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The first student post is up on the course blog in Writing for the Social Sciences at CWE. It has taken a bit of negotiating, pushing, help logging in, and we’ve survived two potential difficulties.

The first was due to my own inexperience with blogs. We spent half of one class session together in the computer lab, because CWE’s wireless signal does not quite make it to my classroom in the far corner. Fortunately the CWE tech person there is very accommodating (and a Baruch graduate!) and let us take over the room. In our jammed in session there, I showed students how to navigate the ‘administer’ side of the blog. As we went through that process, I found that a student in the class had used the same login that I had, and in trying to change hers, I deleted mine. Thus I was locked out of the blog for a day or so. Fortuitously, all students had administrative access, so someone then invited me to join as a member. Good grief!

The second issue required more dialogue between myself and the class, and a short period of informal writing to boot. After looking at the sign-up sheet, I discovered that of the ‘blogger’ openings, all but one were taken by male students. Further, all the ‘commenter’ spots were filled by females students. This was especially bothersome because the ratio of male-female students in the class is the exact inverse of those blogging spaces. Our first reading for the semester had been Adrienne Rich’s “Awakening the Dead: Writing as ReVision, in which she talks about her own struggle to awaken as a writer, amidst the patriarchal culture of male writers and writing. When I brought my concerns with the schedule to the students’ attention, most were hesitant to connect the problem to gender. Some said they just felt more comfortable commenting rather than blogging. Others pointed to scheduling issues, or that someone had already taken the topic they wanted. Really, only two students (one female and one male) were willing to say that they thought gender played a role in how the schedule had ‘ended up.’ First we discussed, then they wrote, then I asked them what they thought Adrienne Rich would have to say, and then I sent around a new schedule that was more clearly organized with more informative topical explanations. The result was a schedule with which I was much happier. And, I’m happy to report…

The first blog by a student was posted this week! It’s exciting to see her reflection on Renato Rosaldo’s “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage” and his use of the term ritual, to see a student voice on a public site. I’m thrilled to have students entering the blogosphere.