Working through the next essay

I just read through all the blogs for this week and found it interesting to see that the snow storm impacted everyone quite differently. It gave some people a chance to catch up on things while other people got further behind on account of the chaos created by the crazy weather.

In my world, the snow storm added a bit of stress because I had to create a back-up plan to teach online. With Thanksgiving already cutting into Thurs, I was feeling stressed that classes weren't meeting for over a week right in the middle of the drafting process. As I watched the snow blanket my neighborhood on Monday afternoon, I came to the realization that it was unlikely I would have the opportunity to set up the reading review groups or give direction on the next stage of the review process while we were all together in the same room. I had plans for giving more guidance on how to ask readers for specific feedback, but alas--the snow just kept coming, foiling my plans. Big *sigh*

Not surprisingly, less than half of the class logged on for our online class. I know that a number of people had power outages, but I am sure more people just didn't check their email and/or just decided to sleep in.  Based on the comments that people made to each other and the revised claims that were posted, it looks like people who participated in the online thesis workshop gained insight about focusing their thesis statements, using academic discourse, and writin more concisely. *Yippie!*
On a positive note, I am almost all caught up on reading and responding to blogs and assignments (before Monday rolls around!). And even better, I submitted the revision of an article I was working on about the language of mental health online. Wish me luck that the reviewers like the revisions. :)

Reflecting on presentations--from a variety of angles

I really enjoyed seeing all the presentations and hearing what everyone was finding out about their blog. Very cool! I wish we had more time to chat about each presentation like I have done in the 200 level class. When I have used this strategy in the past it has been great for presenters to see where their argument is unclear and how design choices can distract viewers. Since it is early in the draft process and many people are still struggling to focus their paper, I decided instead to use the opportunity to give directed feedback about the argument itself so that everyone could apply it to their essay. In order to give presenters a sense of how viewers experienced the presentation, everyone was required to give feedback via a web-based survey. I collected all the feedback and sent it out to presenters.

When I was reading the weekly blog entries on presentations, I noticed that many people chose to comment on that post for the week even after giving feedback on the survey. What was very interesting, was the type of feedback that people gave via the comment function. Since people are reading and commenting in research groups, there is a familiarity that is absent in the anonymous feedback. Hmmm....there is something very interesting going on here. Does the writing situation change the type of feedback? Is it the anonymity? The familiarity? Or just the context of a sterile survey vs a friendly blog?

Researching Woes

Now that I have decided to examine Amy White's blog the Nitty Gritty of Anxiety on HealthyPlace.com I have quickly learned about the difficulties of doing research about and on the internet. The blogs on HealthyPlace are currently all messed up. When I go to that page, there is a big error message and I can't read anything. One of the difficulties of research is collecting and archiving data. In this case, I will be mindful to take screen shots of webpages so that I have a record to look at, no matter what happens to the website. Ugh!

Research Method

I am following the mental health blogs on HealthyPlace.com to understand how identity is being constructed. I wasn't sure which blog I wanted to follow closely--ADDaboy!  and Nitty Gritty of Anxiety looked most interesting. HP blogs have been online since January 2010, although not all of the blogs were started at the same time.

After reading a bunch of blogs, I made a decision about which one to research further.  I decided to examine Amy White's blog the Nitty Gritty of Anxiety on HealthyPlace.com. This blog fits the scope of the assignment and allows me to remain focused on a limited number of entries because it was only active for a six month period (from Jan-June 2010). I will closely examine two posts per week (including vlogs) over the six month period, but I may narrow my scope even further and analyze a smaller portion of the archive (data set) if a smaller number of entries seem consistent with the complete archive. 

I wanted to chose a blog that would allow me an opportunity to answer the research question: How do bloggers define self-identity through digital composing. I looked at blogs to see if the writer was talking about themselves in particular ways or if they were showing their affiliations. I was most interested in blogs where people were especially self-reflective, reflecting on what they learned about themselves or making statements about who they were.  

Reading about blogs

A few quotes in the book Blogging help me to think about blogs and identity:

"When blogs tell stories, they generally do so in an episodic form, with each post being a self-contained unit that contributes to an overall narrative. Each post makes sense in itself, but read together -- not necessarily in sequence -- the posts tell a larger story. That story is usually partial and incomplete, and does not form of narrative whole will as well formed stories in mainstream literature and cinema do. Instead, the overall story as gleaned from reading a blog is likely to be pieced together from fragments, perhaps supplemented by bits of stories from other places."(Rettberg, p. 115)

"Just as we study ourselves in the mirror, shaping our features so are reflections please us, so we create a reflection of ourselves in a weblog. At the same time, we use our blogs to avail ourselves, not telling all about presenting only certain carefully selected aspects of ourselves to our readers."(Rettberg, p. 120)

Here Rettberg reminds us that even though writing is often thought of as a solitary writing practice, writing a blog is considered a social endeavor. “Blogs are a social genre. Bloggers don't simply write to their “dear diary,” they write into the world with a clear expectation of having readers. (Rettberg, 57).

Who am I as a writer?

I am a work in progress.

As a writer, I am constantly learning, and learning from failing.