Wednesday evening

Hi everyone,

I'm having some technical difficulties linking your blog addresses to my blog site but hopefully I'll work it out soon. Once I do, I'll let you know and also let you know how you can also link others to your blog.

I wanted to remind you to get your textbooks this week from the bookstore. We will begin with the Listening/Speaking book on Monday so don't wait until the last minute in case the bookstore runs out of books. I was checking the corrections you made today to your writing and most of you did a pretty good job. We will write second drafts tomorrow.

I'm going to post some photos I took from my year in China recently to give you an idea of some of my experiences. As I've told you, traveling to and livng in other countries is something I love. I've been to some beautiful and exotic places and met wonderful people everywhere.

Well, my photos uploaded at the top of this posting , not where I wanted them! The first is of a trek I went on high up in the Tibetan part of China. We were 16,000 feet up and it was very cold at night even though it was July. The second one is me with some tribal women in the western part of China. The last one is of me with a former Chinese student who spoke excellent English and is now studying French in Paris. Maybe this will inspire some of you to post photos of your family, home or something else. However, don't forget the main thing is to write on your blog!!

beginning blog

Hi everyone in my new class!

I want to officially welcome you to your Upper level class this semester. We will use the blog space to write down our thoughts and feelings, ideas and opinions and we will be able to communicate directly to each other by responding to each other's blog postings. (Every time you write a new blog, it's called a posting.) You can think of the blogging as a form of diary or journal writing, except that you are writing in a public space where other members of the class will be able to read your blogs. So, be careful that you don't write anything that is too private! Blogging can be a great way to communicate with many people at the same time

To get started, you first need to create your blog and once you do, I will link everyone's blog to mine so that i can read your and you can read mine and each other.

The following are the rules for blogging:
1. Only proper English is allowed, no slang or language that people could get offended by- that means no nasty language that you wouldn't use in the classroom. Let's be respectful of each other and not write anything that could hurt someone. I will not correct your writing for grammar because I want you, first and foremost, to feel free to write without worrying whether your spelling and grammar are always correct.
2. You should (hopefully) enjoy blogging and do it 3 times a week, a minimum of 7 sentences each time. More is, of course, welcome! I will check your postings frequently and sometimes respond to them so if you have questions or you want my opinion on something, just ask. I would like you also to read other students' blogs and your teachers blogs if you like and respond to them with your comments.
3. As I said, each week, you need to do 3 postings. I will check and count that you have 3 each week on Monday. That means that next Monday, February 1st by 7 a.m. Make sure that you don't fall behind in your postings!!

So, please go ahead and create your blogs after you read this. Once you do, please send me an email with your blog name and blog address.These are not the same. For example, my blog's name is Barbara's Spring '10 but the address is barbarasspring10blog@blogspot.com. You can be more creative with your blog name but be sure that you give me both your blog name and the address, ok?

Happy blogging, everyone!