Peer Review: Ladd, Shakespeare and Minorities

As part of my peer review I am to look at Ladd's blog, Fa'a Shakeseare. His main focus for blogging about Shakespeare is how minority roles in Shakespeare and modern productions/interpretations of Shakespeare's work divided the audience. I will be reviewing his blog based off of four main criteria: Posts, Research, Personal and Social, and Design.


Posts:

• Quantity- Ladd has 16 posts, which is a little low for our class standards, but still enough to be a well-established blog
• Content- There is a good variety of formal and informal, long and short, posts. His post "The Meaning Behind the Title", is a good example of a short, informal post, while his post "It Don't Matter if You're Black or White", is longer, and has both personal anecdotes as well as formal research. He uses different media, such as in "West Side Story" and "Othello in the White house". He also has posts of textual analysis.
• Format- Ladd makes good use of his titles. He does not, however, use Jump Breaks or Tags.

Research:

• Thematic Focus, Thesis & Cohesion- Ladd has a hub post clearly outlining his research topic, thesis, and various posts he has made supporting his claim.
• Sources- There is no Source page, however Ladd does provide links within the text of his posts that link to original work that he has quoted or used in his research.

Personal & Social:

• Author Identity- There is an "about me" section, and Ladd has done a great job of applying Shakespeare to him personally, as well as topics that are important to him. As a minority from an interracial family, Ladd has used a lot of personal experience and anecdotes in his posting.
• Documentation of Process- Ladd talks about his thought process, as well as how he came to look for different answers. A good example of this is in his post "It Don't Matter if You're Black or White".
• Interactions- Ladd has involved his parents as part of his research. He also has used the help of other classmates to aid his research. He has responded to various comments that other students have mad on his blog.

Design:

• The blog is aesthetically pleasing. Ladd has a blog archive on the side bar.

Ladd has done a good job of staying on topic. His post all seem to be relative to his main research questions and focus. However, where Ladd could improve is in the quantity area, he needs more posts, even short one. All in all, Ladd has a great blog.