June 3 throwdown re: writing blogs

On June 3, I challenged y’all to find at least five writer’s blogs or writing blogs by June 8.  I added mine into the “Got WAC?” page, but I’ll give you an image below, a teaser…

One of the things I did was just Google “top 10 blogs” and “top writing blogs” and then I poked around on a few sites with blog rolls. There used to be a lovely blog I followed years ago, but I can’t find it anymore.  I actually included more than the suggested five, because Gar’s Tips on Sucks-Less Writing is more geek speak than anything, and Wil Wheaton, well, I have mixed feelings about that. I’ve read other blogs semi-regularly over the year, and just started following David Bollier’s blog. I really like him, but I also wanted to find something new while I did this.\

And I did: Six Sentences. We’ll have to do something with this. You know we will.

I can’t wait to see the writing blogs you found. Good luck and good hunting.

Writing Blogs for June 3 Throwdown ("Got WAC?")

Tech disconnect redux or TKO?

This afternoon, I just happened to be reading the letters to the editor in the Smithsonian (June 2011), and came upon this one:

Letter to the editor at Smithsonian (June 2011)

You can see the original article, Turn On, Log In, Wise Up if you like–it got a lot of negative commets online. Hello, world–did you forget the last editorial in the Smithsonian is a joke, often silly, sentimental, odd? It’s not always but it often is.

“Tech Disconnect” reminds me a lot of the things we’ve reading about the literacy crisis in our summer class–oooh it’s so scary that Johnny can read or write–but as wacmrsl just pointed out in a blog post, the more writing we do, the better we get at it. And I think this is about any literacy practices we engage in: blog, phone, academic paper, journal article, book, poem, speech. The more we do the better we become–or can become. And in fact, the general rule is that if you do something stupid while in texting or on the web, the bigger the consequences: lose a job, blow up a relationship, hurt someone’s feelings, get famous (for all the wrong reasons). But in the case of the digital, the words (or video or photo) don’t dissipate into thin air, either, they go viral. Hence the possible infamy, and hence the sense that folks who take communication seriously, are taking literacy seriously, all literacies.

I also quibble with the fear-inducing “As electric gadgets become more intrusive, will all human socialization cease?” No. I think the “electric gadgets” can make us more social–we build a network we carry with us. It’s comforting to not lose friends or family when I’m somewhere other than with them. I loathe some aspects of being turned on, logged in, and wised up, but I am glad I am.

I wanted to call this letter writer a Luddite, but then I started to rethink what I really might mean by that because of an article I read on Luddites (same magazine) this last March. (The Smithsonian is one of my favorites.) I have even called myself a Luddite or suggested I had tendencies in that direction–meaning I didn’t keep up with all the latest, hippest technology. But I would have been far off the mark. All that serves as a reminder that writing on the web is so powerful because I can talk about a letter to an editor from a June issue of a magazine, then also reference an article from March–and send you right where you can find each of these things to make up your own mind. You don’t need to get the Smithsonian anymore in your snail mail box, nor do you need to go to a library to look up these two articles. Right here, right now.

If the web 2.0 ain’t supporting literacy learning, and I mean lots of different kinds of literacies, why, I reckon I deserve to lose this argument on a technical knock out (TKO).

Writing blogs abound

I happened to find a writer’s blog this morning, and it was most fun. I spent at least 30 minutes reading and learning. Try to find some writer’s blogs or blog and share with each other.

I’m putting my wanderings and findings in “Got WAC?” on the header to keep all links to such places in one central location. I’ll write about what I find, of course, well, not always, but I will continue to collect links in that one spot.  I think knowing various writers on the web and the writing they are doing is a great benefit to our WAC Attack at AUM.

I lay down this challenge: while surfing around on the cyberwaves of the web, see if you can find some blogs by writers about writing to collect. Try to find five by Wednesday, June 8.  Find one, and you’ll likely find blogroll links to a lot more, just as you might explore a bibliography in a book to see what other works are out there on a topic, you will find writers through writers. We can grow our writerly knowledge and WAC knowledge from such investigation.

I vow to find four more by next Wed.–and ones that I don’t already know!

Go blogosphere.

Web writing guide is out and about… from Writing Spaces

The Web Writing Style Guide from Writing Spaces was released today.

I’m impressed with what a few folks did in a very short amount of time–6-7 weeks I think. It was an experiment in crowdsourcing that worked. With 16-17 writers, a few editors, a copy editor or two, some code gurus who made it happen online. I read it already as I copy edited, and I learned a lot.

What a cool thing to do. Please read and enjoy.