Using+blogs+to+teach+first-year+composition

="Writing and Citizenship: Using Blogs to Teach First-Year Composition."= http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ed8a2f18-8878-4925-866f-028be275276a%40sessionmgr12&vid=7&hid=6

=Abstract=

This interactive study showed that hybrid courses are the way of the future in pedagogy. Charles Tryone used his personal classroom space for an experiment that tested the interactions and participation by blogging with his students and creating forums in which he and the other students could discuss topics, assignments, and others work throughout the course. = = =Annotation= Tryon is trying to break free from the traditional classroom. With electronic media being used in mass sizes from children to adults, he wanted to use this to his advantage and engage in the electronic age of students a way that has not been utilized before. In the article, he alters his pedagogy and is debating whether the alterations need to be made in his personal classroom. Tryon wants to show to his students the many different ways that writing is needed in the current media and is used in today's new forms.

Tryon throughout the article tells of the assignments and how they were beneficial. Some students chose not to participate and others were consumed in it. Overall, the concept of using the new found technology was found to be beneficial, not only for the student teacher interaction, but for the real life experience that it can create for the students. Tryone states that he does believe that the new findings in his pedagogy will benefit his teachings and continue to evolve in the classroom.

=Argument=

Tryon wanted to show that interaction on the media world and his students could allow for a new and promising form of pedagogy. He used blogging as a tool in the classroom and experimented with his class to see what the down falls and the benefits would be.

=Key Passages=

"One of my major goals as a first-year composition instructor is to find ways for students to take charge of their writing, to provide them with a sense that writing matters." (128)

"However, I have had much success with blogging as a tool for making the basic concepts of rhetoric more tangible and for helping students discover that writing for a larger audience is a valuable activity, one connected to issues of citizenship and democracy." (132)

"...because my students had access to their blogs, they were able to supplement class discussion both by reading from their entries or by using their entries to point the class to articles they felt might be worth discussion." (131)

" The main result was that students were no longer passive observers but participants in a larger conversation that extended well beyond the walls of the composition classroom." (130-131) = = =Selected Works Cited=

• Daschle, Tom. 2003. Travels with Tom. www.daschle.senate.gov/travels_ with_tom.htm (accessed 29 August 2003). (This Web site is no longer active.)

• Hawkins, J ohn, et al. 2001 – 5. Right Wing News. www.rightwingnews.com/ (accessed 18 May 2005).

• Jacobs, Joanne. 2003. “What’s My Ethos?” Joanne Jacobs.com. www.joannejacobs.com/mtarchives/013252.html (accessed 18 May 2005).

• Lucas, Rachel. 2003. Rants. Impudence. Some Piquancy. www.rachellucas .com (accessed 29 August 2003).

• Pax, Salam. 2002– 4. Where is Raed? dear_raed.blogspot.com/ (accessed 18 May 2005).

• Riverbend. 2003– 5. Baghdad Burning. riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ (accessed 18 May 2005).

• Tryon, Charles. 2003. “Busted.” The Chutry Experiment. chutry.wordherders .net/archives/000679.html (accessed 18 May 2005).

• ———. 2003. Writing to the Moment. tryon1101.blogspot.com (accessed 18 May 2005).

• ———. 2004. Rhetoric and Democracy. democracymatters.blogspot.com (accessed 18 May 2005).