English A Blog - Our Stories

Becoming Critics and Builders of Culture

Category: Course Stuff

Reading Update/Review

*Remember, avoid spoilers as much as possible, since your thoughts might inspire others to pick up the book.

The must-haves: create a post about your independent reading. See below for posting options. Also, make two comments on your classmates’ posts. Comments can be brief, but they need to have substance, not just saying you like it (there’s actually a button for that).

If you have not completed your book during the past two weeks, post a reading update of at least one paragraph based on the reading focus for this week, which is Beginnings. Answer the following questions, explaining your answers:

  • How does the book hook you from the beginning? Or does the reader need a little patience? Why?
  • How does the book immerse you in a new world? What are some details of that world?

or

If you completed a book, post a book review of at least one paragraph, which will include answers to some the following (these questions avoid questions of plot, which will help you avoid spoilers):

  • How does the book hook you from the beginning? Or does the reader need a little patience? Why?
  • How does the book immerse you in a new world? What are some details of that world?
  • What is the most complex character or characters in the book? What makes them round and dynamic?
  • What are the compelling internal and external conflicts in the book? How does the book build tension?
  • Would you recommend this book to any reader? Would you recommend it to particular readers? Why?

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog for our English A class. One of the main uses of this blog will be to share and discuss our independent reading. We will also use this space to continue conversations from class and to start new ones. Here is where we can be critics, builders, and even just consumers of culture.

So, what’s a blog? And how will we be using it class? For information on blogging and how to join and post to our blog, see “All About Blogging.”

We’re looking forward to a great year.

Make sure you check your e-mail for your invitation to join the blog. Also – and this is very important – the first step you should take after you accept the invitation is to edit your user profile so that you control how your identity and your communication preferences.  Click on the icon in the upper right corner of the browser and edit your profile

You can fill out as much of it as you want, but the only requirement is — under “Identity” — make sure your “Display name” is your first name and last initial only — so we provide some anonymity while still allowing your classmates and teacher to be able to identity who you are. For example, change “Bernie Heidkamp” to “Bernie H.”

The Old Blogs

At present, we use the Edublogs platform for our class blog, which is built on a WordPress platform — one of the most popular and robust web publishing platforms in the world. We had been using the WordPress.com platform directly for several years, and you can still wander around that old Our Stories blog.

For many years before that, we used the Blogger platform for the AP Lit blog, but it was a very limited and bug-ridden platform, and Google eventually stopped supporting it.

If you are interested, though, in seeing what those long-ago English A students have been thinking and writing about, feel free to wander over to the old old blog: Take Control of Your Culture.

You can also check out my senior AP Lit students who are presently blogging over at Story Power.

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