My blog is now two years old and I have 104 posts which means I have been able to maintain my goal of blogging on a weekly basis (on average). This simple fact gives me tremendous satisfaction, probably because I do not always follow through on my promises to myself – perhaps one of my greatest failings. What is also very exciting for me is that blogging continues to feed me personally and professionally. I continue to have new ideas to write about and I get cranky if life cuts into my blogging time. Blogging isn’t for everyone, but as I must write to think and process life, blogging is a gift (What Blogging Taught Me). I hope my blog benefits others, but I cannot measure the positive impact blogging has had on my life.
But enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think about my blog? Site visits doubled from 2013 to 2014. This is great (with visitors from 104 countries!). The most popular posts (for both 2014 and the life of the blog) were:
- You Can’t Teach The Writing Process
- 10 Ways Literacy Narratives Will Rock Your World
- Inspiring Writing, Learning In Six Words
- Did You Ever Think It Might Be The Assignment?
- Using Six-Word Memoir Posters To Discuss Reading, Inspire Writing
Interestingly, those posts were all written in 2013, even though I thought I did some pretty good work in 2014, so I thought I’d look to see which of my 2014 posts were my favorites and came up with this list:
- Important Conversations Inspired By Comics
- Twofers or Disposables? Reflecting On Classwork
- Project-Based Learning and Teaching Writing
- Why My Students Must Blog
- Community Doesn’t Just Happen
This week I talked with my classes (both professional writing and general education writing) about rhetorical context (using the Budweiser “Lost Dog” commercial) and so I’m using this annual review as an opportunity to explore my own rhetorical context. I write from my own experience as a writing teacher, researcher, and writer and appear to have found a small, loyal audience where my ideas and experiences resonate perhaps because they have similar experiences, struggles, and questions. Perhaps my weakness is that I often write more to serve my own passions, interests, and challenges (Exhibit A My Rants) without the attention to my audience that I preach to my students, but as I noted above, the Kairos of my blog is often to serve me more than my audience. I suppose that means I will never be a big-time blogger, but I am happy with my blog and what it does for me.
Blogging helps me think and process, record and share lessons from my life and classroom, and connect with others. Do you blog or want to blog? What does blogging do for you?
I found the artwork used to illustrate this blog post using the Creative Common search. Blogging was created by Jonny Goldstein.
