Create a blog

Everyone is making their blogs today. Yippee!

Why do I have my students blog?

Last year, I had my students create blogs for the first time, but I did not have them blog. Instead, I had them post assignments, such as reading responses and maybe their multigenre essay, to their blogs.

How is blogging different from that? Blogging requires regular posting. Blogging requires readers. Blogging requires the author to make choices about what to blog about. That is, a blog needs a blogger. Not a student posting a few random assignments.

Why am I making them do this? Here are five reasons.

5. Blogging gives students a chance to write for real readers. And to get feedback from readers.

4. Blogging allows students choice over what they write about.

3. Blogging gives students a way to get to know each other through their writing. It could--maybe, hopefully--foster a sense of community in class.

2. Blogging allows students to incorporate different media, especially images (see above), into their writing.

1. Blogging is fun. I won’t kid myself into thinking that everyone is going to love doing this. But it will give everyone a chance to write in a forum that is not graded. It will give everyone a chance to write for the sole purpose of communicating.

My main motivation for this was the feeling that last year I missed an opportunity with my students, that we just didn’t get that much out of the blogs because we didn’t really use them as blogs. This time I’m trying something different. We’ll see how it goes.

Note: Photo by Pascal. Source: Flickr.

Go for a walk after class

And leave your ipod, cell, and laptop at home.  You'll learn more:

Your Brain on Computers - Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime - NYTimes.com

“Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning and memory. He said he believed that when the brain was constantly stimulated, “you prevent this learning process.”

Welcome

Welcome to all of you in my English 103 sections this semester. I'm going to re-start this blog this semester. I plan on being more active with it than I was last year. Partly, that will depend on whether I can make it something you will want to read (and maybe have to read). You all will also be creating and writing blogs yourselves. You can go ahead and create one here in blogger if you want to get started right away. Otherwise, you can wait until I introduce them in class next week.

I'm looking forward to this semester with a lot of excitement. I've been working on the syllabus and the class wiki for the past couple days, and I'm getting excited about the things we are going to be doing. I'll meet you all on Monday.