blogs as class content

Blogs are a rich source of class content. Even if you don't feel ready to start a blog for yourself or have your students start blogs, you might consider tapping into this vast collection of writing. Here are a few applications you might consider for blogs as classroom content.

Any class that examines autobiography or the diary should include blogs. These online journals challenge notions of audience in these genres, allowing the class to examine the transformation of a traditional genre in a hypertextual world. With a little searching, you can locate blogs appropriate for any class, whether a blog written by a high school girl (useful in examinations of feminism) or a blog written by a celebrity (useful in thinking about fame and popular culture). In many ways, the genre itself is still in formation—blogs don't have any hard and fast rules just yet, not in terms of style or audience or publication or technology, so an examination of a variety of blogs or the history of blogs can help students see how genres themselves emerge.

If you'd like some readings to open a discussion of genre, consider:

• Meg Hourihan's "What We're Doing When We Blog": Hourihan is the person behind Megnut, and one of the developers of the Blogger service. In this brief article, she argues that what binds bloggers together is the format, implicitly making an argument for blogs as a distinct genre of electronic writing.

• John M. Grohol's "Psychology of Weblogs: 2002" and "Psychology of Weblogs: Everything Old is New Again": Grohol provides an interesting counterpoint to Hourihan. He argues that there's nothing special about blogging, replying directly to Hourihan's article to claim that the unique features she find in blogs are a part of older forms of electronic writing such as USENET posts.

Blogs often comment on current events. Sampling blogs on issues like the war with Iraq or recent elections or the terrorist attacks of 9/11 can give students access to a range of public opinion and rhetoric in action. This sampling can be useful to contextualize readings in class or to consider how issues examined in class play out in the "real world." Finding blogs on a topic is relatively easy: just pop a topic and "blog" into Google.

In terms of the war in Iraq, a good grouping of readings would probably include "Where is Raed?" and "L.T. Smash," (both discussed in the introduction to this piece) as well as "The Agonist," by Sean-Paul Kelly with frequent updates on the war (also interesting since Kelly was caught plagiarizing material word-for-word) and "Killing Goliath," which offers an anti-war perspective.

I've also used blogs in my web authoring class as a source of valuable design inspiration. Surfing through the blogs at Blogger in particular can give students a multitude of sites to look at while thinking about design issues like layout, graphics, and color. You might also have students look at blog templates at a site such as blogskins.com to find sample color palettes and layouts.

Because blogs are web-based, issues of visual design are foregrounded. You might ask students to consider the relation between the content of a blog and its design: how does the design reinforce the identity being inscribed in a blog? How does it undercut, challenge, or complicate it? These questions are useful in any design-oriented class, but are also valuable in a class that asks students to consider aspects of visual argument, particularly as it relates to written argument.

One interesting aspect of design to consider in relation to blogs is the way they inherently privilege vertical space. Blogs typically have a columns of links and a columb with the text of the blog. How does this vertical orientation influence the overall argument of the blog?