Graff and Birkenstein (They Say / I Say) offer some good advice in framing, or sandwiching, a quotation. They suggest when quoting someone to follow these steps:

1. Introduce the person and their position on the issue.
2. Write the quotation
3. Explain the quotation
4. Respond to the quotation from your own position and perspective.

Also, don't just choose any quotation. Be sure to choose one that fits into your own argument, whether it supports your argument or opposes it.

When summarizing someone in your argument, it's not necessary to include all of their points. Rather, include the points that touch upon your own argument, the points that either support your position or points to which you need to respond.

In addition, be sure that you write a summary that accurately represents your source's point of view--not your own. In fact, that person should say, "Yes, that's what I think." In this way, you will increase your credibility because you will be perceived as fair and objective, which will increase your credibility with your readers.

The blog "Being Better Students" has a good post with "57 tips to being a better student">

In reading and writing about literature, we want to look for patterns of repetition, contrast, and conflict to determine the theme. We also want to read a text critically, asking questions about the social and cultural assumptions implicit in it.

All of our writing this semester is an argument, meaning that we are trying to persuade someone of a particular position. In making claims about our position, it's important not only to provide sufficient evidence, but also reasoning that shows how the evidence supports the claim. Generally speaking, the less people agree with you, the more evidence and reasoning you need, and vice versa.

To write well, you'll need to understand the poem thoroughly, which means you should read and think about it frequently. Also, read again Critical Writing and Thinking. In particular, remember:

VERY IMPORTANT: remember to answer the "So what?" question. Often the difference between a "B" paper and an "A" paper (apart from quality of argument, evidence, and writing) is the ability to explain why your argument and observations matter. A strong introduction and conclusion will usually explain the relevance of your work to some larger issue.

On our second day, we finished the introduction to the online tools we'll be using this semester: blogger and netvibes. The goal of blogger is to write a lot on a topic we're interested in and the role of netvibes will be to make it easy to read our classmates' writings and also other bloggers and people who are interested in the same topics as we are. Reading is essential for building up our knowledge on a topic, and writing is important for clarifying our ideas concerning that topic. So Blogger and Netvibes complement one another in reaching our goals.

On finding other blogs to read concerning your interests, use "blog search" at google. You can also search blogs at technorati.com. Usually, blogs will have certain icons (usually orange-colored) to click on to find their subscription feeds like these:

If you don't see those icons, then just put the address into Netvibes anyway and see if it can find the feed.

On our first day of class, we got acquainted with the course goals and a little with the technological tools we'll be using this semester, one of which is a blog.

To learn to write well takes a lot of practice writing. So, one purpose of the blog is to let you write a lot on a topic you're interested in. Writing well also requires a lot of reading. While writing on the topic you like, you'll need to do some research, find out others who are writing on your topic, read their blogs, respond to their writings, and learn more about the topic.

Because we will subscribe to each other's blogs, we'll learn more about writing because we'll see what others do when they write, and so on.

Of course, we'll still write academic essays, four of them. Academic essays will focus more on academic writing, while blog writing will help you make your writing skills more automatic, letting you think more about your ideas and your organization when writing the academic essays. Each type of writing will re-inforce the other type, and so you should see your writing improve a lot over the semester.