Jan 7 entry

First blog entry (required of all e-rhetoric students). For this first entry, you should simply write about your experience (or lack of experience) with blogs. Some questions that you might address include (but are not limited to): How do you define a "blog"? What are your preconceptions about blogs or people who keep blogs? What sort of blogs, if any, have you kept in the past? How do you feel blogs fit into your understanding of e-rhetoric? What blogs (if any) do you read on a regular basis? Why? Feel free to be as personal or formal as you wish in this entry.
Jan 10 entry Research ideas (required of all e-rhetoric students). In this blog entry, you should reflect on 2 ideas you have for a research project for this course. Remember that you should choose a topic related to digital culture or technology; see the research project page for ideas. Include links for at to least one website related to each topic. At the end of your entry, write 2-3 sentences briefly identifying which topic you are most drawn to at this point and why.
Jan 19 entry Oral presentations. To prepare for this blog entry, read Andrea Lunsford & John Ruszkiewicz, "Spoken Arguments." Then write a blog entry in which you reflect on at least two different oral presentations (lectures, talks, speeches) that you have heard recently. Evaluate the effectiveness of the oral rhetoric, using concrete example where appropriate -- but you don't need to specifically name names if you are criticizing an on-campus lecture. Please refrain from spending too much time critiquing PowerPoint usage in this blog post since that is the topic of next week's entry.

The following entries have Browse & Respond prompts. For each of these blog entries, you should browse some or all of the articles listed in the prompt box. Select one and use your blog entry to respond to it, quoting directly from the article or summarizing the argument. Note: You can substitute a different, relevant article if you like.

Jan 24 entry

 Jan 24: PowerPoint.

1. Browse:

2. Select one, and respond

Jan 31 entry

 
 Jan 31: Hypertext.

1. Browse:

2. Select one, and respond

Feb 7 entry

 
 Feb. 7: Blogging & On-Line Communication

1. Browse:

2. Select one, and respond

Feb 14 entry

 
 Feb 14: Wikis.

1. Browse:

2. Respond

Feb 23 entry

 

 Feb 23: Blogs Revisited.

Last blog entry (required of all e-rhetoric students). For this final entry, please reflect on the place of blogging in academics. Questions by may want to consider include

  • How has your perspective on blogs and blogging changed over the last 8 weeks? (You may want to re-read your first blog entry before addressing this question).
  • What is a blog, afterall? Is it an on-line journal? a form of journalism? a legitimate type of academic writing?
  • What place, if any, does it have in academia?
  • What do you think about the possibility for a collaborative blog -- one to which all members of the class contribute? How (if at all) do you see this as being a successful educational experience?

In other words, please use this entry to sum up your experiences with blogging, reflect on how your understanding of blogs have changed, and to suggest ways that blogs can be effectively incorporated in the PWR curriculum -- if at all.
last updated 2-20-05