Blogging Assignment

Writing: While we may maintain some critical detachment as we read and analyze others’ life-writing this semester, it’s much harder to do so when we record our own lives. Writing your own experience may feel familiar to some and utterly foreign to others, but everyone will give it a try. You must create a new blog (please see me if you already maintain a regular one) and update it at least twice a week for the rest of the semester. You may use your blog as a space to respond to the assigned reading–or discussions–in this class; you may use it as a place to chronicle your lived experiences; you may create a genre-specific site (i.e. a blog about a chosen theme or practice). Occasionally I will prescribe writing exercises to be posted on your blog, but this will largely be your own space to create a self for public display. Please email me your blog’s URL by January 24, 2010. Your blogs will be linked to this communal blog.

Reading: As you begin to write yourself into a blog–or blog yourself into a life–you need to become a regular reader of three other blogs (these are in addition to those of your classmates). Link to them from your own blog. There are thousands of possibilities for locating three blogs that you would like to follow. I advise beginning with your own interests and then googling around and following links until you hit on a few that look really good. Make sure that you select blogs that are updated regularly (at least once a week) and contain ample material for analysis. Throughout the term, I will ask you to do a few close readings of the blogs that you are following.