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Hello all. The goal of this challenge is to experiment with the class blog and turn it into something new and different that will hopefully help us better understand the strange creature that is a blog. I don’t, by any means, claim to be an expert on blogging. I merely believe in it whole-heartedly. So, I took the time to create this little challenge in the hope of sharing and spreading this passion with others. I hope that you enjoy it, find it interesting, and are inspired by it.

You really only need to look at the three challenges themselves. My thoughts are below to help clarify, inspire, explain, and link ideas from class. Sorry about this--I can't help writing so much!

(1) Make a normal-length post about a topic that interests you.

The key here is that your post does not have to be about anything in class—although it can be. Write about fashion, science, a current event, morality, politics, sex, life, anything that you would want to write about if you had your own blog. Write the post to a worldwide audience. Make sure that you choose something that you really would like to write about; passion shows through your writing and if its not there, we will probably be able to tell. If you are having trouble, spend more time thinking about something to write about. Take your time.

Why post? An author’s posts are the backbone of the blog. Because this challenge is a first-hand exploration of the structure and short term evolution of a blog from the perspective of both the “poster” and the “replier,” it is important for the people who have never done one or the other (or either) to experience them both.

(2) Post at least one reply to at least three different posts made by other people—leaving you with at least three separate replies, each on a different post. Click ‘reply’ below the person’s post so we know which post you are referring to.

Read the post well before you reply. Your replies need not be very long; one sentence can be a beautiful addition to a collection of opinions. That one sentence can also spark a whole new range of other opinions! Yet, you should also think of your comment as a continuation of the post itself (or of someone else’s comment). Try adding information on the topic, a helpful resource, or an underrepresented opinion.

Why reply? We talked about the importance of feedback as part of the blogging genre. Although not all blogs include an external comment option, comments can be very important to the general feel of many popular blogs. My intention for this part of the challenge is to help the people in the class who are not familiar with blogging experience a different type of writing than what has previously been explored in the class. Reading and developing a coherent thought on someone else’s work is something we have all experienced, but the fun with the blogging/commenting structure is that it is a much less formal atmosphere that has no set path or destination; you never know where the comments will take the discussion!

(3) Keep an eye out on the blog over the next few weeks. Make a mental note on how the blog evolves and grows.

Can you infer anything about the blogger from reading their post? What can you learn about the blogger when looking at where their replies lay or what their replies contain? Where is the final destination for each posting? Unlike a book or a work of theatre or a newspaper article, there is no end to the story; it will continue as long as there are people out there with something else to say on the topic. How has working on this challenge changed your perception of how the genre of a blog is characterized? How does this week’s blogging experience compare to the structure of the past 11 weeks?

Why watch? It is really interesting to cruise through a wide variety of posts and replies. Our Emerging Genres class often talks about the overall path that genres follow. I think that this will be an important step in tying the blogging experience in with the previous explorations relating the reader to the writer.

I know that this will not be new for all of you, but I also know that it will be for others. Have fun with it. If you are a novice, find a way to surprise yourself! If you are well-versed in the blogging world, prove it by finding a way to surprise everyone else! But most of all, enjoy yourself.  Hell, you could even post about how much you hate the assignment (hopefully I took the originality out of that option by beating you to it, haha!)

Explore!

Christina Harview