Class Title: Transformative Blogging Instructor: Tania Pryputniewicz Class Term: January 9-February 6, 2012 We are not accepting any more enrollments for Tania's class; the class has started. Synopsis How do you make your mark in the blog-o-sphere? This course offers beginning bloggers the chance to launch a blog and get feedback, and for more experienced bloggers, this course offers the chance to take stock of one's blogging mask, reach, and other goals and provides a path to recalibration. Class Description As is the case with good writing of any kind, the details you choose to present as a blogger make all the difference. You'll need to make decisions about which parts of yourself or your topic you'll reveal or explore and who you are striving to become through the process of committing to blogging (since the consistent practice of writing around a focused topic leads inevitably to transformation of various kinds). This blogging course will include inventories and fast-writing exercises (timed free-writes) designed to help you further your goals as a blogger. In addition, students will create sample blog posts and consider images to pair with those sample posts. Some of our time will be spent scoping out other blogs and blogging networks as well as actively working towards the creation of one's own comment community. At the end of the class, students will be able to enter the blog-o-sphere with a greater sense of confidence and the ability to launch a blog or to recalibrate an existing blog and re-invigorate one's motivation via networking and the building of a comment community. Even if participants do not launch a blog, they will have in hand an idea map for the launching of their future blog. All exercise documents will be posted at the course Yahoo Group at the beginning of each week; instructor and student feedback will be posted as replies to student postings. The option for private feedback from the instructor via email remains open for the duration of the course, though students are encouraged to use the group format to better brainstorm ideas and share information. Outline Unit 1: Blog inventory: Your own blog (or potential blog). Students will fill out a blogging questionnaire designed to help them take stock of their current blog. Beginning bloggers will be given a modified questionnaire looking at specific goals for their potential blog. In addition, students will brainstorm blog titles and topics and create a potential outline and timeline for up to the coming year (all levels of blogger). Instructor will provide feedback for each completed questionnaire and series of lists and outlines. Students will provide feedback to one another. Unit 2: Blog mask: Finding the heart of your blog, locating your comfort zone. Students will be asked to complete a series of fast-writing exercises around the concept of the "heart of the blog." Students will choose one or two ideas from their fast-writing exercise to turn into a potential launch or opening blog post. For advanced bloggers, this would be considered a "recalibration" post, alerting followers to a shift or new thread. Instructor will provide feedback for each blog post and encouragement for the fast-writing responses students wish to share. Students will provide feedback to one another. Unit 3: Blog enhancement: Using images to enrich your blog posts. Students will be asked to find 6-12 images to correspond with their blog outlines for the year and to fast-write to one or two of those images. Students will reflect on the process of image selection and the process of writing to the image and what was discovered. In addition, students will search out one or two other successful image-rich blogs to share with the class. Instructor will provide feedback for the image/outline pairings as well as to the process discovery exercise and provide encouragement for the fast-writing responses. Students will provide feedback to one another. Unit 4: Blog reach: Networking and connecting with other bloggers. Students will consider the question: How do you sustain a comment community? Students will be asked to comment on one or two blogs of their choice, possibly to "follow" one or two blogs of their choice (instructor suggests, though does not require, following and supporting the blogs of the writers taking the course), as well as to research existing on-line writer's communities such as She Writes or The Redroom etc., and to write up their findings to share with the class. Instructor will provide feedback for student blog research findings and suggest further lines of inquiry. Students will provide feedback to one another. Student Skills, Equipment, and Time Required All blogging levels welcome. Must be able to use internet, email, and navigate a Yahoo group. Time Commitment: 2 hours a week (though students may put in more hours as they wish). Tuition/Fees for this course SCN members: $128. Non-SCN members: $160. Instructor Bio Recent poetry and prose by Tania Pryputniewicz is forthcoming or appeared on-line at Autumn Sky, Blast Furnace, The Blood Orange Review, Connotation Press, In Her Place, and Linebreak. Her photo poem montages (created in collaboration with Robyn Beattie) have been published by The Mom Egg (She Dressed in a Hurry for Lady Di, 2009) and Prairie Wolf Press (Nefertiti on the Astral, 2011). Poetry editor at The Fertile Source, she blogs at Feral Mom, Feral Writer and is currently a member of A Room of Her Own Foundation's 2011 interview team for AROHO Speaks, Writer to Writer. She lives in the California redwoods with her husband, three children, kitten, Siberian Husky, and four feral cats. Visit her website.