Discourse and FB

     Ok, so when I read the Jane Fife piece I was skeptical. My first question was “How can you teach Facebook as rhetoric?” By the time I finished I had to reconsider my position.

So in thinking back on writing assignments, I tried to envision when I have used networking cites as a source and  while several examples came up there was one that really stuck out: I had to write a personal narrative essay( I think it’s sometimes also called an experiential essay, but they somehow seem different). Fife writes,“These profiles that usually reflect the ephemeral concerns of the writer can take on special significance upon the writer’s death”(Fife, 561). In the essay I chose to write about a friend who had passed away and the impact he had on my life. I went through all of my memories with this person and interviewed other mutual friends. I had a good launching off point but I wanted to make it something really good; I wanted to make it a proper tribute in a way. He passed away before the popularity of FB but he did have a Myspace account which I revisited; after unlocking my own myspace I was able to see pictures I hadn’t seen in a long time as well as two videos of my friend playing guitar. Needless to say it brought back a lot of memories and I felt that he was much closer; this was such an invaluable resource because it was my friend as I remembered him.

So I see the potential of FB as discourse. I guess my next question was the practicality of using Fb in the classroom: somehow I envision students creating Fb profiles for historical figures in a multimodal assignment then going home and telling their parents that they were on facebook all day.