Blog Post #3

Smith, Cheryl C. “Technologies for Transcending a Focus on Error: Blogs and Democratic Aspirations in First-Year Composition.” Journal of Basic Writing 27.1 (2008): 35-60. Print.

In “Technologies for Transcending a Focus on Error,” Smith describes a blog project she undertook in a first-year composition class and suggests that it might be productive to explore similar projects in the basic-writing classroom. For her project, she created a class blog that she used primarily as a space for “pre-writing exercises [she] called ‘meditations,’ which would lead up to the three longer, formal essays” (41). Smith posted a variety of prompts on the class blog and encouraged her students to write longer, experimental pieces in response to the prompts and to reply to each other’s posts. She discouraged a focus on grammar, encouraging students to “try on writerly identities, try out ideas and claims, and test different styles for approaching those claims” (41). For one prompt, she also encouraged students to incorporate YouTube videos in their posts. For the most part, students responded very positively, both to the blog idea itself and to each other’s posts.

Smith’s approach rests upon several key understandings. Firstly, she adheres to the belief that “students at all levels, from basic to advanced, and with all degrees of academic experience, are likely to have had their minds and writing styles impacted by their exposure to technology. […] Basic writers are as likely as their peers to come to college with a determining Web 2.0 fluency” (36). Secondly, she sees blogs, specifically, as being democratizing through their “unique potential to free the writer’s voice that can especially empower those students who lack confidence in their language skills or are otherwise struggling. Further, by giving participants equal access to a public voice in a forum that is familiar to many young people, blogs create a safe place for risk-taking and error” (38).

Both of these understandings are worthy of examination. It is probably true that many traditional-age students have significant familiarity with Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and other social media. However, as Pavia points out in the article I blogged on previously, we should be wary of assumptions that ALL students, especially those in our basic-writing classes (because of the higher prevalence of working-class students), share a given level of comfort—let alone fluency—with Web 2.0. Additionally, as Smith notes herself, a blog might not be seen by all as a safe place. She describes an episode where students used the blog to critique a class project, and then interpreted her response to that critique as embodying the message “watch what you say” (48). Students became more timid in their posts, and Smith had to work to reestablish a more open environment on the blog.

Despite these concerns, I see Smith’s experiment as worth trying. One way I might proceed in the fall is to establish a private class blog for the developmental students in my ALP section. This could provide my basic writers with a space to experiment and pre-write, as well as develop a community where they do not feel any pressure of having their writing read by the college-level students. As I learned from past blog experiments—and as Smith recommends—one key will be good prompts. I like Smith’s idea of using the blog as a pre-writing space, but I may also incorporate prompts that address other topics to give students a chance to write on diverse topics.