Indy Study: Reflections on Being a Student Blogger

One of the main reasons I decided to do this independent study as a blog was to get back in the blogging habit. In that sense, it has been a success. However, the study has done little to take advantage of what blogging has to offer. Yes, blogging allowed my work to reach a larger audience (though not one piece about the independent study received a comment, which points to the likelihood that these posts were less engaged with than my posts on teaching). However, this blog in no way entered into a conversation with anyone else - it was simply a way to deliver information. I think this really points to the imperativeness of using blogging in classrooms to facilitate conversations and social engagements around texts (in the most general sense of the term), rather than simply as a means to post work (which many other teachers have mentioned many times). The posts from the independent study can serve as a good example of what not to do.

Previous Independent Study Posts:
Introduction
Background
Goals
Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White Edited by David Roediger
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
The Next Set of Books
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Savage Holiday by Richard Wright
Seraph on the Suwanee by Zora Neale Hurston
Country Place by Ann Petry
White Life Novels Wrap Up