I’ve been tasked with writing an opening post for the Composition Program’s new blog.  I’m not quite sure where to begin, though; and, unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of useful advice that I can find on writing first blog entries.  There are a plethora of very basic suggestions (from the four-point plan to the ten-point plan, and so on).  They tend to advocate stating such things as “who you are,” “why you are blogging,” and “what you will be blogging about.”  And that seems like sensible advice:

My name is Matt Weiss, and I am a third-year PhD student in English, focusing on Rhetoric and Composition (and specifically the History of Rhetoric and Technology).  I have taught English 15, 202D and (for the first time this semester) 202C.  I am also one of this year's Composition Assistants.  I am blogging because…

…but already we’ve hit a snag.  Because this isn’t my blog.  This space is meant to be communal, a Burkean Parlor, open to any teacher of composition who wants to contribute to our ongoing discussions of composition pedagogy and theory.  I don’t know what will motivate you to contribute to this blog, and I certainly don’t know what you will choose to blog about.

I do have some suggestions about how to blog, though:

Remember that the blog is public.  Please don’t say anything here that you wouldn’t say in front of your grandmother, the department head, or a former student.  On the flip side, though:

Blog style is generally informal.  As Susan Miller and Dawn Shepherd write in their article Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog: “What many bloggers find most compelling about blogs is the ability to combine the immediately real and the genuinely personal, a combination that represents a refreshing contrast with the “bland commercial” point of view of so much internet content.”  If the blog genre is most effective when it is personal, and immediate, then so be it: tell us about yourself, your experiences, and the things you find most interesting about the teaching and theory of composition and rhetoric.

Links are your friends! Among the audience of this blog there will be a wide variety of experience and familiarity with the world of Rhetoric and Composition.  One of the best ways to sustain a deep conversation on questions of composition theory and pedagogy is to link possible key terms to outside resources that they might find useful.

This is a collaborative space.  Try to make your posts accessible to the wide audience I just mentioned, but also keep in mind some of the specific desires this type of audience might have.  We would love to hear the nitty-gritty details of a lesson that went very well (or one that didn't), we will always be willing to offer encouragement and advice, and we want to work together to solve problems. 

Because this is a Collaborative Blog, with all of the attendant benefits and draw-backs, we might need to work out a more nuanced set of ground rules for posting later on.  For now, though, we will be trusting to the wisdom and good-nature of our community.  I look forward to reading other people's posts!

-Matt