My AS class: today's work

It shouldn't be difficult to keep yourself busy today(!). Here are the tasks (read them all before you start) and you can do them in any order as long as they all get done by the time they are due:

• Set up your own language blog with your name (and surname/initial if necessary, Beths!) in it then email me the URL (HW@stbrn.ac.uk) - this needs to be done in the first 20 minutes and the blog can be made fancier later.
• Once I have emailed you all the URLS, follow my blog and the rest of the class's blogs too by going to the Blogger dashboard and 'add'ing to the reading list. The latest posts will appear in a news feed as they are created and you can jump to the full blog easily to comment.
• Post an extract from one of the texts you brought in and say why you chose it, how you feel about it, which features you think are worth noticing and why it might have been written that way - try and write in a lively, interesting way as this first analysis is not formal. This will be informally assessed for effort/insight (it’s my first chance to see how engaged you are with language).
• Comment on what you can see in someone else's extract - be tactful, considering their feelings about the text, but be open and respond to it your way. Read them all and comment on as many as you feel the urge to respond to (at least two by the end of the lesson!). Avoid nice but empty comments like 'I really like this text too' if that's all you say.
• Read some of my older posts and add comments to them if you have an opinion (you can do this in your independent study time instead or as well). I won’t be informed a comment has been made so let me know if you have a question.
• Check your own post(s) regularly and see if you need to respond.
• Start your text about yourself (written in a surprising/challenging/different genre) and finish for homework for Monday. Post it to your blog by 10.25 Monday so I can have a quick look before class. If it won’t post, print it out and put it on my desk by 10.25 Mon (my desk is in C102). This piece will form your initial assessment and will be graded in terms of how much it sounds like the kind of language used in the form you have chosen, how accurate the spelling/grammar is and how detailed/ambitious it is. You will get some feedback from me privately and everyone will read your text on your blog to get to know you better.

So the minimum today is: create your blog and email me the URL, post an extract from one of your texts and write an informal analysis, read everyone’s posts and comment on at least two. Try and start the assessed piece about yourself! Told you you’d be busy…