The blog postings were definetly a suitable enhancement to the course. One thing that could make the process easier and better for students especially in regard to commenting on someone elses blog would be to allow for threads. Like being able to click on someone else's posting to make a direct comment on it. As it stands now someone could make a comment on your posting and unless you read every single posting you may not realize making the dialogue between students more difficult. I feel that if you let people create additional threads from their own comments you would be able to get a larger and more intimate dialogue about the text between students.

Definitely. Reply threads would be very helpful. The whole blog thing is cool, it lets people say what they're thinking about without actually having to say it in front of people.

I just stumbled on this blog posting while I was going to scan through my past ones to help in recapping for the final paper. So, of course, the blogs are helpful!

I'm always a bit wary of anything having to do with technology because it kind of scares me (i'm not very good with computers and such) but i found the blog postings to be really helpful and an interesting way to see others' points of view on things. It allows for everyone to put in their two cents on the books we read. I'm definitely a fan.

I agree with all of the above, while it is a bit difficult to navigate and respond to a specific post, it is very helpful to be able to go back and read others' ideas about aspects of each book. It's sort of a record of class discussion, but even more detailed and obviously more permanent. Sometimes when it's difficult to verbalize something in class, or if I miss something someone said in class, the blog postings have been an excellent tool. Reading through the blog postings also helps to sort of amalgamate various peoples' ideas into a theme or pick out themes that I may not have seen myself. I'm not sure on your feelings on this, but maybe encourage more discussion about books between students instead of only replying to a prompt. I guess I mean things like, "Hey, did anyone catch Madeleine's last name, or is it unknown?". Just quick stuff that comes in handy in a paper that is not central to the theme nor enable people to just read postings and not go to class.

I wrote more on this blog than I did for some of my classes. This one included, I'm afraid.

There's a weird dichotomy goin' on for me here. I work for The Wiire, one of the leading news sites out there for the Nintendo Wii. We're in the minority as far as Web-based publications go, because The Wiire has high, traditional journalistic standards: standard AP style; traditional "Who/What/Where/When/Why/How" style, no frills, limited personality... dry, pedantic, professional news.

We're the fifth-ranked Nintendo site out there. Nintendo's official site, www.wii.com, is #1. Numbers 2-4 are all blogs. What that means is that they can post "news" the instant that it happens, with little regard for fact checking or accuracy, presentation or professionalism. Often their updates will be written with poor grammar, heavy in slang, and feature sometimes HUGE factual errors... but no one holds them accountable for it, because their blogs... and as I've come to discover, sometimes timeliness is more important than accuracy.

In any case, the generally shoddy reporting done by these blogs have really turned me off to them. That in combination with a misconception on my part that "blogs" encompassed things like LiveJournal and MySpace, which... as nicely as I can say this, tend to be nothing but whiny.

But, I've really taken a shining to this blog. I tend to find that I express myself better in print. I can come here, type out responses, and read them over before posting them, instead of being held accountable for the things I've said in class. The things that come out on the blog, for me, tend to fare better than what I say in class, specifically because I've had more time to think them out, and because responses can be produced on my time, instead of at 11 o'clock every Tuesday or Thursday, no matter what the night was like before, or whether or not I've had my coffee.

In that respect, I wish all classes would start to incorporate blogs. They give me an opportunity to show my best work.

"Well, every English class has you write papers. They let you produce things on your own time, and in print." Yeah, but that lack of standards I was talking about in relation to the "news" blogs out there? It works to my benefit here. Whomever reads this post isn't going to be doing so with an English teacher's eye. There is a level of formality expectedd in papers which I don't think applies here, which just leaves me free to write. I like that.

I agree with Joe that a forum for discussing purely plot-level things about the books would be very helpful. When we've got to plow through so many books in such a short time, sometimes it gets hard to tell Alias Grace from Alligator.

I’m not too sure how the concept of a free-write is viewed from the eyes of a teacher but from my perspective it is a good tool to generate thoughts about the text. Often times when I’m reading a book my attention is on the main points and the speed with which I read the novel. The free-write allows for a non-structured discussion with yourself and the text. It provides an opportunity to develop positions regarding various aspects of the novel. With that said, it would be nice to hear some of the thoughts that are conjured up during the seven minutes of heaven that is allotted for this exercise but I’m not convinced that a discussion in class works the best. I wonder if a blog aspect to the free-write would allow for productive interaction outside of class.
There may be an opportunity to incorporate this aspect of the course into the blog portion. This class is my first that actively uses blogging so maybe a less structured blog format would bring more of a discussion to it. Allowing for freedom regarding topics might also shed light on different aspects of the book that others might not have noticed. Then again, maybe a lack of structure would foster laziness among us undergrads.

I just stumbled on this blog posting while I was going to scan through my past ones to help in recapping for the final paper. So, of course, the blogs are helpful!

Blogs are most definitely the wave of the future and of creating great content and storylines.

As can be said. Canadian Literature - is that not a contradiction in terms. I guess there is M. Richler and the Apprenticeship of D. Kravtiz