Explanation of How to Gain Benefit from Completing Multiple Workshops

I have been thinking about the workshop partnership problem. The problem being that at least some people did not receive any response to their request for a partner. The other problem that we had was that some people made commitments that they did not fulfill. If your partner did not communicate with you consistent with their promised time table, I need to know about it. Send me an email explaining what happened and their will be consequences for that person.

Previously, I stated that no one would be allowed to receive more that one review. I think this punishes students with good social networking skills, so I am lifting that restriction.

Since before you got here, there has been a method for you to publish your essay so that your peers can see it, download it, and review it for you. The method I have been using is the class wiki. A wiki is a type of website that allows all users to alter any content. For people who are not used to interacting with web based applications, the wiki has at times been confusing. There has also been the problem of folks erasing the wrong thing by accident because there is no way to lock parts of the content.

I want to experiment with a new method for students publishing their rough drafts in a place that is accessible to their peers. I could have done it on my own webpage, but cox has some limitations to server side access that make that difficult.

Instead, I’ve set up a blogger account. There will be a post that says -- “Put your essay in the comments section for this post.” There will be an area for each of your drafts that are due as daily writings. You can cut and paste your entire essay into the comments section. You do not need to have a blogger account to do this -- it will let you post anonymously. If you choose to post anonymously, make sure you include your name and email address with your essay, or no one will be able to send you a copy of the review that they wrote for you.

The blog is not open to search engines, so your email will not be captured by spiders, bots, and so forth.

So -- NEW RULES

You may exchange essays with any partner of your choosing via email just as you did before.

If you use an exchange of email, you may only exchange with one person. This one person may not be the person you exchanged with previously (I want you all to received a diversity of opinion).

On the other hand, if you publish / post your essay onto the blog, you can do as many reviews, receive as many reviews as you feel up to.

Anyone who posts their draft of their essay to the blog will receive a bonus towards their participation grade. This bonus is one of the very few opportunities to push a category beyond one hundred percent. People who take advantage of this opportunity could possibly earn more than ten points in participation.

The reward for doing more than one workshop for multiple partners is also a bonus to your participation score.