Why a WAC blog?

Well, there are several answers to this question. Perhaps most obvious is that a blog is all about communicating through writing, which seems like a reasonable enterprise for a WAC Program to promote.

Blogs also provide a different kind of space for discussions. Given the frantic rush of our personal and professional lives, due in no small part to the technology that fuels some discernible portion of that frenzy, it is worthwhile to grant ourselves through benefit of this technology some time to read and reflect on topics connected to our work.

Pertinent articles appear before me regularly and many I'd like to share with colleagues. A blog seems a perfect professional development tool in that regard:
• I can link to articles and studies you might not get a chance to see otherwise and you can read them at your leisure.
• I can provide brief commentary on relevant issues and let you know how some of the experts are weighing in on a particular topic, like plagiarism or the impact of social media on writing.
• You can respond to posts if you like and discussions can ensue.
• Posts and comments are archived so you can always get back to them whenever is convenient or desirable.

In short, there is considerable convenience provided by a blog and we'd like to take full advantage of it---a blog seems like the next natural step for our WAC program. For the record and in keeping with our year’s scholarship theme, I've been researching the phenomenon of blogging for the past year and found it to be far more prevalent than I would ever have guessed.

Blogs have also found their way into pedagogy. Many top-notch journalism schools, including the University of Missouri, now offer major coursework in blogging and other emerging media. Through the generosity of a Journalism professor at the University of Kansas, a nationally known journalist on environmental issues, I was able to observe her online service-learning courses over the past year which trained students to blog effectively about environmental concerns in Lawrence.

Previously, I'd clung to an early stereotyped image of blogging that is woefully inaccurate: nerdy politicos in a darkened room lit by the glow of a monitor and huddled over a keyboard pounding out manifestos that only a handful of like-minded folks would read. While that could well account for some blogs, or perhaps earlier iterations of blogging, it's probably now an infinitesimally small number of the estimated 23 million bloggers because I haven't bumped into many that would fit that mold.

The New York Times (3-12-10) reports that a 2009 study by Blogher and its research partners puts the number of people blogging (those who read, write, or comment on blogs weekly) at 23 million---and that’s just women! Blogs have proliferated wildly, widely, exponentially and at the speed of light. They are written on every imaginable topic, reflect every possible world view, and are open to the entire world to read. They can be remarkably thoughtful windows into the mind of someone who has something powerful and insightful to share about life, the universe, and everything.

Then again, they can be gratuitously self-indulgent and vacuous even as they offer up striking or artistic photographs. They can be hilarious or dead-serious, affirming or provocative, somber or sweet. I’ve seen some blogs use questionable ploys to grab an audience and commercial sponsorship. Interestingly, it's not uncommon for smaller-scale blogs to host contests and giveaways or special events, which surprised me a bit but speaks strikingly to the interactive nature of this beast.

There are many genres of blogs and subgenres of blogs. Food blogs, gardening blogs, health blogs, fashion blogs, spiritual blogs, and pet blogs. You name it, it’s out there. However, I never found the kind of WAC blog I was looking for and soon realized that, well, we are just the right college to host it.

I have also learned how much blogs are about establishing and building community. Bottom line: people want to connect with each other in more complex ways than other technologies afford.

The writer/teacher in me is genuinely amazed and heartened by the fact that so many people write completely voluntarily and regularly outside of school: this could be the writing utopia we’ve been wishing for! OK, maybe I am the only one who has actually gone so far as to wish for it…

The rhetorician in me says this entire subject warrants far more investigation than has been done to date, like articles and dissertations probing the genres and subcultures of blogs. Or some exploration of the metaphoric constructs evidenced in discussions about blogging: blog as house or home, blogosphere as neighborhood, blog as a physical/geographic place in cyberspace, the implications of blog titles, and narrative structures in blogs or the lack thereof.

Should you look, you would also notice that blogs are increasingly about the integration of photos and visual imagery, but we'll save the topic of visual rhetoric and our evolving expectations regarding it for another post.

You will be alerted via email to a new post every Wednesday. You can check it out or disregard it. The blog is permanently housed on the WAC website (also see link at the bottom of the screen) so you can easily find previous posts there.

To get things rolling, we'd welcome comments about your own experiences with blogging.
Do you write a blog? Do you typically read any blogs? Did you have any idea that so many people now do?
Have you used blogs in any of your courses? If so, to what effect? How has it worked?

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Welcome to The Lake Effect!

MCC-Longview’s Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program is about to enter its 25th year. What better way to celebrate than to provide a space for sharing ideas about writing and learning as well as a forum for instructors to identify their own successes and struggles in using writing as a learning tool.

Some history to note: this program began in the mid-1980s as a broad-based WAC approach involving faculty from general education and occupational curriculums at the college. Early efforts focused on infusing writing into courses that had not traditionally relied on writing, like Math and Music, and emphasized incorporating strategies based on writing theory and best practice, like having students produce drafts of projects and encouraging them to revise.

Eventually, large-scale General Education writing assessment efforts in the mid to late 1990s led by WAC faculty, which by now included instructors from all divisions and most disciplines, including Math and Music, culminated in the adoption of a Writing Intensive course requirement as a way to formally extend students’ opportunities to develop as writers during their time at the college.

In 2001, MCC-Longview was honored as a "College of the Year," along with Clemson, Cornell, and Sarah Lawrence College, based on its WAC Program.

Today, the WAC Program at MCC-Longview continues to enjoy broad faculty interest and participation as well as strong administrative support, and, fortunately, our students find themselves writing at every turn during their time here.

The campus of MCC-Longview sits next to Longview Lake and our sports teams are known as the Lakers. Given the strong culture of writing that has prevailed here for so long, it seemed fitting to honor the entire academic community at MCC-Longview for its deliberate and sustained efforts to value writing as a critical tool for learning by calling this WAC blog The Lake Effect.