Franske Forum Posting Format

Introduction

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 more outside materials (links to relevant articles, YouTube videos, etc.) is helpful in raising the score on your post. 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.

First Post

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, what you thought the most interesting parts were and why, and at least one question related either directly to the readings or the general topic covered in the readings. Do not say the entire chapter was the most important or interesting thing. Of course it is all important or interesting but you need to pick the part which is the most important or interesting.

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.

DO:

• Separate your post into at least three paragraphs/headings: "Most Important", "Most Interesting", and "Questions"
• Pick one specific thing from the chapter that was the most interesting to you and talk about why it is so interesting. Use at the very minimum three sentences to explain this.
• Pick one specific thing from the chapter that you think was the most important and talk about why you think it is so important. Use at the very minimum three sentences to explain this.
• End with one or two questions about something related to the chapter. They could be something you didn't quite understand from the chapter or they could be something related to a topic from the chapter but not specifically covered. Ensure your question(s) are clear to others and if someone responds back to you about them you should give them some feedback about their answer, ask for more clarification, etc.
• Make sure that your post is clearly communicating the ideas you want to share following general English grammar and writing rules.

DO NOT:

• Summarize the entire chapter
• Say that everything was important
• Say that everything was interesting
• Post something which is not easily understood by another person (related to the grammar of the post)
• Use any kind of automatic summarization tools or have anyone else summarize for you.
• Turn in someone else's work

Response Posts

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.

Sample Forum Posts

• Sample First Posts
• Sample Response Posts