Discussion Board Posting Instructions
You will post on our Canvas Discussion Board on dates indicated on the syllabus. Your postings will engage the question or topic in depth, analyzing quotations and examples when appropriate. Because these postings are short, you are encouraged to develop your own impressions, rather than consult internet sources. If you do consult internet or any other sources, you must cite them.
Discussion board postings will be assessed using the following rubric:
4: Exceptional. The discussion board post is focused and coherently integrates examples with explanations or analysis. The post demonstrates awareness of its own limitations or implications, and it considers multiple perspectives when appropriate. The entry reflects in-depth engagement with the topic.
3: Satisfactory. The discussion post is reasonably focused, and explanations or analysis are mostly based on examples or other evidence. Fewer connections are made between ideas, and though new insights are offered, they are not fully developed. The post reflects moderate engagement with the topic.
2: Underdeveloped. The discussion board post is mostly description or summary, without consideration of alternative perspectives, and few connections are made between ideas. The post reflects passing engagement with the topic.
1: Limited. The discussion board post is unfocused, or simply rehashes previous comments, and displays no evidence of student engagement with the topic.
0: No Credit. The discussion board post is missing or consists of one or two disconnected sentences.
Adapted from https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196
Discussion Board Posting 1
For the first week, we will read Zadie Smith’s essay “Generation Why?” (2010) and E. M. Forster's story, “The Machine Stops” (1909). Composed nearly a century apart, both texts address society, technology, and personal relationships. The questions below invited you to respond to both readings, sometimes separately and sometimes together.
Select one of the following questions to answer:
- How does the world of Zadie Smith’s “Generation Why?” function as a machine? What machine-like qualities does it have? What does this teach us about societies in general?
- Zadie Smith’s essay addresses the film The Social Network, which came out nine years ago. How would you update her critique of Facebook and social media now? Respond to at least one point she makes, quoting and analyzing it in your response.
- What impact does technology have on personal relationships in E. M. Forster’s story or Zadie Smith’s essay, or in both texts?
Your response will be at least 250 words and take the shape of the "sandwich paragraph" from Understanding Rhetoric. Postings will be graded using the discussion posting rubric. You are also required to respond to at least one of your classmates’ postings within 48 hours of the deadline.
Your responses will be at least 250-words and analyze at least one quotation from at least one text to support your response. See here for instructions as to how to fluidly incorporate quotations as part of your text. You are also asked to respond to at least one of your classmate’s answers. Please see the rubric below for further information.
You will also include a list of works cited in MLA style including the essay or story that you address and any sources you consulted, including web sites. You must use your own words, quote appropriately, and cite all sources you consult. See here for instructions.
Discussion Board Posting 2
After reading Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar, pages 1-50 (Ch. 1-4), answer one of the following questions, analyzing at least one quotation from the novel to support your response to each question. Analyze the quotation or quotations you select to support your argument.
Your response will be at least 250 words and take the shape of the "sandwich paragraph" from Understanding Rhetoric. Postings will be graded using the discussion posting rubric. You are also required to respond to at least one of your classmates’ postings within 48 hours of the deadline.
Remember to cite all sources you consult and add a list of works cited that includes the edition of the novel that you quote from. You must use your own words, cite, and quote appropriately. If you are using an e-book, you can cite chapters rather than page numbers in parentheses.
- Some readers see the idea of a bell jar as a clarifying lens in Sylvia Plath’s novel, depicting the world accurately. Others see it as a distorting one, depicting the world unrealistically. Is it clarifying, distorting, or both? Analyze at least one quotation from the novel to support your point.
- An early reader of The Bell Jar felt that Plath only referred to the Rosenberg Trial to tell readers when the story took place. Why do you think Plath began the novel in this way and what does doing so accomplish?
- While some might object to including women’s accessories in a novel, such as purses and patent leather shoes, calling them frivolous, I think that Plath’s inclusion of them accomplishes ______________. Analyze one quotation to support your point, addressing the quotation’s relationship to the story as a whole.
- Plath’s New York is filled with technology and transportation, from the electric chair to taxi cabs. What is one moment in which her depiction combines humanity and machinery and how does it do so? Analyze a quotation to support your point.
- What role does humor have in the novel thus far? Analyze at least one quotation and address what it teaches us that we did not expect.
Discussion Board Posting 3
Sylvia Plath was a visual artist and a writer. A selection of her drawings were sold and made available online. In your third discussion posting, you will pair one of Plath’s drawings with one quotation from chapters 5-8, asserting an argument regarding what the similarities or differences teach us about the novel. As you analyze the drawing and the passage from the novel together, take into account the visual elements that make the drawing a drawing and the written elements that makes the novel a novel. Include a screenshot of your image with your posting.
Your response will be at least 250 words and take the shape of the "sandwich paragraph" from Understanding Rhetoric. Postings will be graded using the discussion posting rubric. You are also required to respond to at least one of your classmates’ postings within 48 hours of the deadline.
Remember to cite all sources you consult and add a list of works cited that includes the edition of the novel that you quote from. You must use your own words, cite, and quote appropriately. If you are using an e-book, you can cite chapters rather than page numbers in parentheses.
For further information regarding Plath’s artwork, see Kathleen Connors and Sally Bayley, eds. Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath’s Art of the Visual (Oxford UP, 2007). You can hover over the cover to “look inside” on Amazon.
Discussion Board Posting 4
Your fourth posting will address at least one of the following poems by Tracy K. Smith, "Einstein's Mother," "Everything that Ever Was," "Flores Woman," or "Wade in the Water"; Natalie Diaz, "The Facts of Art"; or Sumita Chakraborty, “Image 004.”
You are also welcome to view and write about recordings of these poets reading of their work, such as Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith Inaugural Reading and Tracy K. Smith reads "Wade in the Water." Other recordings can be found on youtube and online.
Your posting will assert a thesis that responds to one of the following questions:
- How does gender function in at least one of the poems? What does it teach us about women’s roles in society?
- How is at least one of the poems relevant today? What does it teach us about our world?
- How does listening to a recording of one of the poets reading one or more of her poems differ from the experience of reading it or them on the page? How does the poem or poems make meaning differently on the page and out loud.
- How does at least one poem define art? How does this sense of art differ from its presence in another text we read?
- What role does form play in at least one poem? How does its shape inform its meaning?
- How does the role of space in at least one of the poems differ from that of Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar or E. M. Forster’s story “The Machine Stops” What do these differences teach us about the role of space in either or both texts?
In discussions of ______________, one controversial issue has been ____________. On the one hand, ______________. On the other hand, ____________. My own view is ______________.
Your posting will be at least 250 words and you must support and develop your argument by analyzing at least two quotations from at least one poem. Use the templates in They Say, I Say for introducing quotations and review the sample paragraph in Issue Four of Understanding Rhetoric.
Remember to use your own words, use correct MLA format for in-text citations, and include a list of works cited acknowledging all sources you have consulted, including the poems.
Discussion Board Posting 5
For your postings this week, you will each make three to five minute screencasts using Canvas Studio. In your video, you will answer one of the following questions, analyzing at least two quotations from Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go to support your point, and showing passages, highlighting words, and explaining how the text makes meaning as you analyze them in your video. You will also analyze one quotation or point from a scholarly journal article that you select on your own.
It may help to pair passages that address different facets of a concept or show the progression of a theme. Remember to draw conclusions and begin by stating them. You can also include typed passages or images or media as you explain your points. Get creative!
- Early in the novel, Kathy H. points out that “[c]arers aren’t machines.” Why do you think she states this so early in the novel, as she reflects on her life? What does it reflect about her role and the roles of her friends in the novel? How does it relate to at least one other text that we read?
- How does the idea of home function in this novel and how is it similar to or different from at least one other text we read?
- More than once, Kathy H. refers to “where you were” when addressing her audience. Who is her audience and how does it affect how she tells the story?
- Why do you think the students’ art was collected and their creativity encouraged?
- Is it ethical to raise children so that their organs can be used for others? What do you think the novel’s stance is on this question.
- Never Let Me Go is science fiction, though its setting differs from what we encountered in “The Machine Stops.” Why do you think the author made this choice? Is it effective? What would you change if you could?