Part I: Interesting Blog-projects Presented in My Class "The Emergence and Rise of the American Politicosphere"

Today, I want to bring to the attention several blogs created by the students taking my class the Emergence and Rise of the American Politicosphere. In this blog-entry I will present three great blog-projects and explain why I like them very much. Due to the load of the work to do, I will be very brief and up to the point.

I must mention that the blog-projects are graded based on the quality of content and visual design. The students choose whether they want to build their own blog or launch one with the help of Blogger, Typepad, WordPress, etc. More about choosing a blogging platform here. The students are encouraged to experiment with the designs; however, design should complement the content. The content of the blog is very important: the topic, its relevance to this class, the blog's general coverage of the phenomena/events (the critical analysis is especially appreciated), the quality of the links, the general purpose and message of the blog, etc.

Shooting the Breeze by wetterfrosch
Wetterfrosch (translation from German: weatherman) is a self-proclaimed "22-years-old coffeeholic who often gets lost in the supermarket". The blog's creative presentation of the content outweighs the unsophisticated design. Wetterfrosch is open about his/her intentions:

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER! A clear, shallow and safe topic: the weather. We love it, we hate it, we all have an opinion about it. The world has never known a topic that enjoyed greater popularity! The world never payed more attention to a topic with more meaningless phrases and inate ongoing, boardering on ridicule in it's intensive triviality. The world has never known a topic favoured by more amateurs...possibly except for politics.

And we are elegantly lured into talking American politics. This is what I call "a creative approach" to the blog-assignment.

Hollyticosphere by Salia
Salia introduces himself/herself:

I just learned something about My "liberal identity" by doing an internet quiz:: You are a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or neo-hippie. You believe in putting an end to American imperial conquest, stopping wars that have already been lost, and supporting our troops by bringing them home // // Btw: This is not actually telling you anything about my political opinion but about my adorement for funny quizes :) // Do it yourself: www.FightConservatives.com

This is an example of a blog by a person who appears as having "serious fun" with the project, while trying to figure out in what ways Hollywood is influenced by politics and liberal (non-mainstream) ideology. The blog is informative and, if I may put it this way, investigative. Unlike a typical research paper, Salia's blog resembles a digital notebook (notizenbuch) of the electronic sources relevant to her topic of interest. Hopefully, this blog will turn out to be very helpful to Salia in the closest future when she decides to write a research paper about politics and Hollywood.

Approaching the Healthabaloo by Elaine
To Elaine, her blog is "an attempt to approach the still more than lively discussion about the Health Care reform in the U.S." Elaine's personal narrative explains why she, an insured German student, has become interested in this topic:

Born in 1989 in Germany, I had to see the doctors on a quite regular basis: congenital neurodermatitis and hip dysplasia, chickenpox, sore knees, colds, scarlet fever, circulatory collapse… Health insurance was something I always took for granted. I never thought about what it would be like to be uninsured until last year’s February: I was brought to hospital as an emergency during my holiday. Diagnosed with thrombosis, the injections I required urgently cost about 380 Euros. In the middle of the night, with about 20 Euros in my purse, I was deliriously happy to be covered…

Blogosphere thrives on personal narratives. The course I have been teaching this semester was a lot about personal narratives and how they are evaluated in terms of relevance to the general history of the United States. Elaine's story is dramatic and "true"; her interests are clearly justified. As a result, Approaching Healthabaloo is a great compilation of very useful sources and Elaine's comments about a number of widespread misconceptions about the Health Care reform proposed by President Obama. Clearly, by the end of the 12th blog-post Elaine is a self-educated expert on this topic.

These are just three of my most favourite individual projects. There are more descriptions coming up tomorrow.

(to be continued)