Student Blogging
Intended students:
Intermediate to advanced level students in an IEP writing class. Can be adapted for any classroom, including integrated skills and non-academic courses.
Time needed: 20-30 minutes
Objectives:
Activity summary: Student blogs are a great way to engage students in interesting writing activities, build class rapport, and develop writing fluency. If a computer lab is available, students can do this during class time. Otherwise, blogs can be done as a regular homework assignment.
Procedure:
Materials:
Evaluation:
Encourage students to write their blog content on a Word document before posting to allow saving in case of an accidental program crash or glitch. Also, some students may be concerned about publishing their imperfect writing samples. Encourage them to do their best, but not to worry too much about perfection. Blogs are a great way to track and record progress over time and likely they will be encouraged looking back at their work over the semester. As with dialogue journals, do not worry about correcting errors, but do make personal comments on the content of the entry. Remember that the goal of this activity is fluency, not necessarily accuracy.
References:
Intermediate to advanced level students in an IEP writing class. Can be adapted for any classroom, including integrated skills and non-academic courses.
Time needed: 20-30 minutes
Objectives:
- To develop writing fluency
- To motivate students to write within a meaningful context and purpose
- To develop and practice vocabulary
- To encourage student interaction
Activity summary: Student blogs are a great way to engage students in interesting writing activities, build class rapport, and develop writing fluency. If a computer lab is available, students can do this during class time. Otherwise, blogs can be done as a regular homework assignment.
Procedure:
- Choose a blogging platform for the class to use such as Blogger or Weebly.
- Set up a teacher blog as a landing page for tasks and writing prompts. Students will visit the teacher page first, get their assignment, then write on their individual blog.
- Introduce the blogging platform in class. Assign students the task of setting up their own blog and emailing the link to the teacher. Alternatively, all students can be given editing permission on the teacher’s blog and the class can share one site. (This cuts down on a lot of clicking back and forth, but does not give students their own personalized site.)
- Add all student blog links to a ‘links list’ on the teacher’s blog for easy reference. When students write their blogs, it is helpful to have them post their link as a comment to the teacher’s post to know when they have completed the assignment.
- Weekly, assign a blogging/journal topic. Students should comment on at least two other blogs, interacting with the content in an encouraging, discussion-type manner. Depending on the class, you may want to remind students that this is a public blog, so content and comments should be clean, positive and appropriate.
Materials:
- Computers with internet access
- Blogger account or other blogging program
- List of journal topics such as: Have you ever wondered about…?, Have you ever wondered why…?, I know how to …, What I really enjoy doing, A miserable feeling is when…, What I am doing this weekend, What really excites/bothers/scares/surprises me, If I could have a superpower, friendship is…, fifteen things I want to do in my lifetime, My most proud/embarrassing moment
Evaluation:
Encourage students to write their blog content on a Word document before posting to allow saving in case of an accidental program crash or glitch. Also, some students may be concerned about publishing their imperfect writing samples. Encourage them to do their best, but not to worry too much about perfection. Blogs are a great way to track and record progress over time and likely they will be encouraged looking back at their work over the semester. As with dialogue journals, do not worry about correcting errors, but do make personal comments on the content of the entry. Remember that the goal of this activity is fluency, not necessarily accuracy.
References:
- Blog ideas at Teachers First: http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogideas2.cfm
- Photo writing prompts: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28742976@N08/3729833420/in/photostream