Even though the course is now open, it is no surprise that you may still be wondering what you got yourself into by signing up for English 2600: Modes of Self-Narrative. Because of the OU catalog requirements regarding length, I was limited in how many words I could choose for the course title, so I get how the purpose, content, and nature of the class is somewhat vague in nature if you decided to take the course based on title only.

Now that I have space to work with, I can explain a bit better what we will do this semester. In the simplest words possible, we will be exploring and comparing three genres of self-narrative (journals/diary, memoir, and personal narrative) to discover what happens when we try to transform these forms to an online platform, such a blog. To do this, we will read traditional texts representative of the genres and then attempt to write our own entries to test changes in voice, length, persona, details, truth, and results.

Most of you are more familiar with Snap Chap and Instagrams, but weblogs, now know as blogs, started it all. The blogosphere grew and many bloggers have entered the fray to use their blogs as spaces to write about themselves. Some blogs are successful, but many of them are boring and fall by the wayside after they realize that no one is reading their entries; others have found great success and now make a living attaching ads to their blogs since they are so popular and have a huge readership.

To some degree, all writing is somewhat personal right? You share insight into yourself by the words you choose, the stance you take, or perhaps the tone you use in order to connect with your reader, but what happens once we decide to reveal things about ourselves online. When we talk about self-narrative, we are talking about a category classified by certain features. What characteristics as far as writing do these categories have in common?

1). Use of "I" which refers to the writer not a character.

2). Describes the  writer's personal experience and offers reflection.

3). Creates a connection between writer and reader.

So what happens when we try to transfer these genres to an on line platform such as blogging?  How much do we share? Do we bend the truth to capture readers? Does our voice change? Can we write purely and honestly about ourselves when we know the moment we hit "publish" that 0 or 1,000 readers might find our words?  Well, let's start our journey and see if we can figure it all out.

NOTE: This blog serves as the community blog, so when weekly tasks indicate that you complete a Community post, you will do so in this space.