I'm reshaping the blog assignment and my own blog endeavor. This first blog of mine was started as an experiment to share the experience of blogging (with a research question in mind) with my students--via "inquiry blogs," as we're calling them. I'm taking a short break to figure out what turn I'll take with this blog--a new blog? 2 separate blogs? I'm not sure yet. But I do know that I'll be blogging in the fall, and so will my students.
I'll be back with a reshaped blog during the first week of the semester. Please stay tuned.
]]>But I want to keep blogging. I want to continue on from one semester to the next, blogging with my students in one way or another. Continuously.
I keep wondering about whether others in my field (perhaps my department head or dean or tenured colleagues) think it's smart for an adjunct instructor like me to keep a blog.
Scholars blog because they can "tackle serious questions in a loose-limbed, vernacular mode."
Scholars blog because of blogging "immediacy."
Scholars blog because of the potential for a mixed and surprising audience.
Scholars blog for "Peer Review."
Scholars blog to embrace the idea of dismantling the academic hierarchy of who counts as a contributor (for example, Glenn points out that many scholars read respected student blogs).
Scholars blog to opine, unearth, and illuminate.
What Glenn suggests, and what I thought about while reading his article, is that blogging acts as a remedy to some of the more frustrating aspects of being a scholar--slowness, remoteness, coterie, and obscurity. When a scholar blogs, she reaches beyond an academic comfort zone. She is seen, heard, read.
But is she seen, heard, read enough to make blogging really worthwhile? Glenn in some ways suggests that to fully blog, one must be read widely. At the end of his article, Glenn offers a list of suggested blogs by scholars and lists their "Average daily hit count." The lowest? A philosophy professor's blog coming in with an average of 250 hits. But many of us bloggers only dream of 250 hits, and we wonder if it's worth blogging if we can't summon more than a few random visits from outside readers.
I keep going back to that golden article by Wendy Richmond, the article that finally made me feel that I could blog without the pressure to gather oodles of readers (at least not immediately), and that this kind of quiet blogging is valuable, even for scholars.
In other words, scholars don't have to concern themselves with readership from the get-go. Though I would agree that an accumulating readership will encourage the blog writer and the blog quality. But an immediate readership doesn't have to be (or maybe shouldn't be) the goal. Glenn's article also points to many of these benefits, benefits that exist with or without the tracked reader.
Glenn asks, "Will the practice of blogging become near-universal in academe?" or will it fade out? He asks this question seven years ago; and some of us in academe are just now getting around to the blogging enterprise. I see much hope in the blog sphere, even as blogging seems cliche. Many innovative thinkers/writers are composing fantastic entries that no one's reading... for now.
I guess I've led myself into a question worth pursuing for my next entry: If I'm ready for readers, how do I get them to read my blog?... assuming readership matters, and of course it does, even though it also doesn't.
]]>(It reminds me, in some ways, of reading Raymond Carver's revised short story in The New Yorker a couple years back, where we could read the final edited (by Gordon Lish) story while also reading the original (and much longer) story. I appreciated Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" anew when I observed all those strike-throughs.)
After a little reading and thought on the subject, it seems to me that every blog writer has to come up with her own blogging philosophy, and here are a few questions that a blogger might consider:
Will I allow myself to edit entries after they've been published?
If so, will I put an expiration date on this editing window? (Such as 24 hours or 3 days.)
If I allow myself to edit, should I make these edits apparent to my reader? Why or why not?
Should edits be limited to only making more serious corrections? Or will I also allow myself to edit for style?
Will I make my editing policy known to my readers?
Will I allow any exceptions to my established editing rules?
Will I limit the number of edits?
Will I limit the amount of editing I do during the original (before publishing) composition of an entry?
Does going back to add links count as editing?
And then I looked for advice from other bloggers and found the following entry at Dawn Shaffer Goldberg's Write Well Me: "Strikethroughs in Blogs."
Dawn (via Sharon Sarmiento, online entrepreneur and consultant) explains that strikethroughs are used to achieve Honesty about what was changed outside of the spontaneous blogging moment. And this honesty is especially important because of the interactive and public aspect of blogs. As Sarmiento explains, if I comment on your entry, and then you change it for some reason, you could create confusion for that commenter and for future readers. So, you best make changes clear.
I also appreciate how Sarmiento brings up the strikethroughs for "humor" idea. You've probably noticed bloggers using this technique slyly to make a point, in a sort of Kevin Nealon Subliminal Man fashion. Here's a quick, informal example.
In my last entry I addressed the value of writing blogs efficiently, even setting a time limit. Even before I considered how long I should be spending on individual blog entries, I wondered about the role of editing and revision in the blog writing endeavor. Of course, some kind of immediate editing is inevitable, but I find myself wondering if the writing process for composing blogs is simply different than for writing a variety of other genres.
This entry hasn't answered all of my questions, but it offers a good starting point, and it will affect my future blog writing habits, though I'm not ready to make my own "philosophy" public.
Back to my students (and this blog is so much about making blogging work for them). I'm still in the throes of figuring out how to best assign and evaluate blogs created by my writing students, but one thing's for certain: requiring blogs is going to raise some important questions about Criteria for excellent blogging:
Must they be perfect, mechanically?
Is there more wiggle room for flaws/errors/style weaknesses in a blog entry?
Should an entry be saved as a draft and carefully edited before publishing?
Will editing get in the way of spontaneity?
And will editing get in the way of my whole purpose for this blog, which is to help students develop ideas, voice, and research while also writing more, more, more (and overcoming writer's block)?
And how will I grade these blogs when determining criteria can be difficult?
I keep coming back to the Richmond idea of blogging as a place to let our "bad ideas" unfold, so in that spirit, a perfect student blog entry is not needed to ensure a successful student blog (and by successful, I mean for the student but also for a reading audience). Defining a "successful" blog is shady business. I'll keep inquiring...
]]>3:37
That's when I started this entry. And I will end my post at 4:07 on the dot.
Grandma's got the kids, I just ate a fast food burrito, and I've got just under 30 minutes until I will send these words out there and move on to clean my house before the kids return.
In my last entry I explained that it was taking me too long to write these blog posts... based only a hunch. But then I read "Online Education and Blogging" from Inside Higher Ed's Joshua Kim, and my hunch grew into conviction.
]]> In this particular entry from Kim, he claims that he spends only 30 minutes writing his blog entries, not because he thinks that all blog entries should be written in 30 minutes, but because he sees blogging as a genre to challenge our "rapid writing" skills, especially because "time is our scarcest commodity." Kim thinks that our students benefit if we encourage them to write rapidly and effectively, which can only be achieved through ongoing practice. Aha! Another argument for teaching the blog: to help students write hurriedly but persuasively.Reconsidering time spent blogging helps me to consider my students' blogging experience. If I'm feeling a little burnt out by my own blogging expectations, then my students feel it tenfold. Kim brings up blogging as it operated in online classes that he's taught, and he says, "The best students post persuasively, briefly, and often." This tenet will likely inform my future assignment requirements.
I like Kim's commitment to time limitations because it's too easy to treat a blog entry like a formal research article, especially when that's what we're used to writing. And if one treats a blog entry like a research article, then the writer is doomed. There's no way I will maintain this blog if it's taking several hours out of each work week that should be devoted to grading, teaching, or other kinds of writing. And there's no way that my students will overcome writer's block and maintain a lively blog if they feel pressured by steep expectations. I like the idea of limiting myself time-wise too, and of encouraging my students to limit themselves in the same way.
Kim knows that good blogging can involve "more time investment," but he implies that this investment doesn't have to be in the form of more time writing. This thought inspired me to consider how I can invest in the blog without over-writing during the actual production of an entry. To ensure that I'm prepared to write when it's time to write, and to write effectively and toward rich content, I'll do the following:
1. Jot down possible entry topics immediately after writing an entry
2. Keep topics small and focused
3. In the days prior to writing the entry, do snippets of research and brainstorming, jotting down minimal notes for use during the writing process
I'll also consider writing more frequently: daily entries or 2-per-week entries instead of 1 long involved entry.
I have to remind myself of the purpose of this blog, so here's a review:
I want to learn about blogging and write about what I'm learning, in small doses.
I want to blog with my students with the goal of improving my blog assignment constantly, modifying it to fit what I'm learning.
Geez. It's 4:06 and I haven't proofread, so here goes a 30 second edit... which gives me an idea for a future entry: Should we edit our blogs, and if we do, what guidelines should we follow?
4:07.
]]>I prefer blogs with just the right amount of bulk and pith. But what is the right amount? By pith and bulk, I mean that I have about 5 minutes to read your blog entry, yet I hope to glean something meaningful while I'm there. Here's a quick run-down of word counts of the most recent entries from blogs I read regularly:
823 words: Baby Squared
667 words: A Little Practice
761 words: NCTE Inbox
186 words: (7/16) and 885 words (7/15): Motherlode
847 words: Mama PhD
My own last blog entry: 796 words
Okay. I'm on the right track. It seems the average blog entry is about the size of your average newspaper or magazine article (at least 600-850 words seems to be a common/popular word count in newspapers/magazines). Why?
]]> Probably because there's something about this word count that lets writers hit the "bulk and pith" mark: "I've said enough, but not too much."Can a blog entry be too short? Technically, no - especially if the writer posts multiple entries each day. As with most writing, the entire answer to this question depends on my audience and purpose. And for most bloggers, the audience and purpose are self-selected (even though anyone can read your blog, a blog writer often has a very specific reader in mind).
But should I leave this blog entry length up to my individual students? I've asked my students to write 400 words in each entry, but I've sometimes questioned this requirement. I'm afraid, however, that students would end up with zilch--a hundred words or so with no substance--if I didn't maintain this requirement. It's not that I don't trust my students, but I know that they bank on requirements for motivation. So if my 400 word count requirement helps them to close in on a reflective entry (for themselves and for their readers), then I'm cool with it. I won't lie, though: I'm re-thinking this requirement. Here's a little brainstorm...
Blog criteria, re-imagined:
1.Blogs will be evaluated on overall richness and density, but no specific word count will be required. Freedom!
2.In class we will evaluate a number of well-written, effective, and popular blogs that use different word counts.
3.Consistency will be emphasized as a desired attribute of blog entries.
4.Students will help me construct a rubric by which to grade the blogs (early in the semester), giving them more ownership of the assignment, which makes sense especially considering the autonomous nature of the Weblog to begin with.
I still have this hunch that truly pithy blog entries could be actually quite short, half the size of the average that I determined earlier. But for now I'm content with entries that average around 700 words for my own blog, 400 words for my students.
I haven't exhausted this word count question. But in the spirit of spontaneous (and not-too-over-thought) blog entries, I'm stopping now. I'm going to keep hunting for the ideal blog attributes... and I like the idea of more deliberately short entries. Check back in a year to see if my entries have shortened...
What's next? On the theme of ideals and consistency, how many posts should I require of my students? I've explored length; now it's time to explore frequency.
And as part of this frequency exploration, I want to try to answer the following question too: How long should it take me to write my blog entry? I spent too much time on this one (midst researching/location switches/editing). How much time should I spend on 1 entry, ideally? How spontaneous should I be? How much editing should I do? How long will my students spend writing their entries?
You may have noticed that it's been just over a week since my last entry, and maybe the fact that these entries take me so long to write discourages me from getting in here to write with more frequency (even though I always have a heck of a lot of fun writing each post). I don't want my students to suffer this same discouragement. I'm anxious to explore these questions.
. . .
To summarise: blogging encourages spontaneous, timely and concise
expression of thoughts.
I was a serious undergraduate and English major, but I still needed a kick in the pants to read or write consistently. In gratitude: Thanks to professor Gremmels for handing out little white sheets of "quiz" paper in the first seconds of American Literature so that I would really read Melville, Faulkner, Hawthorne, and Fenimore Cooper. I read voraciously because of those mini quizzes, just like I wrote voraciously because of course paper requirements. And even though the reading and writing were frequently forced, it was good for me. More than that, forced learning inspired me.
I had a nice conversation with a student yesterday about requirements, parameters, rubrics, word counts. He's a good writer. He wants to write. But he doesn't like constraints (he's creative and prefers looseness). I've heard this complaint (preference) before, but I never know quite how to address it. My go-to response (at least in my head if not said aloud) is that there are always parameters at work in our writing lives, even for creative writers. And for the most part these parameters are good for us.
But I can't help wondering, will this forced blogging assignment inspire (as intended) or discourage my students?
]]> Will blogging lead to genuine writing or meaningless, even false, writing? When explaining this project to my Mother recently she asked, "How do you know they're not just writing BS?" I answered with a confident rebuttal, in defense of my students' earnestness and the quality of my assignment and class. But her question haunted me too. Until I reminded myself that you could ask this of anything written by any student in any class.Ultimately, I have to trust my students to write honestly. And I believe that students can write honestly even when I'm making them write under seemingly artificial conditions.
Here's a challenge to my students, especially those with "parameters" concerns: Maintain voice and truth whether writing a press release, a grant, a review, an email, a story, a facebook status update, a poem, an academic research paper, or a blog; Learn to adapt your voice for different audiences (and genres) while maintaining your own distinct style; Relish in the pleasure that comes from being able to apply mad writing skills here or there or over yonder (not just in your private writing journals)--there is great reward in writing well for every occasion, forced or unforced.
I've assigned certain parameters for my students' assigned blogs. I set these parameters (requirements) for the same reason that I have reading quizzes on assigned articles: I want students to write... I want students to read. Something has to be at stake to create that initial (often superficial) motivation to LEARN.
So, they have to write 400 words for an entry to count; they have to refer to one outside source per entry; they have to post 1 entry per week; they have to fulfill these bare-bones requirements to get an A.
Do these parameters deaden the spontaneity aspect of blog writing? I hope not. At the end of the day, this blog is forced writing. And forced writing makes most of us cringe. Until... the writing is done.
This "hope in doneness" is how I overcome any worries about whether my students are discouraged, frustrated, anxious--or whether my students are writing BS. Maybe I can be the kick-in-the-pants to get them to write more, period, for those with no desire to write or for those with loads of desire.
And if blogging is grounded in spontaneity, as explained by Mortensen and Walker in "Blogging Thoughts," then even this forced blog writing is grounded in freedom. Blogging allows the student to write with much less constraint. (Side note: I highly recommend Mortensen and Walker's article on the value of blogging for academics.)
I know, from experience and observation, that after it's all said and done and the forced pangs have fled, students will look back at their work with some delight and pride. In fact, we might have to acknowledge that much of our best stuff was written under forced conditions.
My next entry will explore word count as it relates to blogging, and how word counts affect students. I actually planned on writing about this word count issue more specifically in this entry, but I got carried away with this "forced blogging" reflection. And perhaps once again I've written too many words to fill one entry... So, next up: How many words does a Blog Entry Make?
Desire. I'm a writing teacher and inconsistent writer, an identity that troubles me when I'm not chin-deep-distracted with student papers. I write hundreds, even thousands of words each day, but not to be published. I write for one student at a time--in margins and emails and Moodle pages. Sound familiar?
I'm an industrious and creative adjunct writing instructor, but does my teaching count as writing craft? I don't think so. All the marginal comments I've ever written don't add up to a body of work. My fiance, a freelance writer, reminds me of this about once each semester. He's right.
Ever since I heard Leif Enger talk about writing Peace Like a River in the wee hours of the morning, just an hour or 2 each day before going to work, I've wished that I could carve out this same kind of time to write. I want to write a book. I want to write articles (though as an adjunct I'm not pressured to publish as my tenure-aspiring colleagues are). I want to be reviewed and considered. I have something to say. But my Desire runs shallow. Or does it?
]]> Blogging made me realize something about this missing desire: it's not missing at all. I just got lost in the waiting period--that indefinite time between the first sentence written and the first time that someone would likely read it. I've never had that "write or die" feeling that some writers (and other artists) confess to having. Sometimes I wish I could tap into such desperation. But I'm a mother of twin toddlers, a domestic technician, a zealous optimist. I'm not desperate to write.I AM eager to write.
A blog lets me jump from first sentence to first reader in a matter of minutes. This immediacy creates desire. Tonight, for instance, I should be in bed early because I have 18 papers to grade in the morning, a 4th of July road trip to pack for, and unpredictable daughters who could get me out of bed at 2 or 4am (or both); but I don't care. I want to write this blog entry.
I don't mean that writing in a blog replaces the kind of writing that Leif Enger did painstakingly each morning, but only that it encourages me to get there. Artist and educator Wendy Richmond explains that one key reason to blog is for "regular exercise": "A blog is a sort of personal trainer," she says.
As long as I don't let this blog become my only writing, I believe it will make me fit to draft an article, a chapter, maybe even a short story or poem. Blogging, even in all its immediate glory, cultivates patience... and a body of work, a real visible body of work.
Of course I see the value of gradual publication, of sitting on one's prose to prune and mull it over. Of having one's work peer reviewed, revised, and edited. But I like how blogging helps me to break down psychological barriers to writing consistently. Blogging helps me to drop the perfectionism baggage.
In reference to song-writing (and to my own desire to write songs), an old friend once reminded me, "It's just a song." In reference to writing, blogging reminds me that "it's just a paragraph... just a bunch of paragraphs." If I can write this blog, I can write that book, that article, that song.
What does this have to do with my students?
Everything. Desire in the writing class is just about everything, but desire can be sparse.
I've always been in-tuned to student engagement, but Jamey Gallagher's article, referenced at the start of this entry, helped me to think about Desire in the composition classroom--not just Engagement. He suggests the potential of blogs to "create" desire as well as their potential to encourage mastery of other traditional writing genres:
My interest, then, is not in usurping these counter-genres for academic study, but in using them as springboards to allow students to see the emplaced agency possible in other genres--including the academic essay.... (293)
If I can get my students to desire, even in some small way, then I can get them to write effectively. If they can write this blog, they can write that research paper, that proposal, that grant, that essay.
My students and I need "springboards" to help us move forward as writers.
We're blogging a desire to write, one edited entry at a time.
]]>In September, Computers and Education will publish "Using blogging to enhance the initiation of students into academic research" by Eddy K.M. Chong. I'd like to read this article right now, since so far I've struggled to find much writing on the idea of blogs as research tools. When I designed this assignment I had just this "initiation" in mind.
Juniors and seniors in college (like those enrolled in my Advanced Writing class) are not beyond initiation as it relates to topic selection, research, and using sources effectively. They're savvy thinkers and critics, yes. But they struggle to generate good research questions, navigate library databases, and to avoid plagiarism.
Still, I like to think of what I offer in my advanced writing courses as, well, advanced initiation. Perhaps an ongoing public "inquiry" blog could help with this initiation process?
(Plus, a blog requires the student to RESPOND, not just regurgitate or report. And it's this responding that students miss in research writing, and on their 3x5 cards. They've written down quotes that they like in their notes, but they've rarely followed the quote with a response.)
I see this kind of accountability especially important for a writing class, more so than in other classes that assign research papers. Why? Because it's my job to make sure that these students really know how to use their sources effectively as an essential part of writing effectively. I can't assume. I need to know!
As these blogs develop I'll be emphasizing the importance of effective summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, as well as sophisticated argumentation moves as fleshed out by Joseph Harris in Rewriting: "Coming to terms," "forwarding," and "countering" sources adeptly toward the ultimate goal of "taking a new approach."
I want students to see research as something thinkers and writers do constantly. I want them to ground their ideas in what others have already said (another idea that Gerald Graff and Kathy Birkenstein emphasize in They Say / I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing). Not because they don't have anything new to say, but exactly because they DO have something new to say.
So, I'm all for spying on my students' research processes.
One problem I've always faced when teaching research-based writing is how to ensure that students are engaged in an effective research process. How do I know that they're really reading articles and really engaging with their topics? Typically, I assign a proposal early in the semester, an annotated bibliography (and possibly progress report) midway through the semester, and finally a draft in the weeks prior to the due date for the final article (all of this alongside other un-related writing assignments like reviews, personal statements, press releases, etc.). So, that should be good enough, right?
No. Too often (as expected) students write their drafts at the end of the semester and admit to me during conferences that they still haven't thought enough about their topics to really know what it is that they want to say. Frequently they haven't read much of their research, and they've written hardly anything (on their topic) besides the required proposal and bibliography.
What if they had to write weekly about their topics in a blog, referring to sources along the way? I think this could work wonders.
And this isn't just about accountability. I want students to engage in writing for a real audience. I want them to write to be read. A blog can help with that, I think. A hard copy proposal goes into my hands, across my desk, and back into their folders. But a blog? A blog stays there... out there waiting for the possible reader. And that's what most of us writers want: at the very least, possible readers.
]]>Before I get further into evaluating the progress of this blog project with my students, I wanted to explain the assignment. I'm calling this the Inquiry Blog Assignment.
What kind of blogs are we writing?
We are writing blogs to encourage ongoing research and idea development on our individually chosen research questions/topics. By having students write these blogs, I'm playing with Wendy Richmond's idea of blogs as big cardboard boxes--to collect and synthesize materials and thoughts, to ultimately reflect upon (and SHARE) a work in progress (see this entry for more on Richmond).
I love the idea of using these blogs as living annotated bibliographies. But I encourage students to treat the blog as a weekly evaluation of their own current thought on their topics, as well as a weekly digest of research they found that week. I encourage students to describe, interpret, and respond to research materials. I ask them to critically assess their own evolving views on their chosen topics. These blogs also function as thesis-seeking tools.
I'm trying to replicate this very process in this blog--my own inquiry blog. I'm working alongside my students. My research topic is obvious: blogging with students... will it work? what's the most effective way to blog with students? what will my students teach me in this process? what will I change for the next time around?
]]> The Assignment SpecificsThe students must produce the following to get an A on this project:
1 introductory BLOG entry
5 core BLOG entries
1 concluding BLOG entry
The students must space these entries out over our 8 week summer session together, with at least one entry each week, and no more than 7 days between entries. The students can write as many entries as they like, but they must meet the bare minimum requirements. Each entry must be 400 words or more.
The students must also integrate 8 total credible source references into these blog entries, referring to at least 1 new source per entry. So, each entry might offer 1 or 2, maybe 3, source references. These sources should be clearly identified by the writer, so that readers can easily link to or find the sources on their own.
As far as organization, I told the students to not worry about addressing their topic in an orderly way. I'm trying hard to remove any kind of psychological barriers to this project. My main mantra: get in there and write! Don't put it off! Have fun with it!
Students can make their identities cloaked or transparent. Each student posts a link to their blog on our course Moodle page, so that other students (and I) can browse as desired.
A note on the "conclusion" blog entry: I don't necessarily like the idea of making this blog have finality, but it seemed the most practical plan for now, especially since it correlates with our course research project.
*I'm carrying out this project for the first time in a summer session course, which is 8 weeks instead of the typical 15 week + final exams week semester, so that explains
some of the structure.
Keeping it Experimental (Low Risk)
A very important note: After much reflection, I'm treating this first time as experimental, which is why I used the grade contract. In other words, as long as the student fulfills the basic requirements above, an A is given, even if the writing or the focus of the blogs is off, and even if the sources are not used effectively. The students are very aware of this flexibility, and their work on this "experiment" this semester will help me to decide how to evaluate the blogs for my fall semester courses.
It is very likely that my standards for grading the blogs will change and expand (and escalate). Next time I will put more emphasis on quality, but because I was going into this green, I wanted to keep things simple and low risk.
For this first time around, I decided to ditch the typical annotated bibliography and progress report assignment to allow room and time to work on this blog. This blog project is replacing a more traditional annotated bibliography and progress report. In the future I may continue with this change, or I might re-integrate a good old fashioned annotated bibliography back into the curriculum. But for this first time around I just wanted to make sure that I didn't overwhelm students, so I erred on the side of simplicity.
Just Write. Just Write.
I have to pay attention to this mantra myself: just write. For my first entry, I spent too much time grooming the language, too much time revising. And this is exactly what I'm trying to get my students away from: unnecessary grooming/editing/revising, at least for this first experimental blog. Rather, I want them to engage critically with the writing of these entries but more so as an epistemological tool: Blogging as a way of thinking.
Mostly, I don't want students to put off writing because they're trying to write the perfect weekly entry. No perfect entries!
That said, writing these blogs brings up great discussions on what to edit/revise and why, and it brings up the fact that we can't help but edit and revise even during very spontaneous modes of writing.
One question I find myself having: How long is a good blog entry? I'm afraid that my entries are a bit too long so far, and perhaps too detailed and wordy. This is something I'll work on alongside pursuing ideas from others on what defines the ideal blog.
Stay tuned for more specifics on my students' developing blogs along with my ongoing thoughts about how to make this project really work. I hope to encourage other instructors/teachers/professors to blog with their students. So far I believe that there is good reason to read, write, and teach the BLOG.
Just One Kind of Blog?
I'm very aware that there are other types of blogs that could be meaningful and exciting for students to work on, but a blog to correlate with an actual in-class research project seemed like a good place to start. Later I'll explore other possibilities.
]]>As a writing teacher, should I be blogging? Should my students blog? What kinds of Blogs will we write?
Blogging gets a bad rap: too easy, unedited, self-absorbed, for naught, irrelevant, and ranty. Not to mention the sheer saturation of blogs, blogs everywhere.
But I read blogs, and I'm drawn to them. I'm drawn to the sharp, rich, well-written ones (and to those with fantastic imagery). I like that blogs serve writers and readers all at once and immediately. You write a blog entry; I read it; I comment; you comment; I start my own blog; you link it; and so on. Even if realistically a blogger has very few readers, the possibility of any reader at all is intoxicating. I'll come back to this "intoxicating" idea in a moment.
What's this blog all about? I want to know if blogging will work, for me and for my students. I'm going to blog about blogging (and my students blogging) until I'm satisfied that I've reached some good answers. And then I'll let the blog evolve into a new project, storing the filled cardboard "blog" box away to make room for a crisp, empty one: A New Blog.
But this is my blog for now. I can't wait to pack it.
RIchmond refers to choreographer Twila Tharpe's habit of compiling a literal cardboard box full of actual physical objects with each anticipated project. When Richmond started her own blog she wanted to do it Twila Style and with the ultimate purpose of "supporting the development of a body work." She reminds readers of blog's root word: LOG, and says blogs "can be a tool to foster and reflect upon the development of one's work."
That's a practice I can get behind. And I think my students can too. Because yes, there are plenty of blogs out there already. If I begin with the sole purpose of writing to be read, I will be disappointed, maybe even overwhelmed (why bother?). But if I write to evolve a project, a project that will likely exist outside of the blog itself (applied somewhere/anywhere else), then I will be motivated. And the possibility that someone/anyone might be reading is still intoxicating. A blog toward inquiry seems so much more rewarding than a spiralbound notebook toward inquiry, and probably more usable too.
So, like Richmond suggests, even though the PUBLIC aspect of blogging inspires many bloggers, it may not be the only (or best) reason to maintain one. Aha! But the catch? The public aspect is still essential to what Richmond refers to as a blog designed to "speak in" instead of "speaking out." Even though this kind of blog is written primarily for self, it is still written with an audience in mind, and to achieve what Richmond refers to as "semi-public iterations." As in: Hey, here's something I'm working on. What do you think?
Richmond convinced me that a blog can be unready but audience friendly--evenly flawed and rich, sharp, well-written. I want my students to write Twila Style blogs, Richmond Style blogs. Will it work?
I've read loads of words on blogging, but Richmond's article made me feel, for the first time ever, like surfing over to blogger.com and blogging NOW--pronto, immediately, and forever.
And here I am.
My project is to make blogging work for my students, and my blog is to track and share our progress, for me, and maybe for you too.
I hope my students will want to blog too, that they'll be just as motivated as I am, just as inspired. I hope they get a lot out of it, not just something but a lot. I hope they end up with a big cardboard box as stuffed and as meaningful as a sharpied KEEP box, the kind that moves from apartment to apartment, decade to decade. Cherished. Is that too much to ask? Stay tuned.