Lit. review : Article 9

Literature Review

Article 9

APA Citation: Tyron, C. Writing and citizen ship: Use blogs to teach first year
composition. Pedagogy 6.1, 128-32. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier
database 26 July 2007.

I. Title:. Writing and citizen ship: Use blogs to teach first year
composition

II. Author: Charles Tyron

III. Author’s Purpose for Writing:

The article focuses on using blogs to teach first-year composition. The major uses of blogging in teaching are presented. Risks of blogging in the composition classroom are given. The result of using blogging as a teaching tool is discussed.

IV. What are the points made in the review of the literature? Do they support the need for the study? That blogging provides a useful purpose in writing classes in that students’ writing is exposed to a much wider audience.

V. Author’s Inquiry Question:
What is the most effective way to use blogs in a writing class?
VI.
A. Author’s methodology: He is a writing instructor and he is writing a narrative of how he used blogs to teach writing and rhetorical analysis.

B. Who is being studied? The authors students

C. Over what length of time? Since 2003

D. What data is being collected? His classroom experiences with his students using and responding to blogs

VII. How the author collected information: Using information gathered from his students blogs

VIII. What the author discovered: He has had much success with blogging as a tool for
making the basic concepts of rhetoric more tangible and for helping students
discover that writing for a larger audience is a valuable activity, one connected
to issues of citizenship and democracy.

This author had his students analyze blogs, only to find out that the actual bloggers were subverting his assignment by responding rather than the students.
He had his students analyze political blogs and was surprised to find Tom Daschle did not allow comments on his blog, which the students found disillusioning—a politician who wants to be heard, but does not want to listen.
The author firmly believed the greatest benefit was that students’ writing reaches a larger audience.