After many months of experimentation, procrastination, frustration and, ultimately, failure trying to create a website for my students, their parents, and teachers like myself, I have finally settled on a fairly straightforward and friendly blogging platform–WordPress–to do all the hard stuff for me. Needless to say, this is still a work very much in progress, however I have already had some fun posting a few memorable book reviews written by students from last year’s classes. I have also begun experimenting with how I want this site to look, and how I can make it the least confusing for its intended frequenters (any comments or feedback would be much appreciated). I am excited to be able to quickly and consistently update this site, however it is my hope that mrquale.com also becomes a publishing platform for students to share their ideas through their writing. I do not want this to be a traditional web-log (if we can already differentiate between “traditional” and “unconventional” blogs) that has one author and a bunch of anonymous “commentators,” and I am still brainstorming conceptually how exactly to accomplish this.
So, I encourage you to look around, and check out Emily’s thoughts about Kerouac’s On the Road, Megan’s opinions of Steinbeck’s first hit Tortilla Flat, and why Tania thinks everyone should try reading The Divine Comedy, but maybe not House of Leaves. Rachel also encourages us not to panic about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the book, anyway–the movie is a different story completely), Alex awards Abdulin’s memoir Red Road from Stalingrad with a perfect five stars, and Majel thinks Wright’s Black Boy is an autobiography of special importance.
