Our first content: What We're Loving, Consumed, and On the Shelf

Today, I'm introducing three weekly features I plan to feature on the magazine.  Each of them will be pulled directly from your weekly blogging by your peers, with perhaps a little editing here and there.  Each of these features are modeled on columns found at The Paris Review and The New York Times.  I will probably refer to these three as our "blog features."

"Consumed"

If you'll recall,  I suggested you follow the format of the NYT column called "Download," viewable here.  Here is a sample I did on my own blog.Blog feature #1, then, which we'll call "Consumed," will simply re-post to our magazine the single best "on the shelf" post created by someone in our classroom each week.

Ideally, your blogging this quarter has been regular and varied, including brief descriptions and/or evaluations of anything from novels you are reading to online "long form" journalism to games you are into and music you have on repeat.  And "Consumed" will recognize and profile our class's readers who do this in the most interesting, original, or thoughtful way, as determined by you each week. 

"What We're Loving"

This feature is based upon The Paris Review column of the same name.  In essence, it is comprised of individual entries--quick discussion of a book, an old movie, a link--from several students' weekly "On the Shelf" posts, again, selected by you each week.

"Briefly"

Our last blog feature will be modeled on The Paris Review column confusingly titled (sorry) "On the Shelf." Where "Consumed" focuses on the reflections of an individual student and "What We're Loving" has more of a collective voice, "Briefly" is simply a list of links with a word or two of introduction--no description, simply (school-appropriate) links to articles of interest, entertainment, or other news and notes.

TODAY:  You will be nominating blog content for each of these three categories.  In the margins of No White Stone, you will see links to the blogs of all the students in my Etymology courses.  Today, let's limit ourselves to looking at the blogs of your classmates.  Browse, read deeply, skim, follow their links, if they work, just keep clicking.  Listen to music while you go, if you like.

And do these two things:
(1) leave at least three friendly comments on blogs other than those of your besties.  Ideally, these will be comments that relate to the content in some way of a post and do more than simply say "that's cool" or "me too."

(2) leave a comment here, on this blog, that nominates someone for each of the above three categories: a blog name/post date for "Consumed" and blog names/more specific post dates and directions for "What We're Loving" and "Briefly."  For example, your nominations comment might look like this:

Consumed: More Cowbell, Please (9.22.12)
WWL: Bookworm Days, entry on Palo Alto (9.14.12)
Briefly: Happy Go Lucky, link to Cloud Atlas trailer (8.25.12)

The World of Online Publishing: Our Entry Event

This semester, our class will be driven by the following question:

How can we create an online magazine that documents and reviews the culture of your generation?

As I have said, this driving question cannot be answered without raising and pondering a lot of smaller questions.  Today, we should start asking those little questions, and answering a few of them.

Visit the web magazines that I have sampled here for you.  Some of of them are not designed for your generation, or interests, but that doesn't matter--we can still go to them for ideas. 

Go deep into these sites, skimming more than reading, and make a blog post that links to at least three articles, features, pieces of content of any kind, really, that you think might, if the subject matter were changed to something you care about, would fit in an online magazine that we produced. 

While you do all this browsing, questions about this project will occur to you.  On your own or with others, compile a list of as many questions, any kind of questions, that you think we might have to answer.  Put at least ten in your blog post, too. 

Here are links to some sites of interest:


NY Times Style Magazine
Page Turner
The Morning News
Kill Screen
Joystiq
All Songs Considered
A Public Space
The Paris Review
Kotaku

Catching Up With On The Shelf

The New York Times has a column called "Catching Up With"that serves as a kind of inspiration for our own weekly "On the Shelf" assignment.  Try reading a few examples here to get a feel for how they are put together and try modeling your own on them. 

What I really like about the column is the diversity of subject matter you see in them, as well as the brief descriptions of what each person responds to in each item he or she lists.

For our OTS posts, I'd love it if we could follow a similar format.  I do think that ours should be weighted a little more heavily toward the reading we do--either online or off--and a little less on the other forms of media, though.  See what you can come up with.  And visit the links on the right for some ideas of places to find some good online reading.

"Catching Up With" samples:

R.A. Dickey, a pitcher for the Mets.

Joshua Bell, a famous violinist who attended Indiana University.

Richard Branson, eccentric, ego-centric founder of Virgin Group (Virgin airlines, records, etc.)

Jimmy Wales, of Wikipedia fame.

And my recent OTS post that follows this format.

Joseph Ceravolo, "Perpetual Life"

 

PERPETUAL LIFE

The sun disappears behind hills,
a white light still remains.
No pink or red or orange
with tight purple streaks, 

through a white cloud.

I suddenly feel
we can never be destroyed,
but I know otherwise.
        It's only a daydream
        an overwhelming breeze
a constriction that I can't see
opening up in the heart
on a warm evening.

Dana Gioia, "Entrance"

At the great site Poetry 180.

William Stafford, "Love in the Country"

Also brought to you by The Writer's Almanac.

Jim Harrison, "The Quarter"

At The Writer's Almanac.