Friday, January 30, 2004

Do Not Burn the Joes

Narrow window for a brief entry this evening, since sloppy joes are already started in the other room and, well, an unmonitored stove...blog...unmonitored stove...blog. You see the dilemma. Plus, we've scored free tickets to tonight's KC Knights-Long Beach ABA game. It's a one-two matchup, but I admit to being basketballed out, and the kids have practice in the morning again. But Phillip's forever enthusiastic, so we'll wear smiles tonight and root for the home team. Of course, I was looking forward to seeing Rodman-in-full-madness play one last time, but my friend O. from Detroit (who went to high school with a player on the Long Beach team) told me today that the Worm didn't make the trip. Bummer!

Been thinking about two essay projects. Got an email about the upcoming publication for the Greater Kansas City Writing Project inquiring whether anyone on the listserv was currently publishing student writing on the Internet. I replied, saying, "Yes. We have a blog. It's rather like publishing on the Internet." Then came the invitation to write about it before next Wednesday. Should be no problem as long as we get walloped with snow on Sunday and Monday. I really like the carefree pace of snowbound days, and we don't get many around here. Usually grey skies and ice storms.

So that's one project: an essay explaining why weblogs in education. Not trying to reinvent the wheel here, but I want to articulate a model of use that dispels the free-for-all mythos of unmediated e-comm while acknowledging the great boon of audience engagement and frequent, visible writing. It's mainly for K-12 teachers who've not ventured far into the craggy terrain of weblogs in ed.

The other essay project (I will not burn the joes!) is for my students, mainly. I need to come up with a way of describing how we might read blogs rhetorically, how we might apply a close reading, seek answers to questions about how blogs connect with rhetorical terms of art. Right...the stove.

Posted by Derek Mueller at January 30, 2004 5:28 PM to Gobstuff