Why I Shouldn't Be the Person to Write a Blog Entitled "How to Write a Blog"

So I'm teaching a new course this semester, one euphemistically entitled "The Culture of College", but one that could perhaps more accurately be called "I'm on Academic Probation and I Want to Get Out." And, of course, being the teacherly sadist that I am, I've made one of the requirements in the course to be the following: Create a blog. Some have met me with disbelief, others with death threats. Therefore, in a great outreaching of kindness and respect I'd like to offer an olive branch of help via this blog "How to write a blog."

Unfortunately, I am just so NOT the person to be writing this blog. I've blogged, what, like fifteen times my entire life, and each time was a designated class assignment, which really means, I've never blogged. Of course, I've always wished I WAS the type of cool, intellectual young adult, coffee-sipping, pop-cultue-spouting person that did this sort of thing effortlessly, but let's get real. I'm the mother of a 19 month old (FYI-mother's of toddlers don't have time to shower, let alone blog), who is getting so close to turning 30 that one of my biggest current life goals is to use the phrase "I'm in my twenties" at least five times a day.

There are other reasons, worse, deeper reasons that I'm not qualified to write a blog. I'm an English teacher, for instance, and this immediately qualifies me to write such award-winning essays such as "how to analyze Shakespeare" or "how to diagram sentences" but hardly qualifies me to write about an emerging, important, social-networking-medium that is actually relevant and accessible in REAL life.

So yeah, if I were to attempt to actually act like an expert on the topic, I'd probably be awarded something like "World's Biggest Hypocrite" or, well, you get the idea . . .

Instead, I'll just let them figure it out on their own. Student-centered teaching. All the teachers are doing it, after all . . .