advice to future students!

My advice for ENGL 254 students would be:

• Bartholomae sucks, so don't stress too much about that reading. The readings get easier and the content is actually applicable.
• Don't drop the class after reading Bartholomae. This class is actually really great. and Zach is funny, sooooooooo.
• Take the opportunity to get to know the other students in your class because it makes dissuasions go way less awkwardly (and group work).
• When you get the chance to pick your topics for papers pick something that really interests you so that the research becomes less about homework and more about fun.
• Remember that you have 3 days to skip.

Blogging in the Classroom

"Given the fact that blogging exposes students to a wider audience for their writing, we can hypothesize that students might attend more carefully to online writing opportunities (as opposed to papers submit- ted to an instructor). In the case of the writing prompts that ask students to read and reflect upon specific texts, it might be expected that students will read these texts more carefully when they know their interpretations will be online and therefore accountable to a larger audience." - Blogging in the Classroom

"Grades are of course a superficial way of showing students what we value. Direct and immediate descriptive feedback does more than a single letter or number can." - A Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs

I thought the readings for this week were really interesting. I really liked this quote from Blogging in the classroom because I think it proves a very good point: if our work is to but viewed by not only our teacher but the whole class, then I think it subconsciously makes students put more effort into their work. On the other hand, I think that having assignment for other students to view can cause some trouble with "borrowing" ideas if a student just wants to get an assignment done. 

My second quote I thought brought up an interesting point. We talked about this in class, but I think it is worth mentioning again that it is so hard to grade students based on if work is considered "good". I do like the idea, though, of how professors comment back on the blogs and provide feedback that way rather than just assigning a letter grade. I value this interaction and feedback more than nothing at all. 

Blogging trends

There are many different trends within blogging, and I feel that one of the biggest trends you will see are personal blogging and informative blogging. Personal blogging is more a collection of experiences and personal stories while informative blogs are tutorials on DIY projects or information being displayed.

I think one interesting "new" trend to blogging is the idea of Tumblr. I think this takes blogging to a new level. With the option of following people and having a news feed it has sort of merged together traditional blogs with popular online social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. I think that this is interesting because some of the blogs that I look at on Tumblr are just a collection of reposts and pictures and nothing really of their own writing.

I think the way blogs are evolving and changing into more of a public "friendship" site is interesting and it also seems to be taking off pretty well. It will be interesting to see what other blog sites start to follow Tumblr's footsteps. Times are changing and blogs are too.