Tonight in Blogging: January 23

Tonight we'll review your first week of blogging. We'll discuss any challenges you faced and any joys you enjoyed. We discuss the effectiveness of your blogging partnerships, as well as your development of a far-reaching blog community.

We'll take a few minutes at the beginning of class to individually visit all the class blogs, just a quick dip in and out. We'll each leave a quick comment on one attention-getting post from each blog.

Then together we'll take a quick look at all of your blogs. I'll bring you up in pairs (with your blogging partner) and you can share with the class the experience you had this week.

I'll give a lecture on some blog basics (development of voice, structure, editing) and we'll do some in-class writing exercises that will give you a headstart on this week's posts.

Our presentations will begin next week, too. Here's the schedule:

January 30:  Michelle Boring, Bookshelf Porn
February 6:  Amanda Morrison, Awesome People Hanging Out Together
February 13:  Caitlin Wilson, Geekologie
February 20: Colin Gabauer, Threat Level
February 27: Taylor Kohr:  Her Bad Mother
March 20: Whitly Gardner, Awkward Family Photos
March 27: Kyle Holland, The Beat; and Kramer Frye, All Songs Considered
April 3: Alexandria Pliskaner, Wandering Earl; and Kelsey Pierchoski, The Man Repeller

The presentations should be 10-15 minutes and should include the following information:

*   Background/History of the Blog
*   Information about the writer/writers
*   Demographic/Audience for the Blog
*   Blog Content (Subject Matter, Voice, Tone, Purpose, Consistency, Etc.)
*   Blog Design
*   Blog Communities (where this blog fits into the landscape)
*   Your overall informed opinion of the blog -- what you can learn from studying it


If you are not on the presentation schedule, please see me immediately.

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Assignments for next week:

Continue developing your blog. Update regularly all week (5 days/5 posts). Continue to experiment with design elements. Add two new blogs to your blog roll. And respond to your partner's/partners' blog all week long.

Blogging partners for this week will be :

Michelle and Kramer
Whitly and Su-Jahn and Colin
Kyle and Taylor
Amanda and Alexandria
Kelsey and Caitlin

I'll be visiting Michelle's and Whitly's blogs this week.