I created Je Blogue to accompany my workshop Beyond the Writer’s Notebook: How to Start and Write a Blog, which I created as a class for WICE in Paris, France. I am also giving a brief talk on the topic at the 2007 Paris Writer’s Workshop, sponsored by WICE.
Because students must navigate this blog to get to the technical instructions they need to create their own blogs, they are immediately immersed in the medium. They can then familiarize themselves with the mechanics of blogs on their own time, at their own pace, and to the degree that suits them. This approach allows us to spend our class time focusing on the particular challenges of blogging, the uniqueness of this writing context, and strategies for creating blog content.
I include this online component in the workshop because I have taken online classes in web design and graphic design and I really enjoy the autonomy and flexibility of being an online student. I also co-taught an online class in narrative writing for the English and Media Arts departments at a community college in California. In that class, students read Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Dante’s Inferno. They used these works as guidelines for creating believable, multidimensional characters, vivid narratives, and rich plots for video games.
The reason I proposed this class to WICE is that I’m passionate about blogging. It’s rewarding and stimulating in so many ways. As a writer, I’ve found it a very useful tool for mental exercise and more. Since I became a blogger, I’ve been communicating with people all over the world who share my interests and opinions (as well as some who disagree with them!). I’ve never felt so strongly that the world is my neighborhood. These days, I believe that any activity that fosters such an attitude is very valuable indeed.
