BLOG COMMUNITY ANALYSIS
How can using blogs in an online distance writing course
foster community? While some
common definitions of community indicate simply a group of inhabitants in a
place, when writing teachers talk about community, they typically mean something
more than just a collection of individuals related by geography or other form
of spatial proximity. To most
writing teachers, and to myself, community is something more: to foster
community is to create a relationship or feeling of connectedness with others,
which can happen when people come together for a common goal, purpose, or
shared culture, etc. Without some
kind of authentic relationship or connectedness, a community in the classroom
is just a nice word with little meaning.
And why does it matter if we
create community? A sense of
community is important because it helps students learn and create meaning, and
it can help enhance student engagement in online distance courses. Many writing teachers and educators in
other disciplines view the acquisition of meaning and student learning through
a social constructivist lens and see writing an inherently social act (Cook 56;
Garrison and Vaughn 14;
Breuch 142-143). Students create
meaning for themselves through social relations with others. This view of learning leads educators
to value the idea of community in the classroom because without a sense of
community, students will have a harder time working together to create meaning
and achieve learning goals. And in
online distance education especially, a sense of isolation can harm student
engagement and learning, but this can be mitigated by creating a sense of
community among students (Stine 138). Garrison and Vaughn also stress the importance of
creating a “community of inquiry” for effective online and blended learning
education.
In our English 895: Teaching Writing from a Distance course, we used blogs to post reviews of articles,
and our professor encouraged us to read and comment on each other’s posts. As a result of this experience, I
believe blogs can foster community in a distance writing class if students are
appropriately encouraged to read and comment on each other’s posts—or if the
group of students is otherwise intrinsically motivated to do so on their own.
The number and positive nature of comments on the blogs
demonstrate that they successfully fostered a sense of community amongst the
students. Part of this community
was formed through direct engagement with the scholarship itself, and part of
the community stemmed from the creation of encouraging personal relationships
and interaction as students worked toward the common goal of succeeding in the
course and this assignment. While most blog posts had between zero and two
comments each, every student received several responses to their blog, and most
students commented on every other students’ blog at least one or more times
throughout the course. The types
of comments included those that substantively engaged with the scholarship
reviewed, those that somewhat engaged with scholarship but primarily offered
positive encouragement, and those in which students thanked others for their
responses.
All comments and responses were positive and supportive, and appeared
to reflect a sense of connectedness and common purpose. According to a study by Deng, Liping
and Yuen on the educational affordances of blogs, even when students received
relatively few comments “the act of reading not only increased the sense of
togetherness, but also enhanced the cognitive presence” (Deng, Liping and Yuen
448). In our class, most students
posted textual comments, but a couple of students chose to record and post audio
comments, which may enhance personalization and thus foster an even greater
feeling of community. A post by
Catrina garnered one of the highest numbers of total responses—nine—and
included mostly comments and responses regarding technical issues. Cheri’s comment from this series
suggests how to resolve the issue and reflects the positive and supportive
nature of most responses: “Blogger told me that Megan had posted on mine too,
but it didn't show up. I figured out that Blogger just marked her as spam and
didn't post her. Once I went in and gave it the OK she appeared! :)” Even though this and some other
comments didn’t engage substantively with the scholarship of posted research,
its encouraging and positive tone contributed to the general sense of community
as a relationship amongst the students as they strive toward a common
purpose.
In our class the blogs helped foster a community of scholars
partly because, even though the professor didn’t require us to post, as PhD
students and scholars, we are naturally motivated to participate and learn from
each other. Everyone enrolled in
this course had freely chosen to take it, all students currently teach writing,
most of the students either had already taught writing online or were intending
to do so, and all students were enrolled in a graduate program, most of them
PhD students. In such a group of
like-minded students and teachers to whom this course was very directly useful
and who had already chosen to embark on a graduate degree in the field, it
didn’t take much for us to see the usefulness of the course material, relevance
of scholarship in the subject, and benefits of establishing a community of
colleagues. Because of our high
level of interest, shared goals, and academic culture we were already
intrinsically motivated to create our own community and participate fully in
the course without needing any hand-holding by the professor or strict
requirements for commenting.
In addition to our own motivation to participate, this
required assignment to write an analysis of the blog community, along with our
pedagogy project and conference paper assignments, gave us extra motivation to
read and comment on the blogs. We
all realized that in order to write about the blog community, we should
contribute to it by posting responses to each other. Most of us made an effort to comment on most or all of our
classmates’ blogs at least once, but a significant percent of the total posts
occurred in the week before the blog community analysis was due. So even though most of us didn’t keep
up with the blogs very well during the early part of the semester, we tried to
make up for it near the end.
The upcoming conference paper and pedagogy project also gave
us extra motivation to read and comment on the blogs because many of our
classmates research topics were similar to or overlapped with our own research
plans, so the blogs were a way for us to share ideas and sources with each
other, which may be the number one way that they helped foster
community—through shared scholarship.
Similarly, Scott Warnock also mentioned requiring students to use
material from message board posts in other assignments to further encourage
student participation (88-89).
Even without an explicit requirement, because it is mutually beneficial
for us to share research with each other, we probably would have read each
other’s blogs even without the community analysis assignment, though we may not
have commented as much.
However, even though we did
comment and participate in creating a blog community, we may have been more
motivated to do so more prolifically if there had been a greater requirement
for participation. When discussing
message board use in distance writing classes, Warnock argues that posts must
be required and graded in order to encourage student participation (78-83).
While I don’t think commenting requirements were necessary for our graduate
students, it depends on what type of community the professor wanted to create—a
community of scholarship in which students make substantive comments to engage
with the ideas in the articles posted, or just a community of learners in
relationship with each other? Had
he specified the types of comments required, he could have directed the quality
of comments and community formation more.
Nandi, Hamilton, and Harland’s work with discussion forums, which could
be applied to blogs as well, argues that the quality of online learning is
dependent on the quality of student interactions in forums. With more robust and specific
requirements, the quality and extent of our interactions may have been
different. As it was, some
students engaged with the ideas and scholarship more directly and others gave
more supportive and encouraging, but less scholarly comments.
While PhD students have more natural motivation to
participate in actively fostering community amongst ourselves through blogs,
undergraduate distance learning writing students would likely need a little
more encouragement and direction to do so effectively. This could either be in the form of
required commenting or assignments that use material from the blogs like those
in this course. Required
commenting need not be as rigid as a certain number of comments per week. Requiring some initial comments could
help push students to build some early connections that they may then build
upon later on their own. Or, as
Warnock mentions, requiring that students incorporate material from others’
posts into their own work would encourage reading other posts and likely
commenting too without actually requiring a certain number of comments (Warnock
88-89). And not only does grading
posts—either formally or informally for completion—encourage students to
participate, but it gives them credit for doing so (Warnock 78-83). In addition to requiring participation,
writing teachers should consider developing what Pratt called the “arts of the
contact zone” and establish “ground rules for communication” that “maintain
mutual respect” to promote healthy and successful student interactions that
avoid “rhetorical violence” that sometimes arises in the online setting (qtd.
in Amy 114).
Some may argue that forcing students to comment on each
others’ blogs does not foster genuine community, and it is true that some
students in any course will likely comment even without requirements. But in the absence of some form of
encouragement, especially in a required first-year writing course, only a few
motivated students would participate and form their own community. There are always a number of eager,
motivated students who will participate freely, and some research suggests that
students get gratification out of the creation of a community dynamic online,
so perhaps this satisfaction alone would drive some to participate without
requirements (Cody 271). However,
many first-year composition students are not interested in writing and are
taking the course to fulfill a requirement only. Even though educators like to focus on the value of learning
rather than grades, most of our students still focus on grades. Thus, requiring posts through some form
of grading may be the only way to get many distance writing students to
participate.
Requiring comments by itself cannot create community, but
through the required comments, students end up reading each other’s work, and
what starts as simply an instructor-forced obligation for a grade becomes at
least somewhat authentic when students share thoughts and ideas. If the great majority of commenting
remains at the bare minimum level to get points, then it seems that the community
creation has largely failed, which can happen with forced comments. But required commenting can also lead
to genuine responses and expressions of encouragement. Being required to comment, many
students will go beyond the bare minimum and rise to the occasion to make the
best of the requirement. And
perhaps if only a handful of students commented on the posts of others, they
could spur most of the students to comment as well because, as shown in our
class, when a student comments on another’s post, that student then feels an
obligation to respond. In this
way, a handful of motivated students could create a domino effect of commenting
that could lead to a form of community.
But even in this best-case scenario, most of the students would probably
only comment minimally.
For our class, other online technologies also helped
contribute to a sense of community among the students, some of which could be
applied to undergraduate distance writing courses as well. The
synchronous chats during class seemed to enhance our shared sense of
connectedness through both on and off-task comments. We also have a Facebook group that includes most of the
class members. Through all of
these online venues, we are typically very encouraging, friendly, and
jocular. The face-to-face
interaction of some classmates outside of class at conferences also seemed to
further strengthen the bond and familiarity between some students. Similarly, in a distance writing class,
additional media and technologies could be used to build on the community
created through blogs to help foster connectedness and thus promote student
learning.
WORKS CITED
Amy, Lori.
“Rhetorical Violence and the Problematics of Power: A Notion of
Community for the Digital Age Classroom.” Role Play: Distance
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the Writing Classroom.” Online Education: Global Questions, Local
Answers.
Ed. by Kelli Cargile Cook and Keith Grant-Davie. Amityville, NY: Baywood
Publishing Inc., 2005.
141-156. Print.
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the Shadow of the Syllabus.” Teaching English in the Two Year College 30.3
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Garrison, D. Randy and
Norman D. Vaughan. Blended Learning in Higher
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Warnock, Scott. Teaching Writing Online: How and Why.
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Print.
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