Sending direct tweets

For Tuesday, you want to finish reading Davis's "Life in the Iron Mills." You'll also be tweeting me with discussion questions. You must tweet your discussion question before 6 p.m. on Monday.

What is a discussion question? After you've finished Davis's narrative, sit back and relax a bit. Think about narrative episodes, character actions, the narrator, the language of the text - - anything that strikes you as odd, confusing, intriguing, or frustrating about the text. Formulate a question. Tweet the question to our class twitter account (@english630). Your discussion question should probably be open-ended, e.g. not a simple yes/no question (like: was Rebecca Harding Davis born in 1831? etc.); and, the questions should be authentic, e.g. reflect a real response to the text.

How do I tweet directly to our class twitter account? If you're using the Twitter website, you'd normally tweet by simply writing something in the box under the question "What's happening?". This tweet will be sent to all of the people who are following you. A direct tweet will only go to the twitter user whom you choose. It's a bit like the difference between a chat room and an instant messenger.

Direct tweeting is simple. Instead of simply writing something under the "What's happening?" box, you make a couple of simple changes. Before your message, you type "d+[username]+ [message]." In other words, to send a direct tweet to our class account, you would type:

d english630 What year was Rebecca Harding Davis born?

(NB: if you are using a twitter application - - like TweetDeck or Nambu, etc. - - on your desktop or mobile device, you should be able to use the same syntax [ d+username+ message]. Some of these applications do offer shortcuts.)

If you'd like, try a direct tweet test before you tweet your discussion question. I'll try to reply to it.