PURPOSES FOR BLOGS

The blog is such an exciting medium because of its newness and its potential.

An individual could use a blog as a public journal, or a political group could use a group blog as a discussion forum and a place to share knowledge.

A journalist might find a blog useful because he or she could communicate without being influenced or cotrolled by big media.

A writer could post a draft of his or her work online in order to get comments (the blog would then function similarly to a workshop).

A blog can be used to establish a professional online presence. You could post a resume, a CV, a personal statement etc., and you could refer anyone who has an interest in your professional profile to your blog.

Some people use blogs to organize their personal interests. Here, for example, I intend to create a site where I can organize my three favorite interests--writing, riding bicycles, and reptiles--by posting links to useful websites and discussing things I've learned and want to share with the online public.

MY BLOG QUEEN!!!

Daisy, Queen of Blogging and Thief of My Heart, with me in downtown Chicago.

A TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

One way I think about teaching writing:


I tell my students that writing is much like riding a bicycle. I tell them you cannot learn to ride until you actually try to do it, and no matter how much or how well someone explains to you how, you cannot, without having tried before, just hop on the seat, foot the pedals, and start riding. Writing is the same: You learn by doing.

Not that guidance and coaching could not help you. You could teach yourself, but with the guidance of someone else you could avoid many problems. For example, an experienced rider would tell you to brake with the back brake first because breaking with the front break first might cause you to flip over the handlebars. Similarly, a writing teacher might show you how overwriting, providing too much detail, actually stifles clarity.

Most importantly, a teacher helps students develop their writing skills and their awareness of their own unique writing personalities and voices. Like a coach who teaches his cyclists when to attack and when to hold back, how to train for grinding up mountain roads and how to eat the day before a race, a writing teacher gets students to realize and strengthen their own talents and teaches the students how to revise an almost-final draft and how to overcome problems like writer’s block.

I want my students to develop an awareness of themselves as writers and an awareness of audience. They learn that writing provides more than the opportunity for self-expression, but also the opportunity to communicate. Essays, song lyrics, novels, movies, advertisements, and all other media manipulate language in order to achieve their effects, to inform, to persuade, to evince emotion, to praise, to satirize. Teaching my students how language may be used, and how language functions in their world and in their lives, helps them develop their own writing skills.

BICYCLING THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA...

has always been my dream.

Right now my composition students are writing travel pieces, encouraging the students to research trips they want to take.

If I were doing the assignment, I definitely would use this website, South America Bicycle Touring Links, to plan a bicycle tour from Seattle to Tierra del Fuego! These links contain ongoing travellogues (many of these adventurers are still in the middle of their journeys), gorgeous photos, maps, gear guides, etc.

Enjoy!

AMAZING BIKE PANNIER SITE!!!

I thought I should share this site with all the bicycling enthusiasts out there, especially those of you who tour or commute.

At thetouringstore.com you can find quality saddlebag brands (like Ortlieb) for prices lower than you'll find anywhere else. The site also has great deals on sets of saddlebags (front & back pairs, or front and back with a handlebar bag, etc.).

I've bought items from this site a few times, and delivery is prompt and service excellent.

FIRST SEMESTER OF TEACHING COMPOSITION

I'm teaching composition to freshmen at the University of South Florida. This year teaching is my first, and I'm learning as much as I my students are (and I hope they're learning a lot!).

Recently my students did midterm course evaluations, and the results were very positive. The students have enjoyed the class so far and feel they have developed their writing skills. Also, I think they feel our classroom is a safe and supportive environment. The volume of their comments impressed me, and the students focused their comments on "revising" the course in much the same way as they revise their written pieces that they care about. They were enthusiastic in praising the activities they thought valuable, and they were comfortable in explaining what activities weren't valuable and why. They also suggested many good ideas about writing exercises we could do in the future.

The activities and assignments the students felt were valuable were the ones I was most clear about myself, and I realized that an excercise's success depends on whether its purpose is clear to both class and teacher. Students were divided about those activities and assignments that I believe can be valubale and effective but for some reason, maybe because I wasn't "on" that day I assigned them, weren't clear to the class. Now I make it a point to preface every activity with its purpose, and I ask the class if they understand what we're doing and why we're doing it before I let the class begin the activity.

A blog is like an online journal, except that the most recent entry (called a "post") appears at the top. Also, the blog's readers may comment on each post, and the blogger (the blog's writer) may respond to these comments. Some blogs allow their owners to post photos and videos. A blog may be used to pursue personal, academic, and professional interests. Some journalists even utilize blogs as a medium (an intriguing fact since blogs, unlike big media such as newspapers, TV, and radio, are controlled by individuals and not organizations).

This blog is my first. A year ago I didn't know what a blog was, and now I see them everywhere. Recently a fan blog even went up on the website of my favorite baseball team, the Minnesota Twins.

I am a fiction editor for a literary journal, and I sometimes google the names of writers who have submitted their work to me. The writers get a few extra minutes of editorial attention (which every writer craves) because with a click and a glance I can view their publishing histories, examples of their writing,

Even my girlfriend Daisy blogs (she's researching them for her dissertation). Her blog, "Doctor Daisy" at http://dpignett.blog.usf.edu, was the first one I read (because she blogged about me, I confess). A New Orleans native, blogging about Hurricane Katrina allowed her to communicate with people from home as well as others who were affected by the storm; she also posted links to news items and other information useful to any readers dealing with the hurricane.

Also, I believe that I'll be able to use blogs as an effective teaching tool. Having my freshmen composition students maintain blogs will help them deepen their purpose in writing, to evolve expression into communication. This change will occur because after they blog and begin to receive comments, they will realize they have an audience. And not a passive audience, but an active audience that responds to their writing and engages them in a conversation. Now involved in communication, these students will focus and direct their expression and thereby develop their awareness of both their audience and themselves as writers.