Blog 1: Muckraker Blog

  1. Review the History of the Blog & How Your Blog will be Graded.
  2. Review Who were the "Muckrakers"? Take Cornell notes down to 2nd Half of the 20th Century.
  3. Choose a Muckraker from the list at the bottom of the reading.
  4. Create your Blog Due 3/9/2011.
  5. Write your first blog post about your chosen Muckraker. Who was he/she? What did they write about? Why
       was he/she effective? Due 3/14/2011. Follow these guidelines: How to Create a Blog Post.
  6. Write your second post about one of the issues your Muckraker wrote about. Why was it important in those
       times? What was eventually done about it? Due 3/18/2011 see deadlines for details
  7. Creative writing THIRD post- pretend you are a Muckraker in those times. Write your own post exposing the
       problem and what should be done about it. It could be an article or poem or artwork (political cartoon)  of
      your own creation. Due 3/22/2011 see deadlines for details
  8. Creative writing FOURTH post- do another post on a different issue from this time period that your
      Muckraker wrote about and create your own article or poem or artwork (political cartoon)  of
      your own creation. Find an appropriate image for the topic. Due 3/26/2011 see deadlines for details

Project Purpose- to provide you with an opportunity to deepen your understanding of two pivotal movements in U.S. History: The Progressive Movement (Muckrakers) and the Civil Rights Movement.

Method: Blogger- www.blogger.com

CREATE YOUR BLOG

1. Login to www.Blogger.com and Choose to create a blog and follow the steps.
2. Use your network login for the blog address: first-4-of-your-lastname+last-4-ofyourOSIS.blogspot.com
3. In the Settings, choose Permissions, and under Blog Readers, choose ONLY PEOPLE I CHOOSE and add jelfrank1@gmail.com for now. YOU MUST DO THIS.
You can modify settings later. For blog description put: "US History II Project" for now.
4. Once your choose your Muckraker modify the description to include the name of your chosen Muckraker in the description.

RESEARCH - Review How to Think Critically first.

1. Refer to Google search basics.

2. add the site:edu at the end of your searches to restrict to university sources, use site:org to limit to non-profit organizations.

3. You must cite your source by copying and pasting the direct link (not Google) at the bottom of the page.

4. Use the source rubric to evaluate the quality of the source. Give it a score at the end of the citation. Annotate with one sentence describing the site.

Sample Citation (based on Chicago Manual of Style): no. endnote (at the end of the post), Name/Organization, Title of Page/Article & Publication, URL, Date, Paragraph no. (use of colors only for this example)

Elfrank-Dana, John, Teacher Vision in the New Media Classroom, Learning and Leading with Technology, http://www.elfrank.com/article, 10/2001, par. 4. Score 5.

Your goal- to provide a blog of value to your peers or other members in society on a topic of interest to you.
Your topic will fall within the broad scope of this class and must be pre-approved by me.

Milestones:

1. May 9: Your Muckraker blog should be created, topic refined and evidence of research through the posting of THREE or more posts with related links and/or stories.
2. May 16: You should have at least FOUR posts of your own your topic, 200+ words each for articles, poems at least 10 lines, artwork with at least 30 words of explanation and referencing outside sources of information with appropriate links. You will have responded to questions from classmates about your topic and information posted there.

Civil Rights Part II

3. May 26: Your Civil Rights blog should be created, topic refined and evidence of research through the posting of THREE or more posts with related links and/or stories.
4. June 8 You should have at least SIX posts of your own on your Civil Rights topic, 200+ words each and referencing outside sources of information with appropriate links. You will have responded to questions from classmates about your topic and information posted there.

End of Semester: Your blogs demonstrate that you have developed considerable knowledge of your topics, have illustrated this knowledge through your posted reflections, questions, and links to other relevant sites. You will have at least a twelve posts, responded to questions from classmates and others, and have accomplished you stated goal.

Security:

1. Don't Restrict Access to your blog. Go to Settings  >> Permissions and choose under Blog Readers anyone. Enter me: jelfrank1@gmail.com and your classmates. You may also enter your parent(s) email address. 

2. No personally identifiable information: Only give your first name, and second e-mail address and school info. Do Not
    give your telephone, address, social security, OSIS, pin numbers, or full name, etc.

3. No personal photo.

4. Publish your work when ready. Use SAVE DRAFT until ready to publish (spell check, re-
     read for grammar, get source links...) Choose PUBLISH POST when ready for me to see it.

5. Use DOE permission form: If you want to share your work with the rest of the world download this file, print, have
     your parent/guardian sign and bring back to school.

Assessment:

Blog Rubric:

Aspect	Full Credit	Partial Credit	Low  to NO Credit
Focus (20%)	Topic is clearly addressed and is relevant to the course.	Topic is addressed and is relevant to the course.	Topic is not addressed and/or is not relevant to the course.
Writing/Content (35%)	The blog is informative and entries well written, images appropriate, with source information (text and images) cited and evidence of critical thinking throughout the posts.	The blog is somewhat informative and entries understandable AND source information (text and images) cited and and evidence of critical thinking  .	The blog is vague and not informative with poorly written entries missing cited sources.
Sources (25%)*	All source information is of high quality and properly cited with links that work.	Sources are cited with links that work.	Many sources missing and/or links not working.
Engagement (10%)	The blog makes connections to outside of school actors, like related organizations. Meaningful communications have been established.	The blog references outside organizations that are involved in the issue.	The blog fails have connections to the outside.
Mixed Media (10%)	The blog incorporates text, image, video and comments.	The blog incorporates text and images.	The blog only incorporates text.

Relevant Standards

Social Studies Standards Addressed: NY State Curriculum

Technology Standards Addressed: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS_for_Students_2007_Standards.pdf

MIT New Media Lab:  MIT Whitepaper on Participatory Culture

Sample Citation (based on Chicago Manual of Style): no. endnote (at the end of the post), Name/Organization, Title of Page/Article & Publication, URL, Date, Paragraph no. (use of colors only for this example)

3. Elfrank-Dana, John, Teacher Vision in the New Media Classroom, Learning and Leading with Technology, http://www.elfrank.com/article, 10/2001, par. 4.

Last update: 3/14/2011

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