Blog Assignment 7: Looking forward and back

This will be the last course blog assignment. Starting next week, you'll be posting comments to one another's individual blogs, but there won't be a common assignment for the entire group.

So let's do a little looking back as well as some looking forward.

Blog Assignment 7 | Due Wednesday May 19 | 3:00 pm
GOALS: 1) Reflecting on your learning, 2) Offering advice to future students

What's been your favorite assignment from another course you've taken? Give the course name and briefly describe the assignment. What made it a good assignment, and what did you learn from doing it?

What advice would you give future students for the first half of this course?

Blog Assignment 6 | An Image is Worth 1000 Angry Words

Blog Assignment 6 | An Image is Worth 1000 Angry Words

This coming Wednesday, May 12, we're going to be discussing the popular belief that "It's better to express anger to others than to hold it in." We'll be examining whether people commonly think it's healthier to express your anger or to suppress it, and what the research literature has to say on the issue.

It's also the second half of the course, which means you're busy researching your own blog. I'd like to see people include images in their blogs as evidence to prove a point, as a concise way to capture complex concepts or emotions, or simply as comic relief.

Blog Assignment 6 | Due Wednesday May 12 | 3:00 pm
GOALS: 1) Practice finding images to illustrate a belief 2) Analyze an image

Your task is two-fold:

1) Find an online image that makes a point about expressing anger and whether or not it's good for you.

The point could be that expressing anger is cathartic, or damaging, or healthy. It could convey that suppressing your anger is damaging - or perhaps it keeps you out of trouble. Whatever image you choose, it shouldn't just show someone expressing or suppressing anger, but it should convey that the person thrives or suffers (or something in between) because of it.

Provide a link to the image so that the rest of us can view it.

The visual image could be just about anything that has a spatial element:
- a photo
- a drawing
- a web comic
- a graph or chart
- a video
- a map
It could include words, but the spatial layout of information should be important for it to qualify as a visual.


2) Analyze the image. This involves two discrete steps. Make it clear which is which.

A. First, what do you see in the image? Describe what's actually there, without any interpretation.

B. Second, what do you infer from the image? If it's a graph, what does it suggest about anger? If it's an emotional image with people or animals, what is the relationship between the characters and what emotions does the image convey? Most importantly, what does it say about the popular belief

"It's better to express anger to others than to hold it in."

Directory: Individual Blog Projects

This is it! This is where you should post the url for your individual blog. Please add a quick sentence describing your myth so that people are enticed to check it out (you can just cut and paste the description of your myth from Assignment #5 if you like).

Deadline: Monday, May 17, 12:00 noon

All blogs should be live with a Welcome page by that deadline, and all urls should be listed here.

If you need a copy of the guidelines for the final blog project, they are posted on the course Angel website, under "Readings and Assignments."

Happy blogging!

Blog Assignment 5 | Key Words and Internet Research

This coming Wednesday, we’ll begin discussing your individual blog projects and we’re taking a mini field-trip to the library to launch your research (ok, not as cool as a field trip to the zoo, but decidedly more relevant). This week's blog assignment is to help you prepare for that discussion.

Because You Asked: When Sven and I met this week to discuss your feedback on the course, he said that one simple improvement would be to have these weekly blog comments due a little later in the day. That’s a reasonable request. So the new deadline is 3:00 pm on Wednesday, instead of noon. I want to read them before class so I can direct our discussion accordingly.

Blog Assignment 5 | Due Wednesday May 5 | 3:00 pm

GOALS 1) Share your blog topic with the class, 2) Strategize on search terms


1) What is the myth that you’ll be researching in this class? In two to three sentences, why does it interest you?

2) Good search terms are critical to good research. How will you identify good search terms to use? Suggest a new strategy that no one has listed.

3) What’s the best piece of advice you’ve heard (or perhaps discovered yourself) about doing research online?