Glossary Assignment: Due weekly the night before class, a minimum of 15 times this semester

Throughout the semester, we will place a great deal of importance on defining words, both terminology that will help us describe, analyze, and discuss our readings, and vocabulary that will help us better understand the material we encounter. To complete this assignment, you will choose a word that you encounter in our assigned readings, on the course site, in our class discussions, or in research materials for this course, and write a blog post in which you do the following:

• Include ONLY the word in the subject line of the post
• In the post, again provide the word and its part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc)
• Include a dictionary definition–and make sure you’re using the most appropriate definition, which might not be the first one
• Cite the source of your definition or link to it–I recommend Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, although you might need to consult a different kind of dictionary
• Identify where you encountered the word: specify the specific page of a particular reading, date of the class discussion, title of the handout, blog post URL, etc
• Quote the passage (or if it’s someone’s speech that you cannot quote directly, paraphrase it carefully)—this might require more than one sentence to convey the meaning of the passage
• Explain for everyone what you understand about the passage now that you understand the word. It is not acceptable to merely write “Now I understand the passage because I understand what this word means.” If you do, you will not get credit for that entry.
• (optional) include links, images, or other media that help your classmates understand the word or the context
• Choose the category Glossary in the right sidebar when you write a new post
• add tags to your post that reflect the topic you wrote about. You should include a tag based on the source text of the word; additionally, you might also tag your post with the part of speech, the letter it begins with (this will help alphabetize our glossary), and the number of the glossary entry it is for you to help you keep track (remember, the tag becomes a link to every post with the same tag)

These posts will contribute to a shared glossary for our course, available from the blog menu. Since I expect you to look up any words you don’t know, and to read all blog posts, any glossary entries can appear on quizzes or exams. You are expected to post a minimum of one glossary entry per week. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, or to ask me in class.

At the end of the semester, to reflect back on the glossary entries you’ve completed this semester, to facilitate my finding all of them, and to make it easier for us to share the entire glossary with each other and anyone else interested, please write a post that includes the following information:

• Give it a title
• Choose the category Glossary Write-Up
• In the post, make a list of the 15 or more words that you included in your glossary–just the words in a list.
• Then hyperlink each word to its glossary entry post.
  • To do this, highlight the word, then click on the link icon
  • Paste in the address for the post you wrote about that word
  • Click Add Link
• I strongly encourage you to revise glossary posts to correct any misspellings, typos, or incorrect, incomplete information. Check that they each have the category Glossary, a tag for the title of the text they come from (not including any other words), and any other tags you want. Be sure to include a comma between tags when you create them so you don’t create one giant tag that only applies to one post.
• Then write a reflection about the glossary assignment for the semester. Think about how it affected your reading process, your comprehension, your coordination with classmates for this crowd-sourced project, etc.
• Due date 5/17/15