It's the End of Democracy (and Rhetoric) as We Know It

...and I feel fine. This semester's English 1101 class has reached its conclusion, and for now, this entry will serve as a brief wrap-up to the course and some of the questions we've considered. After reviewing student's "discussion blogs" and group blog projects, I'm pretty convinced that blogging has serve an active role in the success of these sections of English 1101. The blogs were designed in part to grapple with the practice of writing for the public, as well as the role of rhetoric in democracy, specifically within the context of US elections, and many students seemed to grasp the value of blogging. In the words of Grant C:

In the future, blogging will only grow. I mean, where else can you publicly bitch about the government, or school, or about how bad the pizza you ate for lunch was?

After my experiences in English 1101, I hope to use this space to navigate questions about rhetoric and democracy, although I'm not sure what form that will take. I'll try to write several other entries that seek to make connections bewteen different students' observations and to work through their concepts to develop an overall narrative for the course. In the past, I've abandoned my course blogs at the end of the semester, often without any kind of signpost or explanation for what you're seeing.