Blogging As A Social Action- Or An English Assignment?
At the beginning of the year in our ASTU class we were asked to read Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd’s paper Blogging As A Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog. We were also asked to post six blog posts over the course of the term, and this is the last one. I decided to look back on Miller and Shepherd’s paper to compare my experiences with the conclusions of their genre analysis.
While reading Miller and Shepherd, I found I could relate to their focus on the importance of content in blogs. I found I fully agreed with their conclusion that “Content is important to bloggers because it represents their freedom of selection and presentation” (p. 8). I found the part about blogging that I enjoyed the most was my freedom to choose topics that I was most interested in. Rarely in an academic setting are we given the complete freedom to pursue our interests, and I found it extremely rewarding. I often have many thoughts during classes that I do not get to research or think about further, but the flexibility of what to put in a blog gave me the chance to do so.
Going through this process also gave me a greater appreciation for the work of Miller and Shepherd. Not only do they give people an opportunity to study the blog as a genre, but a chance for those writing blogs to reflect and put their experiences to words. I knew I had positive feelings towards this blogging experience, but could not place my finger on them. I would encourage other people in my ASTU class, and anyone else blogging to read this article, and have a chance to reflect on their fantastic work.
I agree with you that it’s refreshing to have the space to research and express ourselves about topics that interest us. Even with Dr. McNeill’s basic guidelines of writing about something related to our ASTU class, the diversity of blog content among our class has been fascinating to say the least. The topics ranging from soothing morning tide podcasts to Humans of New York show that what we learn in class, any class, can apply to the real world in so many different ways.
Miller and Shepherd also write that blogging can be a way of “developing relationships, via linking back, with an online community.” At least for me, this blogging assignment has helped me get to know my classmates on a unique level because reading their posts gives me a strong sense of their interests and styles. I also thought it was really cool how much the underlying messages of our classmates’ blogs built upon each other even though the content and research sites were different.