Blogging template & instructions

Introduction and summary

I like small and right
for images

In 140 words or less, introduce and summarize your chosen article in your words. I suggest you aim for about 135 words. Write one paragraph only. In your first sentence, tell readers the title of your article in "quotation marks". Use the menu tools "to make the article title bold" and to make it a link to your article. Write directly in the blog. Do not write in Word or another program to copy and paste here. Your summary should tell us only ideas that are in your chosen source. You are welcome to add images or video, but do not change the font or other formatting. These instructions are 139 words, which gives you an idea of what that number looks like. The Word count tool in Google Docs tells me exactly how many words you have written.

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Response: What is your opinion?

But size and position your
images how you want

Write at least 250 words responding to the ideas in the article you chose to summarize. I suggest you aim for 280 to 330. Write two or three paragraphs (more if you like) responding to the ideas in the article that you have introduced above. Your response should tell us why you found your chosen source interesting. 

Again, write directly here in the blog, not in another program. Your response must be at least twice the length of your summary, which is normal: we expect a response to the ideas in a piece of work summarized to be longer than the summary. This also reflects the expectation in IELTS, TOEFL and academic work generally where a description or summary is supposed to be short, stating only the main ideas in your language so that readers know what you are talking about before you give your own opinion on what you have summarized.  

Your response can be anything that comes to mind, but write full sentences organized in paragraphs. You can agree with the ideas you summarized, disagree with them, expand them, apply them to your own society, your own life, or anything else. Although you can if you like, you do not have to write an essay. But do write related sentences in paragraphs. It's OK to jump to a different response in your next paragraph. Again, you are welcome to add images or videos, but don’t change the font of other formatting. These instructions are 261 words in three paragraphs to give you an idea of what that looks like. 

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Question for your classmates

Write one (not two) question for your classmates to comment on in response to your blog post. Write a question that needs more than a single sentence for a strong answer. Delete these instructions. 

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Before you publish your blog post

Check list before publishing: 

• Is your summary at most 140 words? If Google's word count tool tells me it's 141 or more words, I will give it a zero grade. (Sorry, but you have to follow instructions.) 
• Does your summary use your own words? Paraphrase the ideas in your chosen article in your own language. 
• Is every idea in  your summary in your source? They should be.
   
• Is your response at least 250 words? If Google's word count tool tells me it's 249 or less, I will give that section a zero grade. 
• Have you written two or more paragraphs? 
• Are the sentences in each paragraph related? Do they belong in the same paragraph?
• Does you response tell readers why your chosen article interested you?
    
• Have you written exactly one question for your classmates to respond to? It's OK if your one question is more than one sentence, but one should be enough, and again, it's important to follow the instruction.
   
• Finally, have you given your blog post an interesting title that matches the ideas in your piece of writing, which is the blog post?
  The title is the first thing readers see, so it's a good idea to be creative with it. 

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Feel welcome to add a video from YouTube or elsewhere if you like.

Experiment. 

Make mistakes. 

Challenge yourself. 

That is how people learn.

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