Guidelines for First (and Subsequent) Posts

Guidelines for “Beginning the History of Art” Blog Post

Here are a few things to think about as you read Whitney Davis’ essay and then write your post

Before writing the post:

Remember that it is very helpful to jot down your thoughts in the margins of your reader as you go along. Underline main points, but don’t go overboard so you end up with half the page covered in lines of ink. You can underline whole sentences, single words that strike you as being rhetorically rich, or even draw lines to connect two phrases that inform each other. This will allow you to begin sketching a “road map” of the article so you can then jump into your interpretive writing exercise.

In writing the post:

Don’t be afraid to talk about the part(s) of the essay you DON’T understand. These posts are not about demonstrating mastery, but rather about asking interesting questions and pushing yourself to new interpretive lengths. So if there is a part of the essay that seems like it might be compelling if only you could wrap your head around it, go ahead and try to parse that section out in your post. Don’t worry about being “wrong”—I’d rather see you take risks than regurgitate the easiest points. We’ll discuss the strengths and weaknesses of various interpretive models during class discussion, so this is a good forum for you to experiment.

You may choose to pull out a few quotes you find yourself drawn to, or you may choose to take a more “broad brushstrokes” approach that tries to gather and articulate the main thread of Davis’ argument.

Try asking yourself the “so what” question when you’re reading any article. “So what?” Why is this author writing this article? What is at stake? What possible dialog (with other views about art history, about images, about history) is he entering into?