The Blog Requirements

Your absolute bare minimum requirements for your blog this quarter are as follows (In no particular order):
1. A Rant Post
2. A Loved Post
3. A Valuable Post
4. A Stolen Post
5. Comments on other blogs from each of the first two posts.
6. Nominations for all four categories on the main page.
7. Your collage displayed next to your Loved post.
8. An answer for at least one of the seven questions on the main page in a comment on that post.
9. A hand written reflection letter on your experiences with blogging (What did you learn about your writing and yourself through this blogging project, what could have been changed in order to make more learning happen, what experiences did you have that were memorable or significant within your blog? etc.)

Wilkoff Valuable and Stolen Awards

Nominate the best Valuable stories or Stolen poems in the following categories and make sure you tell why you are nominating them, or they will not count. We will have an mini-awards ceremony tomorrow.

1. Strongest words in a post.
2. Most reckless use of the human body.
3. The post that everyone should read.

Stolen Words

As I started to tell you yesterday, your next post will consist of stolen words. You will be (or have been already) seeking out the strongest words, phrases and sentences from other people's blogs. You will pick them out and use them as your own. Then you will explain exactly how these words are so powerful. It will go something like this:

"Every sharp burst of pain you get when you fall down a flight of stairs..."
-The word burst is what gets me. It seems to say that the pain will be intense and unpredictable, but because I will be falling down stairs it will come as a cycle of tumbling.
"She is worth welding my palms together."
-This sentence seems so unlikely that it stands out. Using skin as a metal that melts together is such an eirie thought that I have to try imagining it.
"I was bloody and bruised or scraping myself with shattered glass until I was skinless."
-The image of someone being responsible for their own skinlessness is so graphic and wonderful. I almost wish I had the description of how a skinless person looks with all of his/her intestines hanging out, just so I could visualize it more.
"I will injure you to the point of exhaustion, extinction."
-The statement of "extinction" points out that everything you stand for is dead, and not just you. It is so strong, such a condemning word.
"...the emptiness in your room."
-This image is so personal and intimate. I like it for its purity.
"...run into a million poles untill my head started to bleed."
-I'm not quite sure if this is a row of poles or just one pole hitting her head over and over, but either way it is so nonsensical that it stands out. I wonder how big the poles are, though.
"shave off all my hair and eat it."
-To me, this is the worst offense of all. I can't stand the feeling of hair in my mouth, let alone hair in my stomach. It truly sickens me.

You may also, for extra credit, convert these lines into a fluid poem of your own design. You may only use the words contained in your stolen line (you may not add anything, but you can take stuff away). Here is an example.

Scraping with shattered glass
All of my hair.
Every sharp burst of pain
Welds my wrists together.
The emptiness of your room:
Skinless, Extint.

Pictures to grab for your loved posts.

Your Post #3...

A ransom note creates a value for an invaluable thing (a person, a memorable object). This process of putting a monetary or objective value on a personal thing seems cold and unfeeling, but it is something that is worth exploring. What is your best friend worth? What is the value of your favorite stuffed animal? What would you do to get back your hoodie signed by your favorite band? These are the questions that I would you to answer in your next post. I want you to put a price on emotional connection. Mine would go something like this.

My wife is worth pain. She is worth scraping sandpaper across my face. She is worth the back end of a hammer to my knee. She is worth running until my lungs bleed. She is worth charging at barbed wire with my eyes open. My wife is worth pain.

or

My computer, my pets, my collection of music, all of the cards and letters that I keep in a box in the closet. I will burn all of these things in a fire so hot that not even my dog's whimper would escape. I will punch through walls and trip defenseless little kids. I will do these things to save my songs. That is what they are worth to me.


This is going to be one you will have to think about because putting a worded value on things that are too valuable for words is hard. Try it though, you may realize just how important these things are to you.

The Wilkoff Loved Awards

The process for nominating an outstanding post is similar to our Rant postings. You comment to this post and write which user's post best fits a certain award category, then you must explain why this post deserves to win the specified category. If there is no explanation, the nomination will not be counted. The categories for the Loved posts are:

1. Best facial description in a post.
2. Best portrayal of "Real Life." in a post (showing reality without making it look too good or bad).
3. The Loved Post that everyone should read (The post that leaves you feeling most loved).