Abstract Submitted for Computers and Writing Online 2005
In his recent Kairos article "When Blogging Goes Bad," Steven Krause suggests that the fit between weblogs and the writing classroom isn't perhaps as seamless as we might wish it to be. His article recounts a "failed experiment" where weblogs failed to provide a "dynamic and interactive writing experience."
My presentation takes Krause's article less as a "cautionary tale" and more as a challenge to understand where the friction between weblogs and the writing classroom is located. Drawing on Kathi Yancey's discussion of deixis in her 2004 CCCC Chair's Address, Carolyn Miller's work on ethos in Human-Computer Interaction, and Duncan Watts' work in network theory, I suggest a couple of conclusions. I argue that the "community" we work towards in our classrooms is largely a clustering, or centripetal, type of networking, while much of the "dynamic and interactive" nature of weblogs comes from connective, or centrifugal, activity (or more accurately, a healthy mix of the two). Furthermore, the energy of blogging is highly context-specific (deictic), in a way that can be difficult to accommodate (or value) in a classroom setting.
Ultimately, I do not argue that weblogs and classrooms should never mix, but rather that their mixing should be informed by a more careful articulation both of what weblogs can accomplish and of our pedagogical expectations for this particular technology.
Collin G Brooke
Syracuse University
cbrooke@syr.edu
Responders
Jeremy Hunsinger is assigned as a responder to this post.
That Mix
The "healthy mix of the two" you seem to be advocating, Collin, strikes me as an especially important point. Uses of blogs in the writing classroom that prefer (or are framed with an expectation for) one gesture (outward, let's say, rather than inward) are likely to come up short of our expectations for them. By this, I mean that they're probably not the best technology for fostering one kind of gesture at the expense of the other. I'd say they're rather suited to multiple gestural possibilities. And so there's a both/and quality to the kinds of referential moves and link-gestures available with blogs (and other social software?). And although I don't think it's very easy to teach the scale of gestures or (in just fifteen weeks) to appreciably engage in all of the dynamic/interactive possibilities, this does suggest to me that weblogs afford us a different (perhaps fuller) array of gestures than other technologies, such as listservs, contained discussion boards, etc.
I wonder if a similar set of issues (both/and gesturing) gets picked up in any of the service-learning scholarship. I know that's not your pitch here, but it seems like community-minded work or extracurriculum work must confront a similar set of issues rel. to classroom community and variously centripetal/centrifugal gestures.
Balance
It's hard to know how to strike a balance here. I agree that engaging blogging in the most deep and serious way does entail the whole writing-oneself-into-the-network, reaching out to other weblogs through comments and trackbacks. It makes me wonder if perhaps students should, in order to gain a full sense of the network and audience, have access to the referral stats, because we know how important those are. What do you think, Collin?
Another barely-connected thought about balance: Centripetal blogging, or at least a balance that's tipped toward centripetal, might arguably be better for students who are completely new to blogging (and many are, at least at my school, and I'm thinking of two-year institutions as well. I'd like to see what Cindy, John Lovas, and Joanna Howard have to say about this). Especially for those who are being required to blog for a class -- versus those of us who get a lot of pleasure out of voraciously seeking out, reading, commenting on, and linking to as many blogs as we can -- centrifugal blogging can be really troublesome in terms of motivation, even if the teacher is an experienced blogger. I am, as you might know, speaking from experience. Of course, I should add that much of what you're saying depends on the content of the course. Students in Network(ed) Rhetorics, or something like the University of Minnesota's "Internet Communication: Tools and Issues" course would likely be more willing to get out there in the 'sphere than first-year composition students, who come to our courses with very specific expectations and are, at times, annoyed when the courses aren't what they expected. Not that annoyance on the part of some students should be a deterrent, but what if, say, the class rejected the blogging requirement en masse? It happened to someone I know.
Also, your post makes me think about the issue of whether one needs to be a blogger in order to use weblogs in his or her teaching (or to do research on weblogs). I really, REALLY think it helps tremendously if the teacher and/or scholar does maintain a blog himself or herself, but I'm aware of how exclusionary and alienating it sounds to those who don't blog but want to use them in their teaching or study them.* But to be perfectly honest, I'm more likely to pay attention to and read essays about blogging by people who are out there actively participating in the network, like you, Collin, or Alex Halavais, Liz Lawley, Mike Edwards, Lilia Efimova, Jill Walker, Torill Mortensen, danah boyd, Kaye Trammell, etc. etc.
* Also troubling are the implications for people who blog under pseudonyms. Pseudonymous bloggers are still bloggers, and I don't want to discriminate. :-(
CultureCat
"the most deep and serious way"
That was the phrase that jumped out at me, and it makes me wonder if I'm not imposing a high-low kind of framework in my essay. I don't think I am, but then, I wouldn't, would I? :-) Part of what I am trying to do there, and I guess this'll come out, is to offer a conceptual model that isn't just relevant to blogs. I think that social software in general, if it's to work well, needs that balance.
Another thing that I think comes across is that I'm not really trying to diss the idea that there's a place for centripetal blogging (or clustering, in Watts' term)--basically I agree with what you're saying, C. I do think, though, that we need to make more space for the centrifugal variety, and even that's not really enough, because the (educational) institution itself is highly centripetal.
Thanks for the comments...
cgb
service learning
Now I wish that I did pick up the potential connection between this centri-stuff and service learning, because that makes a great deal of sense. I would think that some interesting work might be done (and perhaps has been) specifically in terms of geography/spatiality and SL.
And I hope that this notion of multiple gestural possibilities comes out in my piece, because that's really where I think it wants to go, particularly if we range beyond blogs to some of the other tools that build in all sorts of different kinds of gestures. We'll see...
cgb