Why blog this semester?

Why Blog?

You'll be keeping a weekly blog on this group site this semester, writing about your experience in the course, responding to readings, exploring what you find interesting and challenging about writing, and responding to each others' posts.  You blog is a major assignment in 112. It's fair to ask, then, why is it so important?

The purpose of the blogs this semester is three-fold:

1.     Metacognitive.  I’ll be encouraging you to write about what you’re learning in the course and about yourself as a writer, what problems you’re having with the work and how you’re trying to solve those problems.  Why do this?  The overwhelming evidence on learning suggests that when you think about how you approach a process like writing, the more control you get over that process and the more likely you are to transfer what you learn to other situations
2. Dialogue.  Through these blogs, we can extend our conversations about writing outside of class. This is especially important in a writing course because composing is such a complex and idiosyncratic activity.  There aren't rules or formulas to follow, only choices to consider.  Our conversations with each surface these choices.
3.   Personal.  Your blog is a way to take what we’re learning together and explore it’s personal relevance.  This genre is very essayistic; that is, it encourages exploration, tentativeness, and risk. You don't have to know what you want to say before you say it.  On the contrary, it's often better if you don't.