March
2009
Classroom Blog4
I am an 8th grade English teacher and am currently contemplating ways to use a blog to enhance my classroom and lessons.
The unit that we just began working on has the theme of Responsibility. The students will be reading four different novels and working in literature circles to complete activities relating to the novels and the theme responsibility. Each day the students are assigned jobs and they work together in their literature circles to complete these jobs. At the conclusion of the literature circles the students complete a Socratic discussion about the books and they also complete an essay. I would like to use the blog in place of the discussion and perhaps even the essay.
In order to accomplish this, I would post the questions periodically throughout the week and the students would have a rubric to follow for their responses. This will allow the students to respond to each other while also working on their writing for a specific audience. A question that I would post would be: Explain how the theme of responsibility is reflected in your novel. Remember to reflect on the main character’s thoughts and actions.
The students would have the opportunity to respond to each other and note similarities and differences among the novels that they read. They also are practicing writing for different audiences, which is a theme in the writing curriculum throughout the 8th grade.
I think that I still have to iron out some details such as more specific questions to ask and a rubric for responses. Any suggestions or recommendations are welcomed and appreciated!
Would this be something that your students would do in or out of class? Do you have computers in the classroom for them to use? If it is done outside of class what about the students who do not have computers or internet access at home? These are some points I have wondered about when considering internet assignments. I think your thoughts about how to use the blog are excellent. It sounds like your content area would lend itself very well to using a blog for educational purposes!
I find your idea for blog implementation very interesting. I also teach English and I wonder if you can modify a standard writing rubric that you use at your school for blogging. You could modify the rubric so that it includes something along the lines of, “responses must exemplify appropriate grammar and word usage as well as evidence of reflection on audience”. You may also want to model a blog post for the students with the new rubric in hand so that they see what each type of response that they may possibly write will earn. You could even post the examples on the blog itself so students could continually rely on them for guidance. I find with my students that when I give them a broad topic or question they may struggle with “how” to answer the question rather than being able to provide a fluid response.
Another concern I could see is that once a student provides a post on a particular novel, other students who have read that same novel may intentionally or unintentionally compose a post that is very similar to their peers. To remedy this I would post a variety of different questions about the novels, and allow students to choose freely which they would like to respond to, so you can receive a wide variety of responses.
I think this is a great idea for a blog and you should implement it.
Thank you both for your responses!
This is something that the students would have to do outside of class since I do not have enough computers in my classroom for the students to be able to do this in school. I already make myself available, for students who need extra help, one day a week after school, so if internet access at home is a problem, they could just stay and complete the post after school.
Modeling a post is a great idea! I have looked at our standard writing rubric and already thought about how to modify it for blogging. How would you control which question the students respond to? If they compose similar responses to classmates, I think that they might do it no natter how many questions are posted. Do you think there is a way to remedy this?
Great idea! If you set it up similar to literature circles then the students have specific roles each discussion so then one question wouldn’t be overloaded. Possibly you could talk with your students and agree on a maximum number of response for each question. This might motivate them to finish the work in a timely manner so they have a choice in with question they respond to. This sounds like a meaningful and appropriate use of blogs!