Blog posts are another way to actively engage with the readings while helping you practice thinking and writing analytically about the real world in a low-stakes way.  Approximately every  other week you will be expected to write a blog on the class blog post site.  Blogs are expected to be simultaneously concise and insightful responses to a COVID-19 related news item that explicitly draw on concepts and readings from that particular week. 

Blog titles will indicate what news article you are responding to, its date and source of the publication.  For example: Thoughts on Thomas’ “Clinical Trials of Coronavirus Drugs are Taking Longer than Expected” (NYTimes 8/14/20).

NOTE: Only one blog can comment on each news article.  If you find that a peer has already posted on a news article you were working on, you may revise your work into a comment and submit it as for the comment assignment (2 comments over the course of the semester).

The blog is an opportunity to  concisely summarize one or more of the key points in the news article.  The majority of the blog should be devoted to your analysis of  those news points in light of concepts, ideas, or key arguments of one or more of the readings.

For this second blog post, please focus on the readings from 10/13 through 10/22. 

As a reminder:  The blog is not about your opinions.  Blog postings are to be evidence based, that is, drawing on course readings as  scholarly insights to make sense of and build an argument interpreting a news article.

Blogs should be about 300 words.    Each blog is worth 10 points.    Blogs will be graded on how accurately and insightfully course readings are applied to analysis of the news. 

Blogs that have multiple grammatical errors, analyze a news item that has already been analyzed and posted by someone else in the class, or does not draw on that week’s readings will automatically receive a zero. 

Extra Information: The following additional materials are the reading materials from class and an example. You do not need to use all materials above but at lease use concepts, ideas, or key arguments of one or more of the readings.