[Grr… the Word file that has my abstract in it won’t open on this public terminal on the convention floor. I’m retyping this from my lecture notes.]
When a curricular weblog program was made available to all students, faculty and staff at a small liberal arts university, the students, expected to blog as part of their course grade, initially expected to be told what to write about, how frequently to write, and how many words were required. While about a quarter of the students rarely if ever blogged more than the bare minimum, and therefore appreciated being told exactly what their blogging should be, other students quickly developed a sense of audience and ownership over their own blogging space; these students object to “forced blogging” assignments, reporting that their regular readers found those entries boring, or becuase the academic discourse they felt they had to adopt jarred with the tone offered by the rest of the site’s content. The field of composition studies encourages students to invest themselves in and take ownership over their writing. How do issues of “investment” and “ownership” translate into their participation in a shared blogging environment? My presentation examines the tension between forced blogging and voluntary blogging. Blogging is a medium that developed to meet the needs of a specific kind of writer. As many of us who teach with weblogs have quickly recognized, not every student is that kind of writer. Incorporating blogging into our curricula requires us to address these questions.
New Media Journalism @ Seton Hill UniversityForced Blogging: Students’ Emotional Investment in their Academic WeblogsCCCC 04)
Among those in the audience was Ann Raimes, whose “Keys for Writers” I’ve used for years. She’s considering using blogs as an example of student writing in her next revision, and says she’s been reading through SHU student blogs.
Just found this article, while searching for something online, interesting. Students were forsed to blog? I’d like to study in this university lol
If you would like to come to Seton Hill, check out our Admissions weblog!
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Admissions
Thanks about the line breaks! I probably would have done it sooner had I realized that all that was needed was inserting <br/> at the beginning of every line. Due to html’s whitespace thing (any amount of spaces, tags, and newpines in the html file is considered a single space at most), and the fact that multiple <p/> tags turn into one single line break (at least they used to), I thought it would be much more difficult.
I see Amanda’s probably in the one- fourth of the class that isn’t afraid to test her own brain cells. :) (even if she does have to do ” Forced Blogging”) The terminology “Forced Blogging”, reminds me of walking into class and being told to hand in a thesis over something only a teacher knows anything about. I want them to not only see what they want answered, but to also understand I have a brain of my own. It functions quite well without being forced to do anything. Students with initiative automatically have a drive to achieve, that can sometimes be hendered when “forced” anything is placed on them. Most of us in that category tend to make it through.. but it doesn’t mean we have to like it. Amanda, this next statement isn’t intended to offend the one- fourth that obviously do what they should… but, to the three-fourth that don’t, and obviously don’t read comments either, move over and let someone else have your spot.
Sir: I really like the line breaks. It doesn’t all run together. Good Job!
Heather, you hit on exactly the problem. When writing teachers ask their students to blog, and assign topics, frequency, and word lenghts, they kill the spontinaeity and the sense of ownership that gets people like Amanda excited about their blogging.
While I have been known, from time to time, to ask students to do something like post a link to a news story that interests them, or post their response to a book we’ve been reading, I am trying to find ways of getting students to use their blogs as tools for organizing and expanding their own thoughts, for developing intellectual independence (rather than developing the ability to memorize and spit back what their teachers and textbooks tell them). Since SHU does pay for the blogging service, and I do the work of administering it, I do feel that it’s appropriate for me to expect students to use their blogs in the service of their education.
Of course, the most interesting blog conversations (like the debate about athetics at SHU) have nothing to do with what the students are doing in any particular class — and that makes me extremely excited. Learning happens outside of the classroom, in contexts not associated with any particular course or assignment — the students who are debating athletics on campus are writing about things that they care about, and they are having real-world experience debating important ideas in a form that matters.
I confess that I never imagined that so many SHU bloggers would be this passionate about their blogging — and my presentation grew out of what I learned from what my students are doing. I’d like other teachers who too rigidly define what their students should do online to realize that “Forced Blogging” is not the answer.
When I figure out what exactly IS the answer, I’ll let you know! :)
By no means. I have been an SHU blogger since the beginning and I have made my “forced blog” entries my own. I usually disagree with everything that is said. I also write on my blog for fun. My blog has always been my own. The approach may be different, but the assignments, as they should, require personal thought, not mimicking a book.
At SHU we focus the development of critical thinking. I like to believe that my blog has been one of the vehicles for that process.
OK, wait. If there are students you have to force to blog,and tell them what to blog about, isn’t that your blog.. not theirs? I don’t think I would care for forced blogging. But, for the three- fourths that you have to tell when, why, and how? Realize there are millions that would give their right arm to be able to write whatever they wanted!