Blog Play in the Composition Class

by Karl Fornes and Lynne Rhodes
USC Aiken

Karl's story : I began using blogs in my English 101 classes after several years of working with the Blackboard course management system. For the most part, I enjoyed using BlackBoard. The system allowed for discussion, file transfer, announcement delivery, chatting and other features. On the other hand, I grew increasingly uneasy and bored by Blackboard. Blackboard and other course management systems I have perused seem to approach instructional technology as a matter of convenience. That is, although these systems offer technology as a means for course delivery, they do not fundamentally change what happens in the classroom; in fact, the systems try to replicate the classroom, both physically and hierarchically. Navigating Blackboard is eerily similar to navigating around campus from classroom to classroom. As other folks have pointed out, the instructor controls everything, from the appearance of the site, the topics discussed, the “audience” for the site, the initial screen (Gibbs, Lowe). Furthermore, everything that an instructor can do with Blackboard that can be done without it.

I began “playing” with blogs in the composition classroom during the Fall 2003 semester. I had enough success (or at least claimed enough success) to convince Lynne to include them in her composition classes during the Fall 2004 semester. Because we are using the same texts and in deference to the community aspect of blogs, we combined our sections of English 101 in one blog. I think of our work with the blogs as “play,” and I'm confident that, as Lynne and I continue to “play” with the blogs, we will make them fit what we want to do with them. That, to me, is the great advantage of blogs over the course management systems I have explored in the past. Before, I had to fit what I wanted within the course management system; now, I can make blogs fit what I want. Similarly, students can create their own blogs and have at least some control over their appearance. Further, blogging allows students to actually “publish” their own work, creating a “real world” audience and allowing for audience feedback. In a public sense, they are what Eric Crump has referred to as a “statement-making tool” (Crump). In another sense, though, they allow for the collection, organization and archiving of personal observations and research. I think of blogs as simultaneously a form of public discourse, a memoir, and a personal journal. Using that perspective as a framework, I hope to use blogs to perform course-related tasks while exploring the genre, and I try to model that “play” for students.

Lynne's story : Maybe it was the word itself that fascinated me first. I wanted to know that it meant to blog, to create a web presence – especially in my composition classrooms – that had relevance in this technologically-oriented Information Age. I've always been a little – shall we say technologically challenged. Email seemed really, really mysterious for a long while, but once I realized how simple and how useful the application was, I was eager to find other forums for communication that didn't involve phone tag or the postal service. When given the opportunity (and the academic encouragement and support to try it), I used Blackboard for classroom discussion threads, but after a few semesters, this type of threaded discussions seemed limited, especially given the sometimes animated discussions that email lists provided in contrast. Still, I search for an electronic forum that allows for more links, more visual impact, and more opportunities for audience beyond the class walls. Truthfully, I still haven't explored the blog-sphere as much as I probably should have; I still feel like a student myself on a class blog (set up through Blogger by a colleague) even though I am officially listed as an instructor. My role has been to play along, to use the course blog ( www.fornofrio.net/english101/ ) as an attractive bulletin board, and my own blog as an instructional site, where I model assignments and post handouts. Because I see my blog more in terms of saving paper, I don't feel that I have truly entered the spirit of the blog yet; I hold back, perhaps from exposure, perhaps from the realities of having to update daily and provide the links to my own interests. Maybe it's because I still prefer curling up with a paper text and pencil in hand to mark up texts than to really spend much time analyzing on line.

But still I want to blog, or at least to grasp some of the spontaneity of instant messenger and web conversations that I have watched taking place when my two children (both young adults) sit down with their laptops to chat. I want to be half as technologically savvy as my younger colleague, Karl (who is – bless him – endlessly patient with my questions) who has introduced me to blogs, to sources about blogs, to additional features like RSS (and who has not laughed to my face at least, whenever I demonstrate complete ignorance about most of what he's talking about when he bounces into my office to suggest that I look at another feature that he's decided to add or change on “our” course website). Features like the archives are particularly attractive to both of us, but our attention to the surface details maybe distracting us from the pedagogical use of blogs.

As I read over the literature (and I question if literature is really the right term or word for blog space text), I'm fascinated by assertions that blogs are like rhetorical commonplaces, and again, I must ask how can I exploit or employ the inventive features of multi-voiced student blogs in a more productive, pedagogical sense? As anyone can see, I'm exploring – however tentatively – new territories and new technological frontiers. I am following trails already laid down by my colleague, Karl Fornes, and at some point, I may feel adventuresome enough to head out on my own trails, but right now, I am plodding along comfortably at my own pace, stopping regularly to see if my students are jumping ahead or falling behind. I'm a guide who still needs a guide.

Our questions:

To what extent does student “self-publishing” with blogs enhance or detract from student learning?

Our experience indicates that students already “play” with email and instant messaging. How we can promote and enhance student “play” with blogs?

How can we motivate students to explore blogs as a genre rather than simply applying what they know about “classroom” writing to their blogs? What can we change that would encourage students to feel ownership of their blogs?

How are we as instructors benefiting from having blogs for our individual and joint sections of composition?

Works Cited

Resources

Teaching Composition