Internet Memes and the Critical Process

The assignment is due before you start your Thanksgiving break, and you will have plenty of time in class to outline your work, conference with me, and start the final product.  The directions are posted under the appropriate category here, and they are also reprinted as a WordPress Page on the right of this screen.

As you look at those Pages, note that your grades for all past and any subsequent blogging assignments will be posted to our course website, and you can find the link on the Page labeled “Blogging Grades”; you will also be able to find a template Page that will show you how to structure your critical study of a meme, as well as the links to your peers’ blogs, which you will need to complete the blogroll assignment.

Blogrolling

As you complete your post for the week of Thanksgiving, checking as you always do the course website for assignments and due dates, be sure to take time to polish your blogroll – the list of links that should appear on the main page of the template you’ve chosen.  This week, your secondary assignment is to add the blogs of all of your classmates to this blogroll.  Follow these directions:

1. Go to your Dashboard.
2. Click on Write: Link.
3. In a separate window, open this blog (the course blog) and go to the Page labeled “Student Blogs III.”
4. Copy and paste the first blog title and URL, then publish the Link.
5. Repeat for the rest of your peers’ blogs.  Include the main blog, as well.

This is due on the same day as your next post.  Remember also that those of you who failed to publish your posts last week (and be sure to click Publish, not just Save, when you do so) can create one now for half-credit.  You must still update again on top of that.

Background: Internet Memes

Read the links below to prepare for our look at viral videos and Internet memes.  For the Wikipedia entries, pay attention to the notices (if any) present at the top of the page; what do these suggest about Wikipedia and these entries in particular?  Under “Internet Memes,” note the types of memes designated by Wikipedia editors.  For the timeline, notice first how long and intricate it is; second, note how much it changes from day to day; third, notice in general what kinds of memes seem to take off.

• Viral Video (Wikipedia)
• Internet Meme (Wikipedia)
• Internet Memes (A Timeline)

Setting Up Your Blogs

To set up your WordPress blog, do the following:

1. Click here to load WordPress in a separate window.
2. Click here to load the Word document containing all directions.

Follow all directions exactly.  We will discuss your first post more in class, but if you finish setting up quickly, you may begin an introductory post in which you state your blog’s purpose and focus for the next nine weeks or so.  Individually, your introductions will vary.  Speak to me about it in class.

Blogging Guidelines

At all times, you must obey the rules of the school and classroom.  This includes (but is not limited to) the following:

- No profanity or inappropriate language.
- No disparaging of other students, teachers or classes.
- No inappropriate media or links, including (but not limited to) pictures, video or music.

In addition, you may never mention yourselves by full name.  You may never give any personal information, including (but not limited to) your email address, which should be set to private in the settings of your blog.  Protect yourselves while you are online.

Introductions: A Look Back

To begin our study of blogs, we will look at the work completed by some of your predecessors.  This will also demonstrate for you the ability to create Pages, which is one aspect of WordPress blogs that led it to be our choice.

On the right side of this screen, you will find two pages.  The first contains links to all of the blogs created two years ago on the free blogging site, Blogspot.  Brewster blocks this server, so you will not be able to study or emulate those blogs in school; you are encouraged, however, to look at them at home.  The second page contains the blogs from last year’s two sections, which both used WordPress.  These are the examples we will study in class.

In this introductory post, I will also demonstrate how to link to Pages.  Clicking here will take you to the Blogspot blogs, while clicking here will take you to the WordPress blogs.