Yesterday, I had my students tell me their topics they are wanting to write about for their semester blog. I keep telling them to watch the movie Julie/Julia for inspiration. Right now the class had some pretty good ideas. I worry about the ideas that are boiler plate, such as writing about animals, or writing about advertising images, etc. I did have some really good ideas that surprised me. The best ideas were the ones where students wanted to invoke their own experience into their blog–such as getting healthy and planning a wedding.
The ideas I squashed were the highly controversial/opinionated blogs. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but this is an exercise in getting information from sources and invoking your experience or opinion into it. They need to OWN their blog… create something they are passionate about. A good blog is something they are passionate about. Students need this blog to explore. I want them to explore this topic for a semester and write. When we write, we discover. And when we discover, we gain knowledge.
