During the course of the four weeks our class is in session, you will be posting your work your personal blog page. Although much of your learning will occur through your interaction with the lessons and your completion of the challenges, you will also have the opportunity to learn from each other. One way to do this is by responding to each other’s posts. Because this class is self-paced, your responses to each other are also self-paced. By the end of the course, you should have responded to at LEAST ten blog posts. To help you vary your response approaches, I have provided you with a list of nine response types below. You should use each of these types of responses at least once. Your remaining response(s) can be through whichever approach makes the most sense to you. To help me keep track of the blogs you have responded on, please create a blog post that identifies each approach and where you used it, i.e. Agree/Disagree on Kristina Falbe’s Radical Collaborator Post. You can access the class blogs at the bottom of this page.
Extend/Apply. Grasp the ideas in the post to which you are responding and take them further. If the post is theoretical, pursue the implications of the ideas with regard to a specific situation or example.
Connect/Compare. Connect the post to which you are responding into “dialogue” with other texts we’ve read, posts, your experiences, or your expectations for the future.
Agree/Disagree. It’s easier to be interesting by disagreeing than by agreeing, but I believe the ability to agree creatively is also important. Make sure to expand upon why and how you agree or disagree.
Discover/Interpret. Try to read (that is, make meaning of) the post in a way that will not be obvious to most readers. Try to notice something others might not notice.
Question. Raise some intelligent, fruitful questions. You may also want to answer your own questions. You can speculate by asking “What if . . . ?”
Synthesize. Pull together ideas and examples from diverse sources and pose a unifying idea, insight, or theme related to the post.
Revise. Look back on a previous reading, post, or other experience, and see whether the current post gives you a new idea or leads you to change your mind.
Inform. In response to the post, do some research. Share relevant information, evidence, facts, quotations, clippings, details, and other data.
What’s missing? What do you wish or believe should have been addressed in this post that was not addressed?
**[Note: I borrowed and adapted these response approaches from Dr. Bob Broad in the ISU English Department.]
Example (Feel free to use this template, or you can organize in a way that makes more sense to you):
| Type of Response | Link to Comment w/ Person & Challenge listed |
| Extend/Apply | |
| Connect/Compare | |
| Agree/Disagree | Kristina Falbe’s Radical Collaborator Post (*Link it using the 🔗 button) |
| Discover/Interpret | |
| Question | |
| Synthesize | |
| Revise | |
| Inform | |
| What’s Missing? | |
| Free Choice_________________ |