"You still haven't set up a blog?" A How-To Guide to Blogger

You'll need more than good fortune to pass if you haven't set up a blog yet.

"What do you mean 'a real computer'?
Are you implying this can't do everything?"

I'm pretty shocked that, this late into the school year, there are still students who have yet to set up a Blogger blog for displaying their public classwork. If you have yet to do that yet (or you're just curious about how to do it), here's my How-To.

WARNING: you can do this process on your iPads, although I find it much easier to do on a real computer. However, when it comes to actually making blog posts, I'd strongly suggest that you use Blogsy, the app that I'm very willing to buy you with your money if you just let me know. For step-by-step instructions on how to set up Blogsy, check out this post.

1. Log in to Blogger.com. You may use your TAPA email information or your own Google login.
   
   
2. If the next page asks you if you want to connect to Google Plus, tell it no. I don't have a screenshot, but skip it. You don't want that setting on.
3. When you see this page, click on "New blog" to make a new blog. Duh.
   
   
4. Put in your new blog settings. Use the following as a basis:
   
   • For the title, you can use something simple like "Bobby's British Blog" or "Alex's American Lit Arena" or "Erin's English II Place" or something like that.
   • For the address, I prefer your first name and ID number (e.g. Chris9989.blogspot.com).
   • For the template, I don't care. Pick whichever one you want, and later, you can change it to something cooler.
   When you're done, click  Create Blog! .
   
   WARNING: For your own safety, please don't use your first and last name anywhere on here. You can use Firstname and LastnameInitial (e.g. ChrisW, not Chris Webb). There are lots of creepy people online, and while they can find you if they want to bad enough, let's not make it easy on them.
5. Now that you're blog is completed, do a sample post. Again, this is way easier to do with Blogsy, but for this first time, the website is fine.
   
   
6. Make your first post. Be sure to include a title, the body text, and images so you get full TOAST points. And when you're done, don't forget to publish it.
   
7. Check your work. Once you've published it, you'll get to this screen.
   
   Click on  View Blog  to see your final page.
   

Ok? Ok! Make sure your blogs are set up and ready to go!

From directions to demos: Writing in-depth instructions

Originally posted 1/30/12.

Communication Students: Here's your assignment we talked about today. You are to write specific ingredients, steps, and any alternatives or further customizations for each section. Again, remember—you need every single step and incredibly specific ingredients. No slacking—I'll be grading hard!

Ingredients:

• Sliced bread (2 pieces)
• Peanut butter (2 tablespoons)
• Jelly (1.5 tablespoons)
• Butter Knife (for putting PB onto bread)
• Spoon (for putting Jelly onto bread)

Steps:

1. Put peanut butter onto bread piece #1. Using the knife, smear 2 tablespoons of peanut butter onto one side of the bread. It's best to make sure that it's spread evenly across one side. When you are done, put that piece of bread aside.
2. Put jelly onto bread piece #2. Take a spoon full of jelly (approximately 1 to 1.5 tablespoons) and smear it onto one side of the bread. Again, make sure the jelly is spread evenly.
3. Put 'em together. Pick  up the peanut butter piece and put it, PB-side down, on top of the jelly piece (jelly-side up). At this point, I'd recommend you cut the sandwich in half to make it easier to eat.
4. Enjoy. Goes great with a tall, cold glass of milk.

Alternatives:

• Creamy or crunchy? Either type of peanut butter will work, and either type are delicious.
• Don't like jelly? Use honey or marshmallow fluff instead. 
• Toasting the bread is awesome because the warm bread will melt the peanut butter, but the jelly will stay pretty cool.
• Awesome people cut the bread diagonally; lame-os cut the sandwich in half from a square to two rectangles.
• Secret Webb Family Recipe: use three pieces of bread to make a double sandwich. (1) Smother two pieces of bread with jelly. (2) Fry the third piece of in a little bit of butter until it's really hot. (3) Cover both sides of the hot bread with peanut butter. (4) Arrange the sandwich as:
  
  • cold/regular bread
  • jelly
  • peanut butter (which is starting to melt)
  • hot, gooey bread
  • peanut butter (which is starting to melt)
  • jelly
  • cold/regular bread

Ok, so that's what I'm expecting. Seems a lot more in-depth than just "TEACH-AH, JUST PUT IT TOGETHA!" Now YOU make a blog post, just like I did, with all the information for your speech.

Get ready for confusing homework hence / Sir Shakespeare's rhyme scheme takes some time to crack!

Originally posted 11/14/11.

For the last couple of years, I've had to spend most late Fall—early Spring mornings walking nearly a mile to  TAPA, in the (typically wet/cold) Taipei Winter rain. I hate that. So gross. Maybe my least favorite moments of my time in Taiwan.

That's part of the reason I was so excited to get a scooter is that I would no longer have to make the death march in the terrible weather. A great example of that was this evening, when, in the nastiness, I was able to speed home, still drenched, but at least in less than 5 minutes. Awesome. It was this epic joy I felt in my heart that I decided to compose a Shakespearean Sonnet to this love:

  u       /      u          /            u         /        u      /      u      /
My scooter's paint job's nothing like a Benz;    [A]
  u       /           u       /        u         /             u       /       u       /
its scuffs and scratches prove that it's been used.    [B]
  u       /      u        /   u      /     u           /        u         /
The Harley of a wealthy man who spends    [A]
  u            /      u          /    u      /      u      /            u     /
looks perfect next to my machine, abused.    [B]

  u         /      u     /   u     /     u      /      u      /
The engine of a Harley Davidson    [C]
  u        /  u   /       u        /        u      /      u      /
Will easily outwork my motorbike.    [D]
  u       /          u          /   u    /      u      /        u      /
A brand new Yamaha, so fast, so fun,    [C]
  u    /      u            /      u         /        u      /      u      /
Is nowhere near to what my motor's like.    [D]

  u           /      u          /           u         /        u      /      u       /
Yet thine two-wheel'ed steed dost daily move    [E]
  u             /          u      /    u       /        u       /         u       /
Miss Webb and I betwixt our home to school.    [F]
  u            /    u          /        u         /    u     /      u          /
While other bikes more valuable may prove,    [E]
  u        /       u      /     u        /     u      /       u         /
For transportation's value, it's my jewel.    [F]

  u       /       u      /        u         /      u          /      u      /
So let's go get some money from the bank    [G]
  u       /               u            /        u     /      u      /      u      /
Because you've earned a fill-up of your tank.    [G]

OK, how about this? Is it a true Shakespearean sonnet after all? I'd go with yes:

• It's lyrical (i.e. not telling a story).
• It's 14-lines long.
• The entire thing is written in iambic pentameter.*
• It has the English (Shakespearean) rhyme scheme of ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG.
• It has 2 different thematic sections with a turn in the middle:
• First 8 lines: My scooter sucks in many ways.
• Last 6 lines: My scooter is awesome in many ways, and I will reward it (with gas).

Can you guess where this is going? If you guessed "HEY TEACH-AH, ARE WE GOING TO MAKE OUR OWN SONNETLAAAAAS?", then yes, you guessed right.

So here's the plan: starting today (for A-Day classes) and tomorrow (for B-Day classes), you'll be working on writing 14-line sonnets about something you have a love/hate relationship with. You'll need to write in iambic pentameter with a defined rhyme scheme (i.e. Italian ABBA/ABBA/CDECDE or Italian ABBA/ABBA/CDCDCD or English ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG—you pick!). Also, you'll need to make sure you label both the meter and word stresses and the rhyme scheme.

OH, and, just for an added bonus, I'll give extra points to my, let's say, top 3 favorite sonnets in both classes. You have one week to get this project done, so it'll be due at the beginning of Week of Prayer. Get started!

*One line I really had to get creative with: "two-wheel'ed." That's pronounced in 3 syllables. It's cheating, but whatever. I'm cool. I can do it.

Here's something I hate, and a way you can make sure I'm free of it

"A happy teacher grades you better than an unhappy teacher." ~Mr. Webb

Want to know something that annoys me? When I sit down to grade blogposts, read or watch your awesome work, come up with the score I'm going to give you... and then I see this:

That makes me unhappy. In fact, it really makes me angry. And, as you can probably see from the above quote, you don't want me to be angry.

So, interested in getting yourself a happier teacher? Of course you are:

1. Go to your Blogger.com page. Once you get there, go into the Settings for your blog for my class.
   
   
   
2. Change your Show Word Verification settings under Posts and Comments. Make sure you switch it to "No".
   
   
   
3. Save the changes. 

Easy, right? It's so easy, in fact, that I will ask that you change this setting immediately.  From now on, each time I have to fill out word verification on your blog, I will lower your final semester score by 10%!  NO FORGIVENESS ON THIS! So do it right now!

Do you need Blogsy? Answer a quick survey to win a free* app!

Rather than handing in paper and killing trees [NOTE: the trees are already dead.], students will be doing the majority of their homework on a class blog. I have in-depth instructions on how to set one up, and I'm always available to tutor you through it as well, but simply setting up a blog is not enough.

A good blog includes pictures and video and interesting formatting, all with the purpose of earning (and keeping) your audience's attention. Typing up the information is really easy to do on your iPad--I mean, with a secret email address, you can even do it on Evernote or QuickOffice or the Mail app. However, if I'm going to give you TOAST points for including all the good elements of a blogpost, you're going to need to include some extra media.

This is where Blogsy, a favorite app of mine, comes into play. With this program, you can easily create a post that includes media, formatting, and clarity, all in a very easy-to-use package. Last semester, I wrote a primer on how to set up your blog with Blogsy, a must-read for TAPA students. We'll do some in-class training, too, for those of you struggling to figure it out. However, before any of that happens, we need to do something important: GET YOU THE APP.

You can just to to the App Store and buy it yourself, or I can purchase it for you and gift it to you in class. It's up to you, but you've got to let me know as soon as possible. This link (and the QR code to the left) will take you to a form you can fill out that will tell me if you need to buy it, if you want me to buy it for you, or if you already have it. This is a required app for Webb classes, and I will be giving you a quiz that includes the question:

DO YOU HAVE BLOGSY INSTALLED?

Those are fake smiles. They're actually angry.

If it's not, you're losing points, your grades will suffer, you'll probably not graduate from high school, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life giving pedicures to crocodiles. For free.

So, one more time:

TAKE THE QUICK 15-SECOND SURVEY TO LET ME KNOW HOW YOU ARE GETTING BLOGSY ONTO YOUR IPAD. RIGHT NOW.

Good.

*The app isn't really free, but I will freely buy it for you with your money. Sorry.

Setting up your blog

Originally posted 8/3/11.

The infamous Trapper Keeper...
where paper went to die.

When I was growing up, the fun part of beginning the school year was the back-to-school shopping day. My mom would take me to Wal-Mart, and we'd go up and down the aisles, buying me pens and Trapper Keepers (do you know what these are?) and folders and all the other stuff I needed to be a successful student. Even though we were just shopping, it was the amazing time of newness, and, I think in my head, it symbolized new opportunities and experiences I was going to get.

For TAPA students, back-to-school shopping my have lost its zeal with iPads being the new tool du jour, but we still need to get some new tools to make this semester more productive. For students in my classes, instead of simply turning in assignments to me (which I will inevitably not grade for a while, and once I do grade, will be buried in a file folder until I eventually realize that I need to turn them back to you), each class member is responsible for a blog which they will post to multiple times a week. Being that this is your blog, and not just a place to put Webb's assignments, I'd hope and expect that you'll do writing above and beyond the requirements for class—make this school project more than just a school project! Here's how to do it:

1. Go to Blogger.com and sign in with your TAPA account. The username should be your TAPA email address (e.g. stew-dent@tapa.tp.edu.tw) and your password should be whatever you changed it to earlier.
2. Complete the blog registration, using your TAPA email address. Also, accept the terms of service.
   
3. From here, click on the top right of the middle section of the page, where it says Create a Blog.
   
   
4. Complete the blog creation registration. Also, select a theme for your blog (not pictured; you can later change the theme to further personalize to your liking.)
   
   
5. On completion, Blogger will ask you to start blogging. Click to follow and create an initial blog post. You may either save it as a draft (not published), or you may publish the post to the entire world!
   
6. From here, continue on to the two options of how to easily publish from your iPad: through a secret email address or through Blogsy.

A reminder: TOAST is for eating and grading blogposts.

Hey everyone, hope you're having/have had a great CNY break, and that you'll be ready to come back to school on Monday and get back to work! ^BOOO! I've spent a lot of time relaxing and planning torture homework and lessons for you, and now I'm working on the 170 unread blogposts I have yet to grade this semester. FUN¡

However, before I start leaving comments on your posts and you start getting all kinds of email notifications on your scores and I start getting all kinds of emails complaining about your grades, remember how I grade posts: using our tried-and-true TOAST^™ method. As I've stated before:

Usually, if we're working on formal 5¶+ essays, I'll use this little rubric to base my score. However, for something like a blog post, which is short, informal, and often times more to-the-point, I think it would be unfair to grade off of the same rubric. For this reason, I've developed a new way of giving points for posts, called TOAST:

• Technical elements: grammar, linguistics, spelling, etc.
• Originality: creativity, new perspectives, different outlook.
• Appropriateness: Completion of the objective of the assignment (e.g required length, subject matter, quality).
• Supplements: Inclusion of applicable multimedia (e.g. images, video) and formatting (e.g. lists, links, blockquotes, text formatting).
• Time invested: visible effort put into the assignment, not simply thrown together.

I'll usually give 3-10 points per element, meaning that each post (depending on its level of difficulty) can be worth from 15 to 50 points.

Got it? So please, before you write me angry emails complaining about your final score, please take a peek at how I've graded you so you'll understand why you failed epic-ly earned that grade.

"I'm not sure what to do with my hands..."

2 things today for Communications class, before you head out on break:

1. This:
   
   
   
   
2. Look at this list of Demonstration speech topics:
   
   
   
   Remember, what you're supposed to do is to pick 5 different Demonstration speech topics (that you can actually do) and write 5¶s—one for each of your 5 picks. Again, write something like this:
   

   1. How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich^*—It's easy to make a PB&J sandwich, but I would teach not only how to make one, but different things you can do to make it delicious (e.g. different ingredients, tricks with temperature).

   ^*You cannot use that in your own list.

If you could get that done by the Sunday, January 29th before we get back (so I can check it on your blog and have an answer for you), that would be great! Have a wonderful and relaxing break!

And the winner(s) of Best Sonnet in Brit Lit is...

I had some really hard decisions to make regarding which of your Shakespearean sonnets were my favorites. With the exception of a few, everyone did a really really great job on these, and I wanted to congratulate you on getting something down that many people struggle with! It seems like, between making the Show Me videos writing these, you have Shakespearean poetry pretty down!

I've already spilled that three of my favorite sonnets were written by Vivien, Yalisa, and Beverly, so I'm going to give them extra points for melting my brains with their work. I also want to add the sonnets of Enoch, Jason, Andrew, Tim, and WinWin to the mix. These five sonnets also really stood out as being great examples of iambic pentameter and English sonnet rhyme scheme. Please, if you haven't, go check their work and see some epic poetry! 10 point extra credit for each of them!

And for those of you who aren't happy about your sonnet grades, you can absolutely keep working on them and resubmit, and I'll gladly regrade them and give you a better score! So get working!

This should be what your blog posts look like!

[NOTE: Ok... so no one, in either English II class, did this. I'll give one more chance on this assignment. It's now due by this Sunday, November 20th, at Noon. Also, it will be worth twice as many points. Please take a few minutes to read the following and do it so you don't lose free points. ~Mr. Webb]

So I've been grading your blogposts (that I'm totally behind on grading) for the last few days, and I stumbled upon, perhaps, the greatest student blog post I've ever seen. This is a MUST-READ, especially for English II students.

Context: In reading Life of Pi, we came across a moment a few weeks ago where an orangutan (named Orange Juice) on a lifeboat saved the life of the protagonist from a lion.* After this happens, the titular character (Pi) says:

Her arms were spread wide open and her short legs were folded together and slightly turned to one side. She looked like a simian Christ on the Cross. Except for her head. She was beheaded.

Using the transitive property of literary symbolism, we saw that there was a connection between Orange Juice and Jesus.

Orange Juice = †-shape

Jesus = †-shape

Therefore, does Orange Juice = Jesus? 

The assignment, then, was to write an analysis on this idea and how this is the case. In all the responses, Betty Liao's writeup was that of a level-100 ROCKSTAR. Unbelievable job with the writing, the ideas, the grammar, and the pictures.

The assignment (due for all English II students by 12:00 noon on Sunday [NOVEMBER 20TH]) is to go to her post and leave a comment. The comment must follow the rules of commenting from earlier in the semester:

1. compliment the writer in a SPECIFIC way.
2. ask a question related to the post.
3. add new information, opinions, or perspectives.

As you're commenting, pay attention to what she did to earn my admiration and try to duplicate that in your own future blog posts as well.

*If you haven't read this book, don't ask—just go and read it yourself.

Brit Lit Sunday To-Do: 1) Medieval projects & 2) ShowMe Sonnets

Well, I warned ya.

For British Lit students, you have two pretty big assignments due early this next week—your aforementioned Medieval projects and the assignment where you use Show Me Whiteboard or Screen Chomp to explain my lecture on Sonnets (featured below):

Sonnets on Prezi

The Medieval projects are due on Sunday, as I said earlier. Please email them to Sean, Beverly, and myself so we can start to process and put them together.

As for the ShowMe projects, I've decided to excercise some mercy and extend the deadline until Monday (for the A-Day class) and Tuesday (for the B-Day class). Not a huge extension, but I'm willing to give it to ya because I know these will look amazing on the blogs!

Have a busy weekend!

Demonstrate your skills for Speech class

Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking. The word glossophobia comes from the Greek γλῶσσα glōssa, meaning tongue, and φόβος phobos, fear or dread. [Glossophobia.com]

First off, I've got to commend my Communication class for their amazing speeches this last Friday for assembly! They worked extremely pretty hard, and I think that, for the most part, the audience was pretty impressed with what the saw. They're not perfect speakers yet, but they're getting there, and I want to congratulate them all for stepping up (literally) and talking in front of everyone.

So now, after spending nearly half the semester on the first of 3 types of speeches (informatives), we'll move to my favorite one: DEMONSTRATION SPEECHES! As I've been telling you the last few days, these speeches will require you come up to the front of the room and teach/show us how to do something. Traditionally, these speeches rock because they're the chance for us to justify snacking in class. You can teach us how to cook something, how to do something, or how to make something, but it has to be something you do completely in front of us.

So, what should you be picking as a speech topic? Here are some options!



So, right off the bat, your first assignment is to select 5 possible speech ideas you'd be interested in presenting and blog them (one short paragraph each). Then, you'll fill out the Pre-Planning Process sheet, and start working on an outline! Get started!

Struggling with death: Everyman and the Grieving process

Sometimes, we read literature in class that's entertaining, or funny, or famous, but sometimes, we read literature that has a meaning outside the words itself. In studying Everyman, we look into the importance of death, and, specifically, the process people go through when experiencing it.

For class, we'll be looking over the following Powerpoint presentation and watching two one videos: one about a little girl suffering through the death of a pet, and an episode of Scrubs, an American TV show.





The assignment will be to fill out this  Stages of Grief  graphic organizer, similar to how you did for the Who's Who on the Canterbury Roadtrip assignment. When you've completed the graphic organizer, you will upload it to Scribd and embed it onto your blog. Good luck!

Make Made your teacher proud: Canterbury Tales videos a success!

As a lioness in a tree is known to howl across the savanna...

Operation Make your Teacher Proud, by my count, was a huge success! It's around noon on Tuesday, and with a few exceptions, I've got a handful of videos to grade enjoy! Congratulations, everyone, they look great. I'm really pleased that we saw the entire gamut of video production on this one—live action, CG, cartoons, and even finger puppets. So awesome!

Ok, here's the super-easy homework, then: What I would like for everyone to do is to screen each video (below) and comment on at least 3 of them. Now, each student in the group is supposed to have added their video to their blog, so to make it fair, I'd like for you to leave your comment on their video page. This way, every group member will see the comment, not just the person you'd posted on.

Remember, when you're commenting, to use at least one of the three commenting techniques we discussed earlier in the class:

1. compliment the writer in a SPECIFIC way.
2. ask a question related to the post.
3. add new information, opinions, or perspectives.

Please have this done by your next class with me (Thursday for the A class, Friday for the B class).

Videos are below:

Verb tenses: The Bane of Sophomores

In reading English II assignments this semester, I'm seeing a pretty common trend: students are really struggling with verb tenses. For this reason, I want to spend some time focusing on this easy-to-cure problem, once and for all. During Wednesday and Thursday English II classes, we'll spend some time focusing on verb tenses and what makes them work. Students would be smart to download the above chart to their iPads to use offline.

The assignment will be to EnglishPage.com's Verb Tenses Tutorial page and complete each of the 30 exercises and tests by Noon on Sunday, October 16th. Once you have completed each test successfully, you will take a screenshot of the score (like below).

If you don't know how to screenshot on an iPad, its really easy. All you do is click the home button (basically, the only button on the front of the iPad, near the bottom) and the power button at the same time. (You don't hold them down—only click.) When you do it correctly, your screen will flash and you'll hear the camera shutter sound. You can then go to the Photos app and see the picture you just clicked.

As proof that you did all 30 exercises, I will ask you to make a blog post by October 16th with all 30 screenshots labeled, and in order. Make sure that the width of the images is not greater than 400px—otherwise, no points!*

*The easiest way to do this is to go to the Edit HTML of the blog post, find your image HTML, remove the part that says "height=333px", and then change "width=333px" to 400px. See me if you need more help with this.

Make your teacher proud: Create the greatest Canterbury Tales videos on YouTube

I get pretty bad envy.

Whenever I'm researching something and I find a good example online, I think to myself "Why aren't my students doing this myself?" For example, while looking up some Canterbury Tales videos, I found some pretty cool examples of videos made by students from all over the world and from different grades (from 10th grade to college). As I watched these, I sat there, salivating at the awesomeness, thinking to myself "My TAPA students are waaaay more talented than these kids! They could do, like, a million times better than this! The world must understand their genius."

Prove me right. In this project, you'll be taking one of Chaucer's tales, as a group, assigned to you, and filming a 5-10 minute video adaptation of that story. Details:

1. Read. As a group, read your assigned story. Together. They're a bit difficult to understand, so read the version I provided you, and feel free to check out a few of the other translations.
2. Brainstorm. I'd like for your version of the script to be close to the original. For example, if you were doing the Nun's Priest Tale, I don't want you to change Chanticleer from a rooster to a person; I want him to be as written. However, you may decide how you want to present the video. Maybe you make it live-action, like with costumes. Maybe it's a silent film. Maybe you create puppets to act it out. Maybe you use stop-motion animation and Legos. Maybe you use 3D animation like XtraNormal.com. I'd love for everyone to try a different method of filming!
3. Write. Develop a script. Everyone must contribute, but everyone doesn't have to type it up. However, your script should look, pretty much, like the following:
   

   [Scene: Mr. B is sitting in a chair, reading a book.]
   Mr. A: [Walks into the room and looks at Mr. B] Dude, what are you doing?
   Mr. B: [Throws his book at Mr. A] I'm throwing books at you!

   When your script is completed, one member should upload it to Scribd, and then every other member should embed it into a blog post.
4. Film/Upload. Make it awesome. When you're done, one group member should upload the video to .
5. Post. Each group member should post the video to their blog.

Here are the groups:

• The Knight's Tale
  Group: Enoch, Jonathan, Nadia, Yalisa
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |
• The Wife of Bath's Tale
  Group: Esther, Linda, Sean
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |
• The Friar's Tale
  Group: Angel, Angela, Tristan
  | Eleusinianm.co.uk | eChaucer |
• The Summoner's Tale
  Group: Emily, Ivy, Jason
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |
• The Clerk's Tale
  Group: Emmanuel, Jane, Vivien
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |
• The Merchant's Tale
  Group: Elaina Elaine, Justin, Kotomi, Tim
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |
• The Franklin's Tale
  Group: Kevin, Michael, WinWin
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |
• The Physician's Tale
  Group: Beverly, Sky, Timmy
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |
• The Shipman's Tale
  Group: Andrew, Cynthia, Florence
  | Harvard's Summary/Translation | eChaucer |

Any other questions? I didn't think so.

What's to winning big? Blogging the two-sided story of instant success

Most people have fantasized over what they would do if they won the lottery: fast cars, new clothes, fancy vacations, and so much more. However, after reading The Pearl, you should find that there’s more to winning lots of money than meets the eye.

To realistically explore how you would do in this situation, you will create an imaginary blog diary for the events of five days in your life: two days before your big win and three days after you receive the money. The expectation is that, in the next week, you will go 5 days straight, writing at least two paragraphs about the day. You can do this in a number of ways:

1. Actually write two paragraphs each day for 5 days straight.
2. Write all 5 posts and schedule them for five consecutive days. This is very easy to do. As you write your 5 posts, you'll change the date they are Scheduled at for 5 different days. (For example, Post #1 is scheduled for 9/8/11, Post #2 is scheduled for 9/9/11, Post #3 is schedule for 9/10/11, etc.)
   
   
   
   
   You'll be able to see your scheduled posts under Edit Posts at the top of your page.
   
3. Write and publish all 5 posts without scheduling them and then, after publishing them, adjust their post date. This will be similar to Option #2, except all 5 posts have already been published. You'll just Edit Posts and, under Post Options (at the bottom of the page), you'll change the Post date and time to five consecutive days in a row. (For example, Post #1 is scheduled for 9/8/11, Post #2 is scheduled for 9/9/11, Post #3 is schedule for 9/10/11, etc.)

Write your diary in the first person, and include:

• your normal daily activities, 
• your emotions and feelings 
• your relationship(s) with other people (family, friends, etc) 

Read the 3 "Winning Big" Articles on lottery winners to get an idea for what they experience after they lucked out. Also, consider what has happened in The Pearl. Do you think Kino felt like his prize was worth it? So, again, you will be writing 5 diary entries (minimum 2 paragraphs each), 2 from before the win, 3 from after the win. Your diary entry should reflect what you have been reading in class. The grade you get on this project will be almost entirely based upon how closely to what we’ve been reading in class you get to in your diary—if you only talk about the awesome stuff you buy, you’re not going to be getting a good grade!

These are due a week after they were originally assigned, meaning, for the A-Class, they are due September 14th, and for the B-Class, September 15th.

What the heck is feminism?

Near the end of chapter 5 of The Pearl, John Steinbeck reveals a key difference between men and women through Juana's thoughts about her husband, Kino. Reading this paragraph inspired me to think on the topic of feminism a bit, and really, was a great excuse to post a  TED  video.

Courtney Martin: Reinventing feminism | Video on TED.com


The assignment is to write a two paragraph writeup about The Pearl, chapter 5. Paragraph 1 should be a short summary of the chapter, while Paragraph 2 should be focused on how this video, the paragraph from the story, our in-class discussion, and your beliefs mix and match up. This is a deep response and shouldn't be something I would just read from a superficial level, so put work into this!

What was the worst job of the Middle Ages?

On Friday (for my B-Day classes) and Monday (for my A-Day classes), we watched a video of Tony Robinson, a British historian, partaking in the worst jobs during the Middle Ages. The assignment was to write a blogpost on a) which job you think is the worst of all and why, and b) which job, if you were forced to pick one, you would select and why. I was asked for the links to these videos, so here they are (in case you need to go back and re-watch them.

Free quiz for making an Animoto video slideshow!

UPDATE: Yalisa terrifically outlined a step-by-step method to do this entire process on the iPad, without ever needing the computer. Basically, I spoke incorrectly in class today: you don't have to have Flash to use Animoto on the iPad—you just need it to upload. However, if you're just pulling pics from Facebook or Picasa or Flickr or whatever, you can do the entire process with the iPad's Safari browser. Epic pickup, Yalisa! That's the way to earn extra credit in my classes!

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Students, looking for a way to boost your grade in Webb classes? I have 50 free education licenses for Animoto.com, a web-based video slideshow program, that I'll be willing to give you a free quiz for if you 1) make a video of yourself, and 2) post it onto your blog. Here's how!

1. Go to Animoto.com and click sign up at the top right of the page. Go for a free account and enter in your own information (i.e. Name, email, birthday). However, before you hit sign up, enter in the promo code:
   

    a4ewebb2ae791 

   Note: You can do this part all on the iPad, but from here on out, you'll really need a real computer (being that Animoto runs off of Flash, which iOS products don't support).
2. Select a video style and create a video with pictures and video from your computer, from Facebook, and/or other image sites. After doing that, you can add in music and hit Finalize, and then the video will process on the Animoto web site, even without you there to babysit it—it will email you when it completes.
3. Once it does complete, check out your video on the Animoto website. It will be under My Videos near the top of the page. To the far right of your video name, just after the heart and the 240p, there will be a little green hidden button. If you click on that button, a drop down menu will appear. Click on the word Embed.
   
   
   
   
   On that embed page, you'll get a complicated-looking code with a Copy Code button underneath. Before you take that code, click the arrow next to Advanced Options down and check off Mobile friendly. Then, once the code above changes, Copy Code and then go back to your blog.
4. Under your blog's settings, there will be a Design tab. On the right of your page template, click on Add Gadget. A small page will pop up with lots of different options of things you can install to your blog. If you scroll down, you will click the little + sign next to HTML/JavaScript. Title the new page something like "About me," but on the body of the popup, paste in that HTML code from your Animoto video page.
   
   Optional: You may or may not have to do this, but ii might be smart to edit the code a bit to make it look better on your blog. Basically, you'll want to remove the height code and change the width code to something smaller. So, for example, if your code looks like this:
   
   
   
   
   then remove the height="240" and change the number on width="432" to a smaller number, like "200", so now it reads:
   
   
   
   
   Your video should be better configured now for your sidebar.
5. Now that that's added in, hit Save on the popup and then Save on the design page, and then your video should be ready to go!

A little more complicated than usual, but more because it's a longer process involving two sites, not because any step is too difficult. Good luck!