Tweeting Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Homework 3: Tweeting Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Due: Tuesday, July 23, 12 pm
Tweeting – to Capture and Share Your Thoughts as You Read
For this homework, you’ll use the social media service, Twitter. Your goal is to live-tweet your observations and reactions as you complete the reading for next Tuesday. To receive full credit (5 pts) for this homework, you need to do the following:
· post at least 10 tweets about the reading that is due Tuesday. It’s best to do these as you go. So, read with your phone, ipad, or laptop near you. Anytime you read something that you find particularly interesting, tweet about it.
· Each tweet should reference the text briefly – for brevity sake, you can simply cite a page number – and then make some comment, cite your reaction, make an observation, etc. [You’ll get full credit as long as you do both parts – text citation (even if only a page number) + comment by you.]
· Each tweet should include our class hashtag — #lit1318 That will ensure that we can pull all class-related tweets up at once.
· Each tweet should comment on the text somehow. To see a few examples, open Twitter and search for the hashtag #lit1318. You’ll see some examples I wrote and posted this morning.
Why Twitter?
Your goal is to capture your thoughts as you read – and to share them with the rest of the class. This is one of the things that microbloggingsites – like Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr (maybe you can think of others?) – are good at: helping you take a brief snapshot of what’s going through your head, what you’re looking at, reading, thinking about, seeing, and then sharing it with others.
How Do I Set Up A Twitter Account?
· Basics: To get started, go to www.twitter.com and follow the simple directions.
· Got an account already? If you have a current account you can use that. Or, if you don’t want class-related content associated with your main account, you can create a new one. (Twitter doesn’t care if you set up multiple identities online. But it will require a different email address for each. )
· Privacy / Pseudonyms – If the public nature of Twitter bothers you, you don’t have to use your real name or post a real picture of yourself. If you decide to post under a pseudonym, please do email me with your pseudonym, however. Otherwise, I won’t be able to give you credit for your tweets.
· Priming the pump: If you are setting up a new account, please post at least 10 test tweets about anything you want. (or just type “Testing 123!) Twitter won’t start tracking your tweets, won’t pull them into our class feed, until they see that you are a somewhat established user.
· Mobile or web-based interfaces available: Use Twitter however is easiest for you. If your phone or tablet is best, I’d suggest downloading the Twitter app, so you don’t always have to go through the web interface. But you can always just open it up on the web.
· Managing multiple Twitter identities? I recommend the app TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com).
How Do I See What Everyone Else is Tweeting?
In class next week, we’ll take a look at everyone’s comments as part of our discussion. But you should feel free to watch the twitter feed over the weekend.
· Class web site: You can see most of it on our cl site, where I have a widget set up to track anything posted with the hashtag #lit1318.http://sites.stedwards.edu/julies-culf131831su2013/
· Search: Or, pull up Twitter on the web or phone, then search for the hashtag #lit1318.
· Follow your classmates: You can begin “following” your classmates and their tweets will all be pulled into your feed. (You do not have to do this if you are an active Twitter user and you worry that classmates’ tweets will dilute your feed with lots of posts that are irrelevant to you. But, if you are a new user not following anyone else, this is a great way to keep track of class-related content. And even if you are an established user, you can always follow classmates for the duration of our class and then quietly “unfollow” them after the semester ends.
Problems or Questions?
Email me! I’ll do my best to help.
