Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Conference Revision


Proposal Revision (Thanks, Ashley!) , CEAO Spring Conference, 2011

Amanda Hayes

Place-based Blogging as a Pedagogical Tool

In 2005, Tim Lindgren's article “Blogging Places: Locating Pedagogy in the Whereness of Weblogs” explored the nature of blogs as a means of writing ourselves into specific environments, and of encouraging, even inspiring, others to do the same. Lindgren perceived in such a practice the potential for greater environmental health and well-being available to humans with a cultivated affinity for the places they spend their lives. In this perception, Lindgren joins theorists such as Derek Owens, Sidney Dobrin and Christian Weisser, all of whom have written about the place-based nature of writing and teaching. However, Lindgren's sees the blogging genre's adaptability and wide range of potential audiences making it uniquely fitting as a form of writing adaptable to multiple physical and communicative ecologies.

However, while he explores the genre traits, pedagogical potential, and rhetorical agencies of place-based blogging, the focus of Lindgren's article never quite makes it into the classroom. And if he, along with other theorists, is correct in fearing that we as humans are forgetting how to connect beneficially with our physical and rhetorical communities, the classroom seems like an important place to cultivate these skills.

My proposal is to explore place-based blogging's function in a first-year composition environment, utilizing my experience with such a project to investigate Lindgren's theorized potential for place-blogging as a pedagogical tool. My students' blogs were intended to achieve a greater understanding for themselves and their readers, of the nature and value of place-based knowledge, community participation, and thoughtful living in a unique environment. My presentation will outline this project, exploring the ways in which place-blogging functioned, or failed to function, as a means of rhetorically and physically connecting first-year students with the campus environment, as well as providing a means of place, self, and cultural exploration.

1 comment:

  1. Your intro is great. Might to shorten a bit to accommodate the following.

    Suggestions: articulate the criteria for succeeding in this. How will you know either way? How is this desired connection with place made and then evident in/through blogging?

    I think the audience will want to hear more about your place blogging assignment and how you are improving it, plus your own place blogging.

    Ultimately you need to bring in other scholarship on using blogs in composition courses. Not sure you need that here in the prop, unless some can suggest ways of improving your assignment.

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