Peanuts for Zebras

Header Image from The Sideline Scoop

Today in the library Ms. Cullen shared an amazing editorial written by Landon, one of our CAP 10 students, about the NFL referee labor dispute. We've since discovered that Landon also posted his editorial on his own personal sports blog, The Sideline Scoop. Landon started this sports blog with Alex, another CAP 10 student. In his editorial, Landon lays out his argument explaining why the NFL's decision to lock out their refs is such a debacle. Here's a quote from Landon's editorial summing up the possible consequences of the NFL referee labor dispute:

If the NFL continues its refusal to compensate the referee’s, overwhelmed and under qualified replacement officials will soon transform a sport of managed aggression into an arena for out of control violence.

I highly recommend reading Landon's editorial and subscribing to the RSS feed of his blog so you don't miss any of his future posts.

What impresses me most about Landon's editorial is the quality of his writing. He's not doing this for a grade. He took the time to set up his own blog, with his own domain, to write about sports, a subject he's obviously passionate about.

We asked Landon for some advice today in the library about how we could improve the writing and enthusiasm on our CAP 10 student blogs. He had some excellent advice. He said that we should encourage students to write about topics they feel strongly about.

We're only a few weeks into our CAP 10 blogging experiment this year. I propose that we shake things up a bit by taking Landon's advice. Chose a topic of personal interest and write about it on your blog incorporating the writing skills learned in your classes. Here's the exact assignment:

Weekly blog post about a personal reaction to one of the following:

• Personal passion or interest
• Reaction to current events
• Cultural criticism of the world around us
• Share a piece of creative writing (start a story series or share a poem)

If possible, try to embed multi-media, such images, video and audio clips, into your post. These post are due by next Friday, October the 12th.

One last note: Feel free to change the name of your blogs as well. It's not necessary that you have your name in the title of your blog. So come up with a new blog title if you'd like to.