The internet and the introduction of the blog has given voice to many great writers that would not otherwise have a place to express themselves or share their writing. Let’s face it. It’s no easier to become a famous writer than it is to become Madonna. The web, in many ways, has become the great equalizer. A question to pose in today’s writing realm is whether blogs can be literature. Sometimes, as we’re reading through the recommendations and links that send us around the web, we’ll come across something so profound that we, in turn, pass it on.
Is that literature? If it is, how is it preserved and recognized as such? Could the education system be using the many, many blogs out there to help students identify the literature of their own day? Kids are going to waste time on the internet, so why not give in and use it as a teaching tool. Find some writers’ blogs and assign them to your students. Have them give blog reports each week. If they think a particular blog is literary worthy, have them read it to the class and explain why they feel that way. This can be an exciting reading tool that will make kids want to read and take control of the creativity around them.
On a bigger part of the question, blogging as literature is something the literary world should consider. How are these sudden, great works of writing preserved and shared? How are they properly classified? The blogosphere is going to create a whole new and imporant scholarly challenge as the great writing begins to show up. For the teacher and his or her students, it is something that could be a class project. Make your students editors in a contemporary world, and set them to problem solving the need to collect blogs that should be considered literature.