Teaching Digital Composition
with Blogs
Krista Kennedy
Dept. of Writing Studies

Why teach with blogs?

How does all this improve
student writing?

Why should you go to all
this trouble?

The Lofty Pursuit of

Multimodal Literacy

Network Literacy

Network literacy is “writing in a distributed,
collaborative environment. Weblogs are the
first native web genre. Serial, unstable,
networked...”

“Bringing network literacy to the
classroom means jolting students out
of the conventional individualistic,
closed writing of essays only ever
seen by their professor.”
From Jill Walker's talk at Brown,
http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising
talk_at_brown.html

The blog is your playground.

Web 2.0 is your erector set.

Both are tools to teach
them to compose...

and share what they make.

• Sparklit
• Flickr
• Second Life
• Meez (avatars)
• Comic Life
• Tabblo
• YouTube
• Odeo (podcasting)

The podosphere blues

Also...

college is about the
public exchange of ideas.

Blogs are a space to
write in public.

Public Writing
=
Public Responsibility

Public Writing
=
Real Participation
in the Network

In order to
accomplish all that...

You have to know
exactly what you want.

 Class news?
 Individual reflective journal?
 Responses to assigned reading?
 Building a learning community?
 Filter for media coverage of course topics?
 Building network literacy?
 Engaging the larger blogosphere?
 Portfolio for all writing done in the course?

How will goals drive
your superstructure?

1. How many blogs?

 Individual blog by instructor
 Individual student blogs
 Small group blogs
 Class blog

Instructor Blog
• Alternative Course Management System
• Class announcements
• Lecture notes
• Syllabi, policies

(Take note: This can be an
excellent CV peripheral for you.)

Problems

Preserves traditional
classroom hierarchy

Monologic

Individual Blogs
• Promotes ownership of work
• Encourages reflection
• Unconstrained by community norms
• Demands some technological responsibility

Problems

Makes community
more difficult

Demands a certain sort
of personality

Requires more time
for assessment

Small Group Blogs
 Encourage collaborative reflection
 Are conducive to peer review
 Are a good communication tool for group
projects

Problems

Usual collaboration issues

Overfamiliarity

Sometimes better served by a wiki

Often better served by a wiki

The Class Blog

Greater sense of
community

Promotes ongoing discussion

Frequent post turnover

More conducive to comments

Easier assessment

Nearly automatic
tech support

Problems

Individual voices can
be subsumed

Lack of individual ownership

Universal Issue:

Forced
Blogging

1. Building community is
never a waste of time.

2. You must model the
behavior you want to
see.

2a. You must be a
functional part of the
community.

3. Provide clear motivation.

4. Offer prompts.

5. Offer incentives.

5. Bring the blog into
the classroom.

6. Force options. Be dangerous.

Sirc, Geoff. English Composition as a
Happening. Utah State UP, 2002.

Instructor
responsibilities

People will find your blog.

 Search engines
 Blog indexes
 Uthink “Recently Updated Blogs” listing
 Technorati
 Blo.gs, weblogs.com
 Referral logs
 Links, trackbacks
 Personal referrals IRL

FERPA compliance

Remind students of
privacy issues

Use pseudonyms

Approve comments

Assessment

Provide specific criteria
and rubrics in the syllabus.