introducing and evaluating blogs

So for next semester, I think I'll have my students evaluate their own blogs. That is, I'll give them a rubric for evaluation. Each post will be done on a credit/no credit basis. If you complete the required post on time, then you get all the points. Grades for late work will be lowered.
So if you do all the work on time, you get 100% of the available homework points.

With two exceptions. If, according to our agreed-upon evaluation, you have produced exceptional work, then your blog will raise your final letter grade by 1/3 for participation. If you blog, on the other hand, is poorly done, then it will lower the grade by the same amount. Here's some of the handout I've been working on:

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Assessing your Researched Analysis Blog

The purposes of having your blog during your Researched Analysis Process included:

• Breaking up this large task into smaller, more manageable steps.
• Revealing the level of complexity of the RAE by showing that a good argument and useful secondary sources requires you to slowly explore, get lost, find direction, assert one idea and then revise it, and so on.
• Allowing you to share and show your work with the rest of the class in order to get feedback as well as give it.
• Giving you space not only to respond to required posts but also develop your own analytical questions and ideas—bending the blog to your own argumentative purpose by creating self-directed entries. Thus you might have taken notes on the blog, brainstormed, asked for feedback, or created posts that connect your W1 work with other “real life” encounters with writing practices.

Here you will assess and evaluate your own RAE blog.

1. Reread your blog from the start.
2. As you read your blog, use the chart below to document your completion of required and optional posts. If you see these posts separated from the rest of the activity on Blog Central [this is our shared blog where I give homework prompts], click on the “RAE Blogging” label.
   
   [Imagine here a list of all the post assignments, with places to mark whether they were on time, etc.]
   
   

   In the space below, write an evaluation of your blog. What would you rate it according to this rubric and why? How did you use blogging as a stepping-stone to build your ideas and as a forum for demonstrating the growth of your project? Does the description of the spectrum of blogs leave out something important and worthy in your own blog and if so what? I will use your assessment of the blog as a guide when I assign its final grade.
   
   
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   And here's the rubric I've been working on:
   
   

   An excellent blog: responds to the required assignments thoughtfully, addressing in detail the questions asked and relating them to the overall project of the RAE. Not only does it respond to required assignments, it also shows a kind of personal ownership of the blog by devising ways to use the blog for the author’s own purposes. The blog shows a scholarly enthusiasm and custody over the project. When the blog describes setbacks and frustrations, the author strategizes ways to address and overcome those problems. The prose itself is thoughtful, clear, and engaging. The posts are almost always on time and the blogging shows a consistent engagement with the RAE throughout the semester.

   A good blog: attempts to grapple with the required posts, addressing most in detail but sometimes giving other assignments a more cursory treatment. Many of the posts are well-crafted and thoughtful but others are less attentive. Assignments may be late but do appear in the blog, often describing what the setback was and how the author dealt with them. The later posts will demonstrate a growing sense of direction and commitment to the project.

   An average blog: responds to most of the required posts in a kind of paint-by-number effort, answering the question without making connections to how each assignment helps the project along overall. There are a few stand-out entries but many others seem perfunctory. There may be long periods of inattention paid to the blog followed by a flurry of catch-up writing.

   A weak blog: skips many of the assignments or gives the prompts scant attention. What might be a setback is a roadblock to further work. Engagement with the project flags and the blog seems to be abandoned at times. The writing seems done in haste and is unclear.