Blogging gives us a unique opportunity to think about the way in which electronic rhetoric transforms written discourse and its innovative relationship to both private and public discourse. For this reason, you should create and maintain a student blog this quarter: although it should be somewhat course-centered (i.e., reflecting on issues of writing, rhetoric, digital culture, PWR, etc.), it may also include entries more dedicated to your personal, political, or social interests. There are a few requirements for the blog:

1. It must contain no fewer than 10 entries (although it may contain as many beyond that number as you like)
2. The entries themselves must be longer than five sentences long; they should reflect some care and thought.
3. The blog must be created and the first entry recorded by no later than class time on Friday January 16th. (It should contain at least one image, if the blogging site that you choose supports images.)
4. You should post at least one entry every Friday by class time during the quarter.
5. Your final entry is due on Wednesday, March 10 and should follow the guidelines for the Class Reflection letter.

That being said, you have a lot of options in creating your weblog. The first involves where you create it. After spending many fruitless and frustrating hours trying to get us involved in the Stanford Blog Project, which involves Moveable Type, I've decided to go simple rather than Stanford. Therefore, as a student, you need to set up your own blog -- there are several options available to you.

• Use a commercial (free) site such as Blogger, Livejournal, Xanga, or Blogspot (the last of which is an adminstrative site tied to Blogger). Benefits: simple, easy-to-use. Possible drawback: most produce open sites.
• Use a commercial site with access restriction, such as Diaryland. Benefits: apparently, you can restrict access to your site, if privacy is a concern for you. Possible drawbacks: curly-q letters.
• Get yourself involved in the Stanford project (and then teach me!). Benefits: Stanford-oriented (not sure if there's access restriction). Possible drawbacks: very difficult to set up (from a mid-range tech person's viewpoint)
• Create your own weblog on your leland space. Benefit: you can restrict access (I can help you if you need it). Drawback: Less cool interface and support.

Once you have decided where you're going to set it up, then you should create it. Beyond your text entries, you might also consider importing images -- also some of the commercial sites have a "blogback" or comment function where people can respond to your entries (if that interests you). I strongly suggest that you browse some blogs for ideas. A good starting point is Blogger. It's also fun to look at celebrity blogs, which you can find through searching Google. I've also included several links to blogs and articles about them on the links page for our site.

In terms of your blog's content, as I mentioned above, the 10 required entries should be primarily course-oriented (concerning writing, rhetoric, PWR as a program, PWR1/2 as courses, digital culture, writing or digital culture on campus or in the news); you may find it helpful in your entries to respond to a reading, to class discussion, to an article you read in the Daily or elsewhere, or to one of the questions under the "Class Topics" headings on our class schedule. Beyond those requried entries, the subject matter is your own choice. Remember that no matter how you restrict your site to the world at large, all members of our class will have access to your blog.

Questions about this assignment? E-mail me, or bring them up in class.