Learning to Write Publicly: Promises and Pitfalls of Using Weblogs in the Composition Classroom

Student writing is most often read only by instructors and classmates, and this context creates a private and controlled environment for experimentation and learning. However, the private nature of classroom writing relies on a falsified context for communication, perhaps leading to a lack of motivation, lack of authority over texts, or lack of responsibility for one’s own written work (consider the recent rise in plagiarism cases). As Jill Walker (2005) notes, blogs can “provide a chance for students to experience writing in a public space where their work can have real value both for their classmates and for a wider community” (112). This sort of writing activity can better prepare students for communication in a networked world, where writing has social meaning and public consequences.

Some writing instructors view the primary goal of their composition classes as preparing students to learn how to use writing to engage with information and ideas in an academic context. However, the notion of academic discourse as public discourse has been supported by many writing instructors, and in 2007 was presented in a CCCC Position Statement on the Multiple Uses of Writing. This statement argues, “[t]o restrict students’ engagement with writing to only academic contexts and forms is to risk narrowing what we as a nation can remember, understand, and create.” As this position statement suggests, and we agree, many genres and uses of writing can be taught in the composition classroom in an effort to move beyond traditional academic discourse and into public discourse. One such form might be “civic discourse that energize all manner of inclusive deliberation, the ideal product of which is just relations among the citizenry, broadly conceived.” It is this goal, to facilitate student participation in civic discourse, that serves as the foundation for this study of class blogging.

Our study of students’ participation on class blogs helps to discern both the advantages and challenges of asking students to learn to write in a public space, where such social meaning and public consequences are real. The study examines students’ participation on required class blogs, which are public forums, over the course of one semester. With an eye toward the implications of public writing as a classroom activity, we have analyzed student blog content and students’ reflections on their blogging practices. Based on our findings, we identify and address the implications of using class blogging to facilitate a more complex view of writing in a networked environment.

The overall objective of this research is to identify the best practices for using blogs as a pedagogical method for developing students’ “network literacy.” Teaching network literacy in the composition classroom supports several student learning objectives that are fundamental to composition pedagogy. These objectives include:

• Audience awareness. Asking students to write online means asking them to write to a “real-life” audience of potential readers that includes others beyond their instructor and classmates. Such writing tasks help to teach concepts of audience awareness: students must anticipate audience needs, backgrounds, and perceptions and prepare writing that will garner appropriate responses online. Writing online presents a challenging context for learning audience awareness, as online audiences are varied and sometimes unknown, extending to a potentially wide public audience. Writing online can help students develop responsibility and accountability for what they share when their writing may reach wide and unknown audiences. Skills in addressing audience can help them to more effectively participation in public discourse and debate.
• Genre awareness. Second, teaching writing for online environments also helps students to develop an understanding of how conventions for writing change across genres and rhetorical contexts. While not replacing instruction in traditional academic genres, assignments that ask students to write online can complement those activities by introducing students to new, and complex, native web genres, such as blogs. Writing for the web can complicate students’ understanding of genre, as some online spaces do not conform to formal conventions of particular print genres. By understanding how to better navigate across different genres, students can more easily enter into public deliberation on issues that falls outside of academic contexts.
• Social engagement. Assignments for the composition classroom often aim to encourage students to better recognize the social and collaborative nature of writing. Online writing is inherently interactive, social and collaborative, with its endless links and two-way communication structure. Teaching network literacy can help students become more adept at participating in the knowledge-building activities that occur through all forms of writing, both in print and online. These types of activities, which are not always present in traditional academic essay writing, characterize public deliberation and civic discourse.

In addition, teaching network literacy can reinforce critical thinking about the implications of technology use for writing practices. While gaining practice with writing in public, online spaces of the Internet, students can reflect on the implications of technology for their writing practices. Class discussions and response papers can be designed to encourage students to think critically about what it means to write in the networked space of the Internet.

A common criticism for integrating forms of technological literacy, such as network literacy, in the composition classroom is that it comes at the expense of other pedagogical goals, or that it may mean that there is a reduced emphasis on teaching other aspects of writing. The instructors participating in our study likewise commented on this challenge. One reported that “[t]he most challenging aspect of the semester was integrating blog-writing into a course that was already packed with goals and assignments,” and another noted that “it seemed like I tried to squeeze too much into the semester.”

Such misgivings, however, at times can overlook the fact that many goals for network literacy are common to goals for traditional composition pedagogy, such as those mentioned above. A focus on network literacy in the composition classroom, then, does not necessarily mean decreased attention to the goals of teaching writing in traditional print genres. The “either-or” myth, or the notion that students are learning either to write for digital environments or for print, is perpetuated in widely read news forums such as the New York Times. As a case in point, a recent New York Times article, “Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?” (published July 27, 2008) launched a series titled “The Future of Reading: Digital Versus Print.” The series title – “Digital Versus Print” – while not necessarily representing the viewpoint of the first article, nevertheless encourages this type “either-or” thinking about writing and technology. When designing our study, we relied on the assumption that the lessons learned from writing online can be carried over to writing for other contexts and environments. In fact, writing online often poses even more complex situations for students to address that they may not otherwise be exposed to if teaching network literacy were overlooked.

It is our contention, further, that blogging might help students develop network literacy. As blogs are one of the first native web genres, they are ideal sites for such a study. Blogging software is available for free to instructors and students and requires a relatively low level of technical training. Further, blogs enable key interactive features of social, networked communication, such as linking, commenting, and trackbacking.

Interviews with the instructors who assigned class blogs as part of our study support the notion that class blogging might foster network literacy and reinforce the goals common to many composition classrooms. After the close of the semester, the instructors whose assigned class blogging reported that the assignment helped their students meet pedagogical objectives such as

• learning more about writing for different audiences and within various genres (“blog-writing did help further illustrate to students the significance of genre in determining the shape of their writing” and “I think the blog definitely helped students in the understanding of different genres”);
• connecting students’ writing for class with real-life, meaningful interactions (“students translate[d] lessons learned through those virtual dialogues into action in real life situations”);
• and fostering skills in argumentation (“it eventually helped some students learn to better voice their opinions”).

Required student blogging holds much potential for teaching writing, yet many instructors are concerned with its public nature, and the implications of subjecting student writing to public response. This study explores such concerns and possible means for addressing them. We hope that writing instructors will benefit from the results of this research by gaining insight into key questions that have arisen about teaching network literacy and, more specifically, about the promises and pitfalls of class blogging, particularly for undergraduate education. More specifically, instructors can explore, based on our report on student perceptions and participation, the potential implications of requiring students to write publicly.