Blogging in the Classroom

In PS, Christopher N. Lawrence of Texas A&M University and Michelle N. Dion of McMaster University make incisive points about political blogs and their role in the classroom. Here is one of their observations, which cites an episode that we discuss in the textbook:

The best political bloggers are critical consumers of media content. They evaluate the evidence that politicians and pundits bring to bear in support of their conclusions and search for inconsistencies between statements by various observers. For example, the controversy over memos alleging President Bush was derelict in his National Guard duties, which ultimately led to Dan Rather’s departure from CBS News, would not have come about had bloggers not recognized that a key document in question was apparently produced by computer software unavailable in the early 1970s. Similarly, we often expect students to engage with primary and secondary sources and evaluate their arguments and the evidence supporting them.