The English Majors' Weblog started as a project to encourage my university (Western Kentucky University) to develop a WordPress blog server on campus for anyone who needed the platform to create academic resources for our community. Encouraged by this initial effort I was able to convince my department head to create an internship to expand the work of the blog beyond what my limited time could manage. After two years I convinced my new department head to help create a collective internship with five undergraduates in major specializations ranging from creative writing to professional writing to secondary teaching. This is the first semester of collective blogging. Our efforts can be described in much the same way that David Weinberger did in his book Small Pieces Loosely Joined--a Protean attempt to bring meaning to the complex identity creation that is at the core of becoming an English major. We have tried to do that by mashing up, remixing, and connecting numerous free (if not entirely open) tools. The slides that follow try to describe them.

1. Blogging c0llectively
We are the English Majors' Weblog, a collective of five interns and one supervising instructor
attempting to make clear what it means to be an English major in the new jagged, and
changing academic and career landscape: http://english.blog.wku.edu
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By Terry Elliott
page 1 of 18

2. Blogging c0llectively
The English Majors' Weblog started as a project to encourage my university (Western
Kentucky University) to develop a WordPress blog server on campus for anyone who needed
the platform to create academic resources for our community.
Encouraged by this initial effort I was able to convince my department head to create an
internship to expand the work of the blog beyond what my limited time could manage.
After two years I convinced my new department head to help create a collective internship
with five undergraduates in major specializations ranging from creative writing to
professional writing to secondary teaching. This is the first semester of collective blogging.
Our efforts can be described in much the same way that David Weinberger did in his book
Small Pieces Loosely Joined--a Protean attempt to bring meaning to the complex identity
creation that is at the core of becoming an English major. We have tried to do that by
Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
page 1 of 18

3. mashing up, remixing, and connecting numerous free (if not entirely open) tools. The slides
that follow try to describe them.
Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple,
beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
Photo by DonkeyHotey
page 2 of 18

4. Blogging c0llectively
Our first tool is our beehive hub, a WordPress site served by our university:
http://english.blog.wku.edu
This is identity central and it is served on a daily basis with news, information, and
connections by our interns. What is most important about the connections is that they are
evolving and being tested with tools like Google Analytics to see who is using what and when
and how long.
It is a powerful place to practice craft, to exercise one's voice, and to become deliberate
about what it means to be 'English-y'.
Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
page 3 of 18

5. Blogging c0llectively
The Google + community is a private one where we can speak, write, and ask questions
about the problems of connecting our majors together. It is also the place where we store
and storify our institutional memory.
We are taking notes as we go about what works, what we need help with, and what is
succeeding. We use it to encourage ourselves as writers, editors, social network managers,
wordpress geeks, and google analytics wranglers.
We really are making it up as we go within the constraints of our mission and of the tools that
we are accessing. Google + is helping us to establish ourselves as the beating heart of the
blog.
It is also part of what we hope will grow into a vibrant and empathic crew who all know the
score and who know that creating this community is at the core of that 'score'.
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By Terry Elliott
page 4 of 18

6. Blogging c0llectively
Hangouts on Air are part of our weekly prep meeting on Monday evenings.
1. Job roles are parsed. Everyone has a role as content provider and writer, but we also wear
at least one other hat-marketer, editor, community manager, webmaster, analytics analyst.
2. We divvy up posts for the week and talk long terms news and posts.
3. We share screens, goof around with google tools, create common docs as well as share
screens, bookmarks and tools.
4. And we record it all for absent members and for 'posterity'.
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By Terry Elliott
page 5 of 18

7. Blogging c0llectively
Lino is just a place to post story ideas and to claim work. It is where the editor lives during
the week. It is where others from outside the immediate community can suggest story ideas.
The workflow model is based on aJapanese productivity tool: the kanban.
Our digital corkboard is divided up into three columns:
READY DOING DONE
We put sticky notes in the 'Ready' column that indicate a potential post. If someone wants to
claim the story they put their initials on it and move it over to the "Doing" column. At any
point others may add info to the sticky note or even ask to collaborate with the original
author. One recent use was to develop a series of interview questions in a series we are
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By Terry Elliott
page 5 of 18

8. doing on all the advisors in the department.
When the work is posted then the sticky pad moves to the 'Done' column. If anything gets to
crowded we have an overflow corkboard. You can peel off the done sticky pads but the site
remembers what has been done and archives it. Nothing is lost in this slow motion cascade of
activity.
Lino is free, but I purchased the pro version for just a few bucks a month and it is well worth
it.
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By Terry Elliott
page 6 of 18

9. Blogging c0llectively
One of our goals is to provide timely and newsworthy posts (Facebook and blog), tweets,
instagrams, and newsletters to our majors, pre, current and post.
We trumpeted Cornel West's recent lecture and then followed up with a retelling afterward.
We push writing workshops, classes, publishing opportunities, readings, and all matters
timely for English majors.
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By Terry Elliott
page 7 of 18

10. Blogging c0llectively
We are working toward each interns not only working on one-off posts, but also on longer
term, weekly or bi-weekly columns that highlight important identity markers for majors in
general and personally important ones for the interns as well.
One of our goals is for all interns to begin using their own blogs and to develop the skills and
motivations to pursue those blogs after their internships are over.
One of our goals is to get interns to promote their own work and the work of the blog in
public ways.
One of our goals is to help our interns develop digital rhetorical skills along with the ability to
manage their own WordPress blog.
Our overall goal is to get our interns to extend themselves, reach beyond their grasps, and to
then to use those skills and attitudes and mindsets in the world.
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By Terry Elliott
page 8 of 18

11. Blogging c0llectively
The internship is as handy as a pocket on a shirt. It serves our university community at the
same time that it serves the needs of each intern. That's the plan anyway. Harold Jarche
divides the work of learning and research into three words: Seek, sense, share. The English
Majors' Weblog makes that abstraction into a concrete whole every day. The deliberate
practice of 'seek-sense-share' applies the powerful skills that all English majors have acquired
in their discipline in an overt and regular way. That is the genius of a collective weblog. The
practice never stops and is always useful work worth doing.
Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple,
beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
Photo by KOMUnews
page 9 of 18

12. Blogging c0llectively
At the end of our semester together, the collective blog will take stock of what has been
done, what has been left undone, and. most important. what is left to be done.
1. Create a style manual for the blog for future internship collectives.
2. Create an informal consultancy of current and former interns who can show others how to
use the same of similar 'tools loosely joined'.
3. Create marketing plans for specific segments and plans for expanding into areas that
serve the development needs of the department.
4. Create workshops or MOOCs for others who want to create their own collectives.
5. Create ebooks and other 'texts' to reflect on what they have done and where other might
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beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
Photo by KOMUnews
page 9 of 18

13. go in the future.
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By Terry Elliott
Photo by Marc Gautier
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14. Blogging c0llectively
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By Terry Elliott
Photo by Mathieu Plourde
page 11 of 18

15. Blogging c0llectively
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By Terry Elliott
Photo by Marsmettin Tallahassee
page 12 of 18

16. Blogging c0llectively
Where will we go with this collective? We will connect in ways that we can only hint at right
now. Our audience is, potentially, a larger one than we envisioned when we first started the
internship several years ago. At first we wanted to work with the current majors in our
department. Now we know we have a mission to serve alums, major wannabees, pre-majors
(middle and secondary learners), minors, graduate students, and the ever widening ripple of
stakeholders who represent the rather large galaxy of folk known as English majors especially
alums and 'interested parties'.
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beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
Photo by Xavier Muñoz
page 13 of 18

17. Blogging c0llectively
The Interns
Andria Nealis
,
Ashley Dyer
,
Kerr Beebe,
,
Kayleigh Brasher,
,
Tiffany Hughes,
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beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
Photo by Xavier Muñoz
page 13 of 18

18. Weblog Supervisor:
Terry Elliott
Overall English Internships Supervisor:
Dr. Angela L Jones
English Department Head:
Dr. Rob Hale
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By Terry Elliott
page 14 of 18

19. Blogging c0llectively
What an enduring crew including previous interns Seanna Wilhelm, Rachel Hoge, Joel
Brinkerhoff, and office intern/jill of all trades, Ann Reagan.
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simple, beautiful and fun.
By Terry Elliott
Photo by nanocoder
page 15 of 18

20. Blogging c0llectively
Special thanks to Dr Angela Jones for being the spark that brought the internship project to
life in our department and to Dr. Rob Hale who had the vision to see how the collective
internship might make a difference.
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By Terry Elliott
page 16 of 18

21. Blogging c0llectively
None of this would have been achievable without the resources of the university, its blog
servers, its IT resources, its intern services and its institutional imperative to advance
knowledge and skills. Thanks to WKU.
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By Terry Elliott
page 17 of 18

22. Blogging c0llectively
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By Terry Elliott
Photo by otodo
page 18 of 18