welcome!

this is the virtual writing space I set up for the workshops - to give you the opportunity to participate in a blog and think about whether it might work as a writing space for your classes. But also to give you all the space for a shared conversation that might continue on after our workshops are over. we did so much good work on friday - there is so much good teaching going on at lakeland and so many great ideas to be shared with each other. as people have already suggested on the blackboard discussion forum, just being together and talking carefully about writing instruction can be energizing, engaging, and stimulating.

this may be the first time you've written online. all the better. writing teachers should have experience in how people are writing now and in the spaces writers frequent. this blog is open - so when you write, you're writing for yourself, for your class colleagues, and for people "out there" who might be reading over your shoulder virtually.

we'll use this space to keeo talking outside the three workshops - post a query in between the workshops on how to do something you saw or heard mentioned in the workshop, share a reflection on something that worked well (or not so well), talk with one another about the value in what you're doing.

i'm hoping that as you immerse yourself in each other's thoughts & words, you'll find this an exciting & stimulating aspect of the course. consistently, across course levels, i have found that reading student responses (in a variety of forms - in notebooks, on computer printouts, in listservs, on electronic bulletin boards, in blogs) have been my favorite part of teaching. i learn so much from the collective intelligence of the courses i've been fortunate to be part of. your participation here might take two forms: original posts (that is, posts which begin a new line of discussion) and posts which respond to one another.

feel free to check out other class blogs i've used - and surf around in blogger for other examples. i’d like to keep a blog as a central location for online class writing, so students don’t have to keep track of a bunch of different locations. i'm also not a real fan of Blackboard's discussion groups - i think they're more clunky than blogger and not as nicely designed. but you decide for your class purposes. (you can start your own blog for free by going to blogspot.com, and your individual blog can be linked to this class blog. the directions are pretty straightforward.)

looking forward to talking [in writing] with you!

pam

let’s write!

pam