For your first blog assignment, follow these steps.

1)  Read the Blog Assignment posted to Moodle (in the Blog tab, just above this prompt). 

2)  Also read the prompt below.  If both these are clear to you, write your first post! 

3)  If you have questions, ask them in the Thursday student hours right after class or via email before Friday (the first post is due next Monday).

Blog prompt 1

Length: 300 words maximum

In this first post, you’ll introduce yourselves to the class by discussing our common focus on literature, using one of the two options below. Whichever you choose, try to have fun with this assignment!

1) The creative approach: test your writing skills by telling us that you’re an English major (or if not a major, a literature-adjacent person) without ever using the words “English” or “major.” In other words, draw a portrait of yourself that will lead readers to that conclusion without ever directly explaining what you study in college. You may define “literature” in your own terms; you should be sure to provide concrete examples to bring your perspective to life.

Feel free to include images, links to contemporary media, etc. to enrich your portrait. 

2) If you’d rather work on your analytic skills, try this version instead: what, in your view, is the value and function of literature in the 21st century?  Can novels, plays, and poetry still give readers the sense of being transported out of everyday life, the aesthetic pleasure, and/or the insight into other worlds that many people consider central to readers’ love of reading? Or do you think that other types of media have taken the place of traditional literature? Using Culler as your model of how to ask and answer large, theoretical questions about literature, Make your case concretely, with specific examples to bring your argument to life. Again, feel free to include images, links to contemporary media, etc. to enrich your portrait.