Via Clay.

“Lane Euler“: meteoric growth in critical thinking and weblogging, and a person to trust to the grave–I can tell already.

“Fashion Freak“: a rare honesty and decency, a mind alive in this one. Somehow seems an “old soul” (in a good, mature way).

“Ace Husky Uno“: makes me think of Nestor’s injunction to the young in The Iliad: “Be a man of eloquence and action.” (He was telling Achilles not to be just a jock, but a literate man as well. If only our modern “he-men” valued the tongue as much as the bicep.) Husky Uno is an amazing basketball player and thinker. He handled Swift like he handles lay-ups. And macho peer pressure doesn’t keep him from talking in class. Too cool.

“Ha! Enjoy“: another one whose sincerity and ability to reflect and enjoy it makes me happy.

“Pick Man Track“: another athlete strong enough to lead instead of follow–a real role model who breaks the “thinking ain’t cool” mold for weaker young jocks around him.

“Just Yell“: a born writer and giant-killer.

And yes, there are plenty of my ENG223 students who have done some fine writing as well.  But we haven’t, as a group, quite gotten to the stage that Clay’s students have.  We’re not really bloggers yet–we use blogs to complete homework assignments, for the most part, not as a means of expression or connection to the world at large.  This is something that Evan Olmstead and I’ll be working on a lot next year.

Maybe there was too much technology and not enough time to play–I’m thinking about the wikis, the PlotBot site, and all the rest–to let the blogs grow organically.  Maybe the emphasis on blogs in the beginning of the year was a turn-off, or maybe a lot of students really don’t want to be met where they live, out in digital land.  I just don’t know.

Props, though, are in order to these folks.  I’ll use their site titles so’s to stay kind of consistent with Clay’s post.

Is There Life on Mars?  After starting off as one of the more blog-skeptical students in the class, she’s recently announced her intention to use her blog a lot more.  We’ll see if this is serious, or if she’s just tweaking her very gullible and optimistic teacher.

lol, internet:   Not a lot of independent/unprovoked blogging, but great voice.

Dark Universe Version 2.0:  Again, not really any unprovoked blogging, but this is a student who obviously thinks very deeply about what he reads and writes, and is not afraid to grapple with his thoughts in a public forum.

A Cogitative Consciousness:  This student puts in a lot of time and effort to make sure his blog posts are well-crafted and readable, not to mention thought-provoking.  Writing is a serious pursuit for him, which is evident to anyone who reads his blog.

There are plenty more of my students who have the potential to be great bloggers, but it just hasn’t happened yet.  Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.  I’ll try not to lose too much sleep over it–despite what I’ve read and written, there is far more to life than this.