Franske Forum Posting Format

In this class you will be participating in an online class forum with other members of the class and your instructor. You will be graded based on your participation in the online discussion and the quality of your posts and interaction with others online. As with many classes there is typically a three-post minimum for each chapter to be considered as participating. In all cases though you are better served by posting more and quality is just as important as quantity. In fact, you can get full points even with less than three posts if your posts are extremely high quality, substantially contribute to the discussion, and aid in assisting other members of the course understand the material.

While only 3 posts are generally required, if you are more active in the forum than that and helping people you can earn additional points (up to the maximum for each topic) for additional response posts so if you forget the initial post or some of your posts are not quite high enough quality to earn all the points typically given for that post type you could still potentially earn all of the points by being active and helpful with more posts.

When grading posts the biggest factor in getting a good score is how much new and unique information you have contributed to the discussion. This is why simply agreeing with someone else about what they thought was important or interesting will likely not earn you any points for that post no matter how long of a post it is. This means you can write an entire page of text but if it basically summarizes to "I agree with you" or "I found what you posted helpful" it’s not worth anything. Normally though a longer, more detailed, post will get a higher score than a shorter post. Also, inclusion of helpful outside materials (links to relevant articles, YouTube videos, etc.) is helpful in raising the score on your post though it should be clear you didn’t just do a search and added some links you should have read and reviewed the video/links and speak as to the specific content or way each might be helpful. Be sure to talk about and integrate the outside information into your post though and not just spam a bunch of links, that wouldn’t really be contributing any of your own thoughts and doesn’t show you have read the article or given much thought to it.

Under no circumstances can forum posts be turned in late (after the response posts are due for a chapter). Because forum postings require a back-and-forth between multiple members of the class it is simply not possible to accept these late under any circumstances. You can always still try to get all the points even if you miss the first post by being exceptionally active and high quality in your response posts (making many more than the minimum and high in quality) but after the due date for the response posts there is no guarantee you will be able to make these up in any way.

See below for some specific details about how each type of post should be handled. I do not generally grade on grammar but if your poor grammar makes it difficult or impossible to understand what you are trying to say or you break other rules below you can absolutely receive a zero on a post (or even many posts).

The first post you make for each chapter is typically the longest and most detailed. It should include a brief discussion of what you thought the most important parts of the chapter were and why they are important for you to know, what you thought the most interesting parts were and why you found them interesting, and at least one question related either directly to the readings or the general topic covered in the readings.

If forum posts for each chapter/topic in the course are worth a total of 10 points (this varies a bit from class to class) you can usually earn up to 5 points for this initial post.

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After you make your initial post you should continue to contribute to the forum by regularly reading the postings of other class members and responding as appropriate. Particularly, try to assist in answering their questions, pointing them to additional related resources you found helpful including YouTube videos, other sites, locations in the readings, etc.

These posts should be much more than just agreeing with what someone else stated or saying that you found their post helpful. You need to substantially contribute and add new information to an ongoing discussion about the topic in order to be considered as participating. Simple agreement posts will not be worth any points.

If forum posts for each chapter/topic in the course are worth a total of 10 points (this varies a bit from class to class) you can usually earn up to 2-3 points for each response post.

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DO NOT:

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