Christopher Long, College of the Liberal Arts

Student philosophers build critical thinking, writing skills through blogging

Christopher Long in the College of the Liberal Arts teaches “Tragedy, Comedy, Politics” and “20th Century Philosophy” courses. To help students develop their critical thinking and writing skills, he asks each student to create a blog on which they post assignments. The blogs allow students to write for a broader audience than their instructor alone and encourage them to develop a unique voice. Long’s ability to provide regular, dynamic feedback helps students grow as writers and thinkers.

Long said, “I intentionally chose a decentralized model, where each student would have his or her own blog, because I wanted them to have a sense of owning their work. My main goal for using blogs is to get students actively involved in their own education.” The student blogs, as well as blogs Long set up for each course, were created using the Blogs at Penn State service.

The course blogs provide a description of each blogging assignment, including a detailed grading rubric. Long also writes blog posts related to course topics as “food for thought.”

Students are often asked to relate current events to course readings. For example, after reading the Oresteia by Aeschylus, a trilogy of Greek tragedies unified by the theme of retributive justice vs. justice based on law and reason, students are asked to submit a blog post with an example of the tension between these two concepts of justice in modern society. Long explained, “One of my goals is to encourage students to make concrete connections between philosophical ideas discussed in class and events of contemporary social and political life.”

Having students post their thoughts on a blog can result in a less isolating experience, said Long. “Blogs get them writing with an eye toward a larger community. They now write not only for themselves and for me, but also for their colleagues and other online readers,” he said. “There’s a potential for broader exposure and feedback, which can’t happen when they’re just dropping assignments in drop boxes.”

As Long pointed out, blogs allow anyone to post content on the Web. He noted, “I think there’s something significant about what’s happening in the larger society and culture with the Internet and this technology. Students have to come out of Penn State with an ability to not only be creators of content, but also critics with good judgment.” Long added, “As creators of thoughtful, well-crafted content, they also learn to become analytically more critical of the content they encounter online.”