Blogging Requirements

You're probably familiar with the types of blogs in which people publish their personal feelings and emo poems. In those blogs it's perfectly acceptable to write phrases such as:

ppl can keep talkin sh#t i dont care wat any1 sez bcuz i luv u.

Your Government blog is not your personal Myspace blog, nor is it at all like a short "txt msg. " Please, use proper spelling, punctuation, grammar, capitalization, and diction. This is a space for you to convey your intelligent thoughts regarding politics!

Now that we've taken care of that, let's start with the 2 blogging requirements.

1. You should publish at least one blog post responding to a political issue of your choice by 4pm on Fridays. What is a political issue? Any issue in which there are opposing interests and involves government action or funding. Examples include immigration, the war, presidential elections, healthcare reform, global warming, etc.

• Blog posts should be at least 200 words and must contain at least 1 link to an outside news source.
• Briefly summarize the main points of the news source (2-3 sentences) and then write an engaging and thoughtful response to it. Feel free to agree, disagree, criticize, personally relate to the issue, pose better solutions, shed light on potential problems, etc.

2. By 4pm on Tuesday, you should comment to 2 of your classmates' blog posts.
Your comments must contain at least 5 intelligent sentences and 1 link to an outside news source.

You are allowed to respectfully disagree with your classmates' ideas but it is unacceptable to disrespect your classmates.

You may not write a comment that says: "U RACIST F**KER!!!!! IM AN IMMIGRANT AND I CANT BELIEVE U THINK THAT WAY ABOUT ME!!! WHEN I SEE U IMMA KICK UR ASS!!!"

Instead, you can write a comment along the lines of, "I strongly disagree with your stance on immigration reform. While I understand your argument about immigrants taking from the economy, I think you should consider the substantial contributions that immigrants make to the economy through their role as laborers and consumers. The Truth About Immigrants Campaign shows that immigrants contribute over 50 billion dollars to the economy, even paying into a Social Security system that they cannot benefit from. I stand in agreement with Senator Barack Obama who stated that undocumented immigrants are being used as a scapegoat for our economic problems. Furthermore, I believe that proposals to curb immigration (such as the border wall, immigration detention centers, and increased spending for border patrol agents and equipment) end up costing taxpayers a whole lot more."