Course Blog Assignment #3

Review three of your classmates’ blogs (accessible via the "English 301 Student Blogs" column on the right-hand side of this page). What have you learned from your peers’ work about strategies for blogging and/or strategies for writing about a public issue? Post your 200-word response using the "Comment" function below.

"Is my professor, like, behind the times?"

An interesting article from New York Times examines how many younger writers are moving away from blogs and toward sites such as Twitter and Facebook to attract a larger, more actively engaged audience for their work. Among the article's highlights are statistical data to describe this trend and major reasons motivating writers' moves toward these sites:

• The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.
• Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family.

Course Blog Assignment #2

Review three of your classmates’ blogs (accessible via the "English 301 Student Blogs" column on the right-hand side of this page). What have you learned from your peers’ work about strategies for blogging and/or strategies for writing about a public issue? Post your 200-word response using the "Comment" function below.