You can lead a horse to water....

I teach a college course required for graduation -- one of those often groan-evoking first-year courses that students talk about. And talk about. As about 70% of my course load, I teach what's variously called "freshman comp" or "first-year writing" or "first-year composition." Sometimes in the bad old days it was called "bonehead English."  The common wisdom holds (and some students agree) that students don't like to write, or are afraid to write.

Yet.... Thousands, hundreds of thousands of students (and working folk who are student-aged) maintain blogs and FaceBook pages and all kinds of non-required written artifacts, voluntarily, without the threat of a grade, cat o' nine tails, or any of the other weapons traditionally brandished by English teachers with their hair in buns.

In the fall term, I'm going to make "keep a blog" an assignment for my FYC students. They'll be published, albeit self-published, and able to play with graphics and colors. In the spirit of not asking students to do what I won't do :  )  I'll be keeping a blog myself, and here it is. 

More soon, gentle readers.