A blog of one's own?

As you read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and begin to consider her argument that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction" (4), take a look at this blog post, "Blogs as Literary Devices," in which Paula Maggio links the freedom and empowerment of the blogosphere to Woolf's "room." Would you agree? Do you think blogs are an extension of Woolf's vision or something different?

For some historical context, check out this brief article, "Sisters of Suffrage: British and American Women Fight for the Vote," by Barbara Winslow from the online journal History Now. It sheds light on the moment in Woolf's text in which the narrator contemplates which is more important--the vote or the money--to women's intellectual independence (37). What were your responses at this point in the reading?

To blog or not to blog...or "What is a blog & why should I care?"

A blog (short for web-log) has many functions...and faces. We'll be discussing its definition in class on Tuesday, but there are two main benefits of using blogs -- particularly in classroom settings:
1. They are user friendly (no need to know programming languages).
2. Blogs encourage and support user interaction through the commenting feature--something you'll be using a lot in this class.

For class on Tuesday, I'd like you to do a little blog surfing on the internet. Using the links below, you'll notice blogs come in a variety of forms. There are personal blogs, professional blogs, community blogs, political blogs and educational blogs that range from musings on fashion to travels abroad to who should be the next president. Come to class ready to discuss features you feel are essential to what makes a blog different from a regular webpage, a chat room, a discussion board, Blackboard or even something like MySpace or Facebook.

To begin, you might want to check out the definition offered by Wikipedia (we'll be talking more about wikis later in the term). Also useful is an article, "What We're Doing When We Blog," written by blogger co-creator, Meg Hourihan. If you'd like to check out some sample blogs, try looking through the blogs listed on BloggerBuzz (see "blogs of note" on the right hand side) or on a site called technorati that keeps a list of the top 100 blogs. Also check out Google's blog search to find more that interest you.


Enjoy!