The Blog Project

See, English 110 exists outside of the classroom. We'll be sharpening our analytical minds in this heated arena: blog-dom.

The point of the blog is for you to practice making 1) observations and 2) analyses on the material you come across in your day-to-day virtual lives, and then to share your analytical experiments with your classmates. Take this opportunity to explore the course theme and broaden your understanding of your chosen sources. Social media, YouTube, and online articles are rife with opportunities for interesting analysis. So impress us with your brilliance, hipness, and pop-cultural savoir faire. This is all about practice (and nerd/cool points, of course) so really go for it.

Let's say to post (roughly) once every other week, which makes a minimum of 5 posts total. There's no limit to how much you can post. But I'll remind you: if you start honing your analytical skills here, your grade and your chances for success over the next few years will markedly improve. Try stuff out--this is graded simply on doing it. If you're truly exploring, you'll probably make some analytical trips that you look back on and are slightly embarrassed about--and that's a good thing.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Blogging 101

Here's a corny video about blogging if you're unfamiliar. Click here.

And here are some things to think about while watching it: The faults of blogdom are apparent--bad information, bad analysis, and a tendency to jump quickly to hostile discussion. Consider, however, what the benefits are of news being user-generated. If YouTube freed us from the narrow selection of TV shows chosen by big shot programming executives, how have blogs freed us (at least slightly) from what Fox and CNN value as important news?
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