Welcome!

Welcome to Diverse Cultures and their Music! My Blog for this class will serve a few different functions. I'll be elaborating on the Blog topics assigned in your Course Schedule, so that you have a more thorough idea of what I'm expecting of you. I'll also be attempting to write on the topics myself. And I might come up with some more uses as we go along.

A few ground rules to get us off and running. All your Blog entries must be in grammatically correct Standard English. Capitalize your "I"s and spell out Y-O-U. They don't charge by the letter here, and I'm not Vanna. There's a spellcheck that comes along with your blog--please make use of it. You might want to consider actually typing out your blog entries in Word, checking through it all, and then pasting your text into your blog. As you type, please remember that Blogs are available for everyone to see--your classmates, your professors, your Grandmother, your preacher, potential dates, and potential employers--and you should conduct your typing accordingly. Your blog entries should be between 300 and 500 words long (again, you can check this by using Word) and are due by 11:00 pm on the days they are assigned. (You can work ahead to a certain extent on some of the topics, but don't attempt to work on a topic until I've written about it here on my own blog so that you'll know more of what I'm looking for.) Oh, and email me your Blog address (mine is kmvanemanDCM09.blogspot.com) immediately upon setting up your blog. I'll post links to everyone's blog on my blog so that you can access each other's blogs easily. (Once we get started, you might find it easier to post the class's blog addresses on your own blogs.)

And here's your first Blog Topic: Your Musical Autobiography. Yes, I know most of you fell in love with your instrument/singing when you were a wee tot and have practiced diligently every single day ever since. That's not what I'm looking for. What I want to know is all the ways that you've interacted with music outside of the typical Western Art canon. Perhaps your grandmother used to the sing you songs from her native Ireland, or your third grade class visited a Cherokee reservation. Does your roomate dig all things Bollywood? Or do you really love the background music at the sushi restaurant? Think, think, think, and then type it all up. By 11:00 pm on the first day of class, Monday, January 5, please.

For your Blog Topic on Tuesday, January 6, you'll need to visit your classmates' Blogs and read their Musical Autobiographies (see, I told you other folks would see them.) You can read as many of your classmates' Blogs as you like, but, for purposes of your grade, you'll need to pick at least four of them to comment on. Each Blog Entry has a link on the bottom for Comments--click on it and then leave a few sentences for the poster. Your comments should contain valuable information beyond just "Cool!" Relate something back to the poster that especially interested you, or point them in a new direction. All comments must be in respectful language--no flaming.

You get Wednesday off from Blogging to recover. And I'll get back to this Blog in a day or two to give you more information about Thursday's Blog Topic.

Enjoy!