Don't Raise Your Hand... Blog Instead!
After reading Charles Lowe’s and Terra William’s essay, Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom, I found myself wanting to step back, take a look at the Writing for the Internet course and my weblog, and see if any of the points made in the essay could apply to my own public web writing experiences. Surprisingly enough, most, if not all of them, do.
Reading over the different classifications of “writing class” blogging that the authors mention, I found that I could easily fit almost every entry on my blog into one or more of the different types. I’ve certainly written “reading responses”, such as those entries in which I gave my personal thoughts on the three different textbook readings we have done for this class. Also, nearly all of the entries I have written include links to “articles or items of interest…that are related to class,” such as the entries where I link to outside sources to support my own “thesis statements,” or to classmate’s blog entries to bring any especially worthy material to my readers’ attention. I could probably make an argument that my reflections on wikis, weblogs, interactive fiction, and other online media could qualify as “research responses.” I wrote an entry about my problems with social anxiety that could surely count as “personal exploration.” Finally, I have recently written entries about my first time voting in a presidential election and other things which could certainly qualify as “off-topic blogs/journals.” Having said all that, the authors did a great job of coming up with inclusive categories for the types of weblog entries that students write on their personal, public, and academic weblogs.
I can also agree with the authors’ point that “public writing in classrooms deemphasizes teacher authority and promotes student-writers’ abilities to see themselves as responsible writers and to view writing as a social activity.” I definitely admit that when I write content for my weblog, I’m usually not quite as concerned about what Dr. Jerz will think of it as I would be if I were handing it only to him on a printout. I would guess that this is why he encourages our class to publish almost anything we write for class (especially reflections and responses) as entries on our weblogs; he is, in effect, encouraging us to publicize our work so that we can receive feedback not only from our professor, but, potentially, from the entire web community. As for “promot[ing] student-writers’ abilities to see themselves as responsible writers,” I think back to a similar point stressed almost universally throughout the textbooks that we’ve read for this class: that bloggers are responsible for the material that they post on their blog, and that once they publish something, they should be willing to stand behind it and defend it to the best of their ability.
In the comments section below this essay, Nick Carbone asks “So I guess the question is, what's the advantage of blogs in all this? Do they make it public writing easier or better or different than having students use email list, newsgroups, public bbs's, WWW pages, and so on?” In response to that, I say that the greatest advantages of blogs are their simplicity and speed. I know that if the class used e-mail lists, newsgroups, or any of the other things Nick mentions, the writing wouldn’t be nearly as thrilling and would most likely take twice as long to do, meaning less motivation for it in the first place. I also believe that part of the appeal of weblogs is their ability to remain “faithful” to the author. I can write an entry about anything I want, and with or without comments from my readers, my original work stays right where it is and has a definite meaning to someone (usually myself, although others may read it, be affected, and choose not to comment). Some or all of the other types of internet medium Nick mentioned depend upon interaction: e-mail lists require first that at least two different people participate; newsgroups are only effective when they function for groups; web pages are usually designed to aid consumers of products such as books, toys, computers, information, or any other number of things. Weblogs are wholly different, because they have meaning by themselves, and can also foster all of the social, public interaction that these other types of medium can.
Overall, I feel I have gained a deeper insight into the nature of academic weblogs thanks to this article. I look forward to further exploration of their abilities and possibilities in the future.