Blog Culture and Cultural Literacy
Some of you may have noticed the new theme I added to my blog a while back. I wanted something simpler. My old one was getting out of hand with the sidebar down a million miles and the bazillion banners, badges, and chicklets. What I have up now is really all it needs (though it still changes from time to time). I was successful in my venture! I love it when that happens. Searching all morning however, yielded even greater boon. I analyzed a bit of blog culture.
Did you ever have a hard time getting someone’s point, but there wasn’t time to sit there and dialog to sort it out? That’s what random blog reading can be like sometimes. It’s amazing how many people are “blogging” nowadays. I checked my Google stats today and saw that I have readers from across the globe, and . . . for some reason not yet known to me . . . especially on the East Coast. Anyway, reading my stats I realized that blogging has become a major part of our culture. Technorati claims to be currently tracking 75.2 million blogs and it are adds more to its best every day. I’d say that blogs are uniting a lot of people. There is no other cause or hobby I can think of that unites as many people . . . not even religion. (Come to think of it, Rock n Roll would give it a run for its money)
I have said that blogging is a fad and indeed it is. But as a student of Language who taught part time college English for a short time, I have to note what a wonderful fad that is . . . a fad of writing. Now that I teach elementary school, Language and Math primarily, I can say wholeheartedly that this “fad” will have a positive effect on our cultural literacy. If a person continues to hone her/his skills at writing and becomes more versed in communication, what treasures await the sphere through this generation.
As I looked around for a theme for my blog today, I came across a simple one called O.N.E. It stands for “Omit Needless Elements” and the author was inspired to make it from William Strunk and E.B. White’s seminal work “The Elements of Style.” Simple name : quality theme.
Being part of the blogosphere as a writer is a good thing for cultural literacy. E.D. Hirsch should be dancing a jig somewhere. Since you’re doing it now, I commend and thank you! May the future reveal an even greater exchange of human expression. I’ve encountered a set of excellent blogs. I’ve linked them on my blogroll. If you’re curious about what’s out there, and don’t know where to start you might start there. As a blog reader I browse the web reading with the rhetorical ongoing question of: “Where are you going with that.” Today I found out where a few were going, and I followed right along, quite happily in fact. I found these things out out on O.N.E. road (of millions) to cultural literacy.
