Final Project Lesson Structure

Lesson Structure

• This will be an on-going, year-long project in which students will participate individually to create and maintain a literary blog that reflects the content of the class. The approximate time that each student will spend on this blog by year's end should be a total of ten to fifteen hours, split between homework and in-class work.
• At the start of the school year, there will be an introductory Webquest-based lesson where students will spend a 50-minute lesson navigating the web to become familiar with literary websites. They will complete a brief assessment answering specific questions about content found at the following websites. (These are websites they can use to satisfy the project requirement to post at least two thoughtful comments at a literary website.):

Open Letters Monthly http://openlettersmonthly.com/blog/
Three Percent http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php
The Second Pass http://thesecondpass.com/?page_id=24
Critical Mass http://www.bookcritics.org/blog
Conversational Reading http://www.conversationalreading.com/
American Fiction Notes http://americanfiction.wordpress.com/
Maud Newton http://maudnewton.com/blog/
Blog of Bookslut http://www.bookslut.com/blog/
Bookforum http://www.bookforum.com/
Mobylives http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/
The Reading Experience http://noggs.typepad.com/

• At the end of the Webquest lesson, teacher will distribute to students a year-long calendar (also posted on SchoolLoop) which shows their individual deadlines for their two blog posts, two blog comments and their required week of in-class blog maintenance. Students will be instructed to send links of completed work to teacher via SchoolLoop.
• A follow-up lesson will be needed to create the class blog and the student accounts on a free site such as blogger or livejournal.
• Depending on class knowledge and interest, teacher might conduct follow-up lessons throughout the year on Internet etiquette, how to increase blog traffic, etc.
• Resources required for this project is a computer with Internet access and a valid SchoolLoop account. Students without access to a home computer will be given time during weekly tutorials to complete and upload work using the computer lab's computer.