Naomi Nagy

Linguistics at U of T

TBB 199.15W: Exploring Heritage Languages

Course expectations	Reading	Syllabus (Schedule)
Course description	Grading	Contacting the professor

Assignment 1 : Start blogging

First assignment

Your first assignment is to get your blog going in Blackboard. For your first entry, I'd like to hear about your own heritage language (HL) experiences, either as a speaker or as a hearer. You can describe your linguistic history or recount a story related to usage (or non-usage) of a heritage language, or whatever else comes to mind.

To get started, go to Blackboard. Select this course from My Page > My Courses. Then, from the menu on the left, select Tools > Blog > My Blog. Part of this assignment is to make sure you can navigate Bb. (In class on the first day, you will receive a hand-out saying what to do regarding technical problems with Bb.)

Guidelines for blogging

Blogs are informal. You will NOT be graded on spelling, punctuation, length of entries, or adherence to formal writing rules. You will receive full marks if you complete the 20 entries in a timely fashion by the time classes end. So it's easy.

Some ideas

Blogging is a great way to "practice" things you'd like to discuss in class, or to say more than you had time for in class.
Many of the readings assigned in this class have questions or writing prompts at the end. You may choose to respond to some of them if you have trouble thinking of topics to write about.
You can make links to heritage language related things you find on the Internet but you must comment on them. It's not enough to just make the link. I want to see that you have "digested" them. Be sure to attribute your sources appropriately, even in a blog.
You can think of your blog as a scrapbook or a collection of original observations or a combination of both. Watch for and report on interesting/surprising language use.

Continue blogging

In addition to this first assignment, you will be expected to make at least 2 entries per week, all semester long. At the end of the semester, there should be 20 or more entries. (This allows you to slack off just a bit on really busy weeks.)

Last updated October 20, 2011