“Exploring the Benefits of Blog Use in First-Year Composition: A Pilot Study”

by Jennifer Hewerdine | Xchanges 12.2/13.1

Agency

When discussing how students use blogs, researchers talk about the physical space of the blog in terms of performance and identity (McGinnis, Goodstein-Stolzenberg, and Saliani, 2007; Lowe and Williams, 2004; Wei, 2010; Peterson, 2008; Davies and Merchant 2007). According to composition scholars Patricia Sullivan and Walter Ong, the transition to multimodal composition and the use of technology transform composition and writer agency by allowing the writer more control of the page than can be exerted on a text-based paper document (Sullivan, 2001). This capacity speaks to my definition of agency based on students’ interview responses: students’ ability to incorporate identity or identifying elements, including elements of their personality, beliefs, interests, and social practices, into their writing or writing space.

Within an hour of creating her blog for class, one of my students changed the design of the blog so that a black and white picture of her, including her multiple piercings, shaved head, and tattoos, displayed as the background on her blog. Her physical presence was layered behind the digital writing space of her blog, allowing her to project her physical identity online (see Figure 4).

Creating an original and unique design for the blog was not a requirement of the course. Despite a lack of directions and prompting, all but two of the 29 students took the extra time and effort to make the blog their own space. Students changed the colors, added pictures, included header images and/or blog subtitles, added widgets, and more. In another example, “Kylie” tiled her background with a photo of country musician Luke Bryan with the words “Keep Calm and Look At Luke Bryan.” When asked about the background, she said she added it because it reminded her of her bedroom.

In addition to the design aspects of blogging, students demonstrated comfort using blogs to go beyond assignment and class writing requirements in order to add other elements of their identity such as personality, sometimes for social reasons. One student, Seth, began each Monday by posting a “Monday Meme” to his blog as a way of expressing his displeasure that the course was his first early each Monday morning. Two of my students, “Byron” and “Ty,” wrote blog responses to one another, posted private jokes, and updated their potential blog audiences on their beard growth. Byron also wrote a story in installments, posting the entries and then arriving to class to ask if I read each story.