Blogging Matters

Essentially relevant to our class, I recently read Diane Penrod's Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy. While her book's contents focus on blogging protocol, her answers to the essential question why blog? interest me most, having never considered blogging itself as an approach to enhancing literacy. The idea is far from novel. We spend so much time at the computer, online, steadfast to fluid technology. Is it not costly that professors continue to question the practical blog in lieu of embrassing the favored technology? The blog's expansion seems inevitable to me; the blog has its rightfully-earned place in today's writing classroom. Penrod notes that the ability to write in online environments is part of being literate in the 21st century, a fact that resonates with college freshmen but may seem superficial to professors. She appreciates blogging for its teachability and importance in "mastering language use, writing, critical thinking and multimedia use," adding that "blogging requires students to be active learners."


I certainly would be interested in adding blogging to the Basic Writing course syllabus. The idea opens up a fresh take on the Basic Writing curriculum and I have little doubt that students would be adverse to it.









Penrod, Diane. "Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy." Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.