When I was getting my B.A. at the University of British Columbia in the early 2000's, the English professors there assigned primary text readings almost exclusively. There are things to recommend this approach, but one result was that students were left to discover and master literary criticism, theory, and history (or not) on their own. Professors used their expertise to fill in the blanks and keep class discussions focused and productive, but a lot of my papers were kind of unfocused and wandering.

When I decided to make my rhetoric and writing course about “truthiness” as Stephen Colbert defines it—something that “feels true,” without needing to rely on pesky facts—I thought I knew what I wanted to do with it. I wanted to be in a networked computer classroom, to break down the barriers between the classroom and the homework. I wanted a course blog so students could practice writing in a variety of modes, and have the chance to see what their classmates were doing and thinking, and to establish more connections between classroom and individual learning.