Self Evaluation: Shakespeare's Modern Influence

As part of our course requirements, I am to evaluate my own blog, based off of Dr. Burton's Evaluation Criteria. My focus has been on Shakespeare's lasting legacy, specifically his influence on William Fualkner. I will be using the Evaluation Criteria to judge my blog based off of Posts, Research, Personal and Social, and Design.

Posts:

• Quantity- I have 37 posts,
• Content- There is a good variety of formal and informal, long and short posts. My most recent post, "Shakespeare's Influence on Other Authors" is an example of a shorter, less formal post. While "Character Analysis of Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury" is a longer, more researched, formal post. I also have posts with textual analysis, such as "Macbeth's Soliloquy and Faulkner"
• Format- I have tried to make good use of my titles, making them informative of what the post will discuss (look at the examples used above). I also use jump breaks to make the home page of the blog more user friendly, displaying more posts.

Research:

• Thematic Focus, Thesis & Cohesion- I have a hub post, that is updated and clearly displays my focus, thesis, and conclusion.
• Sources- I have a Source Page, as well as a Other Links Page for the more informal links I include. In my more recent posts I have included source information at the bottom of the post, such as in "Past Faulkner; Other Modern Works Influenced by Shakespeare".

Personal & Social:

• Author Identity- I have an "About Me" section on the sidebar of my blog. I have included my own voice throughout my posts. Faulkner is one of my favorite authors, and so it has been fun to study him through a Shakespearean lens.
• Documentation of Process- I talk about my thought process, as well as goals that I have in my research. I have various posts talking about what I will be doing that week ("This Week")
• Interactions- I have a few friends from outside of the class that have been following my blog (Michelle Menezes, Thayne Turley, Meg Cornelius). My mom has also been following, and has made a few comments. I have also solicited the help of classmates, and used their input to direct my research. I have tried my best to respond to comments left on my blog by my classmates, as well as comment on their blogs.

Design:

• The blog is aesthetically pleasing. I have a Blog Archive and an About Me section in the side bar. Also in the side bar I listed my major research posts from my hub post. I downloaded the blog design from a third party website to give it a better feel.

I am very pleased with the work I have put in on my blog. This has been a fun semester to not only learn about Shakespeare, but also learn how to learn on my own, through my own self directed learning. Another great thing I've learned this semester is social learning through these mediums of blogging, twitter and even facebook.