learn a lot from each other when you read these posts and make your comments. I am sorry that several of you did not post all along through the past weeks, though. You made it harder on yourself waiting until just before the deadline, and you also deprived yourself of the opportunity to get feedback on your initial posts, so as to avoid problems in subsequent ones.

Hello from Holden Beach

Dear class,

I am writing to let you know that I am at Holden Beach, NC this week, sharing a cottage with my wife's parents, brothers, and their families. I had been told that the cottage had internet access, but that has turned out not to be the case. I have been able to mooch off the neighbors' wireless networks at times, but the connection is slow and intermittent. Holden Beach is pretty undeveloped, which is really nice unless you need to find dependable internet access!

I will try to read and reply to your blog posts this week, and attempt to join our chat session on Thursday. I am not fully confident that I will be able to join or stay in the chat, however. Please plan to participate in the chat session, and be ready to share your own ideas about the readings (in case I cannot share mine). I have confidence in your ability to talk about the readings, after having read your blogs! I am sorry for any inconvenience my slow or failing connection may cause.

I will send this announcement out via email, and I hope that everyone will receive it before Thursday.

I have enjoyed reading your blog posts on the reading assignments! Many of you are doing a very good job of focusing on a specific text, quoting and exploring specific passages from it, and speculating on what the passages mean and how they relate to other texts we have read. Remember, as a general rule, to "say more about less" in your posts. Think about how to dig deeper into a more narrow topic, rather than making broader, sweeping generalizations.

I am concerned, however, about the rate at which you are posting. Several of you have yet to post on the readings, and few of you are on track to complete 20 posts by the original assigned date of Friday, June 26. Therefore, as we discussed at our last chat session, I am extending the deadline for the posts until Monday, June 29. I hope this extension will help those of you taking other Summer Session I courses to complete the posts after that session is finished. I do not intend to extend the deadline for the comments or the research paper, however.

Introductions

Welcome to the blog for my online English 264 course: Survey of English Literature, Romantics to Moderns. I have taught the course nearly 30 times over my years at Mercer, but by far the majority of them in a traditional, face-to-face classroom setting. I taught my first online section in the summer of 2006. That experiment seemed successful enough to repeat, which I have done each subsequent summer. I look forward to once again offering the online course this summer, and I am glad you are part of it.



During this summer session, I will use the blog to convey information about the class and about the readings and assignments. I will also use it to suggest discussion questions you may wish to pursue in your own blog for this course.



That's right, you will be setting up and maintaining your own blog for this course, too! Let me reassure you that it is easy; there are instructions on our course's web site and Blackboard page. On your blog you will analyze and discuss the readings. I also want you to read and comment on the blogs of your classmates. In this way I hope to emulate the classroom discussion that is a large part of the face-to-face English 264 course.