When seniors write
Researchers at NC State are studying whether diary writing by the elderly can help improve memory retention.
A project to emulate
The Blogswana Project has a mission that’s quite similar to the StoryBlogging project, and maybe we can learn from their actitivities:
Blogswana is an effort to practice what we preach. The one-year pilot project will work with a group of about 20 college students from one of the major universities, and provide them with blogging and journalism expertise and guidance. They would commit to a year of “blogging for others.” Each student participant would start their own blog, as well as a blog for their “partner” (the person for whom they will blog). Each partner would be someone who has been effected in some way by the AIDS virus.
Seniors who blog
One of the goals of the StoryBlogging project is to help senior citizens learn how to use blogs to share their experience and wisdom. In the NYTimes yesterday, there’s an article that explores senior bloggers: Elderbloggers Stake Their Claim.
With a breadth of experience and perspective, older bloggers are staking out a place in the blogosphere — a medium overwhelmingly dominated by the young. Perhaps more attentive to grammar and less likely to use cutesy cyberspeak, older bloggers expound on topics as varied as poetry and politics, gardening and grandmothering. According to a recent report by the Perseus Development Corporation, a research company that studies online trends, the Internet is home to approximately 54.3 million blogs, nearly 60 percent written by people younger than 19. Just 0.3 percent of blogs are run by people 50 or older, yet that’s still about 160,000 bloggers.
Tar Heel Tavern #57: Looking Back
For the Tar Heel Tavern this week, I asked bloggers to submit a blog entry that was an example of memoir blogging, or writing about some past mement, event or turning point in your life. Here’s what’s come in so far:
- At More about me, Bora writes about the lessons he learned as a child. He and his brother “learned how to live and thrive under authoritarian regime, and how to subvert it from within. I think that was the most important formative experience of my youth.”
- At Yard Birds, Billy the Blogging Poet explains how a buddy picked up a nickname by staying on his screaming 750 Trident.
- At The Lifestyle Chronicles – Memories, Dr. Marcus Newberry recounts a “a lull in the flow” of an emergency room.
- At Daddy, Zha K writes beautifully about seeing the world: “Children absorb what is around them. They notice everything, especially the minute.”
- At February, Laura recalls a Valentinogram and how it changed her life. “The turning point, for me, was on a snowy, February Saturday in my senior year in high school.”
- At Buttons, I unearth a picture of me at age 2, campaigning for a Congressional candidate.
If you’ve got a post that shares a story from your life, send it to me at zuiker@gmail.com. The StoryBlogging initiative will always be on the lookout for your stories.
Next week, the Tar Heel Tavern moves to … well, looks like we’re still looking for a host. If you’d like to host the Tavern, contact Bora posthaste.
Share your memories
Via Kottke, we learn of The Remembering Site, a non-profit effort to encourage people to record their biographies through a series of questions. This comes close to what the StoryBlogging effort is about.
Story time on WUNC
From the WUNC site, an announcement about Dick Gordon’s new show:
Dick Gordon returns to North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC with an innovative new program featuring stories from across North Carolina and across the nation. The Story with Dick Gordon brings the news home — through passionate points of view, personal experiences and a strong sense of place. The Story takes listeners beyond news events to the things that change our lives, cause us to stop and re-think, inspire us. Listen for the show’s debut coming February 16 and keep listening for more details!
Save those letters
NYTimes has an interesting article today about a family that’s saved letters, correspondence and other documents through a few generations: In 200 Years of Family Letters, a Nation’s Story.