January 2009 Archives

Had you ever written a blog entry before joining this class? If not, you're not alone. I hadn't written one, either. Nor had I graded one. So I'm working hard to figure out the most helpful way to assess your blog posts. After reading what other instructors across the globe have said (on their blogs, of course), I've come up with my best attempt at a grading sheet for blogs. You'll be getting yours soon, and when you do, feel free to give input to how the process should work.

Part of my online "research" on blogs has involved poking around for some insight into the history and development of blogs. To see one helpful website I happened upon, click here. It categorizes the different sorts of blogs out there, then comments on the nature and audience for each. Check it out as you do your own thinking about blogs.

Feel free to comment in response to this post--what do you think makes for a quality blog post for the purposes of this class?

Prompt #1: Look at, and link to, weblogs written by people in your field. Characterize the types of discussions that go on in the comment threads, to analyze the rhetorical situation of a "professional weblog."

In searching for a blog to track, I was struck by how many are out there. So many words, and who is listening, really? A huge ocean teeming with blog-life. Slogging through so many (lots of them long and dense) underscored for me the importance of writing succinctly, energetically, engagingly. I saw, too, how chunking, using headers and subheaders, and attending to design increases accessibility and allure.

Here's one that I found that relates to my work in Penn State's Composition Program: This blog is entitled "Teaching College English--the glory and challenges". She (I had to dig to discover that she's a she, as she just references herself as "Dr. Davis" on the blog, an interesting rhetorical choice) talks explicitly about who she envisions her audience to be. She writes on her "About" page: "if you are a new college teacher...if you are a seasoned college teacher...if you are a student..." And so she directs her explorations and ruminations toward the interests of these audiences (for example, she groups different posts with category tags such as "Teaching Tips" and "Learning").

Which brings me to one of the interesting things I will take from this blog--the idea of organizing posts with categories. (I believe our PSU blogs platform allows for this.) Doing this will help me and will help readers find writing on particular topics. If I trust this blogger's voice, if I accept what she has to say on subjects such as whether adjuncts are good for a university, I will find myself visiting the site often to take advantage of the information gathering she does, to hear her insights. At first I will simply be a silent visitor, but who knows? At some point I may jump into the conversation and make myself known to her through my comments and responses. Thus, a virtual community is born.

Most of her posts I read had 0 comments. Will I require students to comment on each others' blog entries? I would like to encourage it, perhaps by giving time in class.

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I'm rereading and updating this entry as I teach Tech Writing in the Spring of 2010. As I revisit the blog I found to comment on last year, I see that the author hasn't posted in the past year, but then I realize if I click on the title, I'm led to the the most recent version of this website, which includes entries from this month. Teaching College English: the glories and the challenges.  It makes me makes me think about how easy it is to get lost in the maze of the internet, of hopping from one link to another, from one site to another, and then wondering how you got from A to B to C. How links get old and broken, and how difficult it is to have stable sources and paths of information.

I am in the midst of a professional development course this semester with other instructors of English Composition, and part of our work is to create a teaching e-portfolio and teaching philosophy on a Blogs@Penn State website. I think I will create a list of other composition teacher blogs there that I can and should follow and comment on. "The Glories and the Challenges" will be the start of that list.

As for having students comment on each others' blogs, I have worked that into our syllabus this semester (after having students  last semester say how they wished they had more readers than me and the occasional classmate, how they wished for a "blogging community").

I've set myself a task this semester: experience the blogs platform in much the same way my students will as we embark on this Technical Writing pilot program.  So this means I will blog for the first time in my life. The students' first prompt is this: "Talk about the rhetorical situation of your E-portfolio, and imagine some of the various audiences who might come across your work."

At Thanksgiving dinner, while pouring the wine and passing the rolls, I mentioned our e-portfolio project to my uncle, an engineering professor recently retired from Norwich University in Vermont. His face froze. "You mean they have to post their writing so everyone in the class can see it?" "Not just everyone in the class," I said, "everyone on the planet." He began shaking his head. "No, no, no, that's not a good idea at all. I'm glad I'm not in education anymore. I couldn't go for that." When I asked him why, he seemed a little sheepish, this 60+-year-old, accomplished professional. "I've never felt good about my writing. I know when I was a student, I would have HATED to have my work put up for everyone to see."

I can understand this feeling. I like to think, though, that today's students--who grew up with computers, e-mail, peer review, Facebook, and other means of electronic sharing and publishing--are more comfortable with the concept of making oneself visible through words spread across the World Wide Web. I like to think, too, that the exercise will push them to think more seriously about the importance of crafting, revising, and polishing good writing that will be viewed by peers as well as potential employers. To think about the "face" they put out to the world before the world ever sees their face in person.