I was talking with a student in office hours yesterday (Hi Nicole) and she asked how the blogs are graded. So, that made me want to write a special note to let you in a the thinking behind this course. First off, the blog is pass/no pass. If you write your blog entry and respond to another one (preferably more than one, but only one is required), and write your response to the reading, you get full credit for the blog portion of the course.
Second off, here is why we do this. There are now ample research to suggest that direct instruction in grammar does nothing to improve writing. Further, by turning many of us off to the written word, direct grammar instruction may actually cause harm, only making us not want to write. One of the proven means of writing better (the goal of this course) is to write more and to read more. That sounds so simple, but it should also be somewhat obvious; the more you read and write, the better you read and write.
No response needed for this one, but I wanted to share the good question and a little about why we structure the course this way...
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