Do This, and Other Advice, on Student Blogging

My Rhetoric students have 3 days left of high school. Not just my class. High school. They spent the year blogging, making roughly 10-12 posts per semester. Some students posted on their own--poems, pictures, random thoughts--and some students redesigned their blogs monthly. They often went from smaller fonts to larger ones, from black backgrounds to white ones, and from posts with one hyperlink to an explosion of images and sounds.

image courtesy of Traci Gardner, flickr

As they wrap up, I've asked them to add two final posts: the first will be a "DO THIS" assignment. They recommend things to their blog readers. A year from now, whether they're still posting or if they revisit their blog, they may really be embarrassed by their recommendations, but for now, this is how they feel. Our categories are as follows:

• Listen to this: (song/album/band)
• Read this: (book/magazine/food labels)
• Watch this: (tv show/movie/your mouth)
• Play this: (videogame/sport)
• Eat this: (food)
• Do this: (diet/overtip/whatever people should do)
• Click this: (a website that is funny/interesting and legal)
• Go here: (a place to visit)
• And always, always, remember this: (your best advice)

I'm letting them have total creative control over how this appears, because that's what I've learned from them about their blogs this year: they want a little structure and a lot of creative control. 

In their end-of-year presentations, we (Hackney and I) asked students to tell the story of their development as a writer, highlighting the blogs and the research paper at some point in that story. When they talked about the blog, I'd say that roughly half of the students discussed finding their writer's voice. I shared this with Hackney, and as usual, he embarrassed me with his deep digital pockets and pulled out an essay from Peter Elbow, and it probably changed the way I'll teach writing next year. That's a conversation for another post.

Their final blog post of the year--taking place in class in the next 3 days--will be a post that will function as a capstone for their year. Hackney is encouraging a "selfie" video, or at the very least an audio recording. I'm just asking for the post, but offering the video as an option. I hope they can summarize their blog, their thoughts, the meaning behind this whole experience. 

In the "Evolution of a Writer" presentations that the students just wrapped up, they posted their presentations on the blogs (see earlier posts from Hackney and me to see our students' blogs). We used them as a host for their Prezi, PPT, Powtoon, or other visual presentation tool. I was really happy with the way that turned out. The embedded presentation doesn't work if you just view it on its own, but we asked the students to be a necessary component to their story. "A presentation should need a presenter." That was the motto we went with.

Since we started this blog with the encouragement of professor and digital mastermind Troy Hicks, telling us it's imperative that we write along with our students, I guess I'll answer my own DO THIS questions:

• Listen to this: My Morning Jacket's Acoustic Citsuoca. Jim James' voice never sounded so beautiful and haunting.
• Read this: "Put Your Hands on 7." I realize, as an English teacher, that I should be recommending Kafka or Orwell, but I really enjoy non-fiction, too. In this case, Mike Newman (no relation)--who runs the Illinois running website Dyestat  blogged in 18 installments last year about the path to his York HS cross country team's run at a championship. As a cross country and track coach, I was obsessed with each installment. 
• Watch this: Moone Boy on PBS. Chris O'Dowd, the Irish cop from Bridesmaids plays the imaginary friend of Martin, a 12-year-old boy. It's all filmed in Ireland. I have to thank Hackney for this recommendation. I have to include NBA playoffs as something else to watch. It's so different than the regular season.
• Play this: Tetris. It's a classic. I'm just sayin'.
• Eat this: steak tacos with cilantro and lime. Casablanca in Joliet makes them better than most.
• Do this: take the Platinum tour at Graceland.
• Click this: I am a writing teacher, after all, so this site covers a burgeoning genre: check out Passive Aggressive Notes.
• Go here: It's not exotic in the sense of requiring a passport, but it's worth a visit: Chicago Botanic Gardens. People might actually get a chance to visit this place. 
• And always, always, remember this: We all make choices. We then have to live with them.

Blog as Storytelling

Prepared is best, but underprepared is always better than overprepared.
— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) February 19, 2014

Newman and I had our students create blogs this year as a way to practice formative writing that accounts for an authentic audience and prepares students for success in summatively assessed writing. For example, if we were ultimately going to write a compare/contrast paper, students would first practice the skills of comparing/contrasting on their blog.

In addition, a key part of the blog assignment is giving students a chance to think about their learning.  The blog functions as a place to practice writing, but it is also used to post summative assignments and reflections. In this way, the blog captures a student's work for the class in one place, provides an authentic audience, and requires other design decisions as students consider the genre of blogging.

Basically, the blog acts as a platform for formative practice and as a hub or portfolio for publishing a student's work from throughout the year.

Our students have done some pretty amazing work. They've designed blogs that show genre awareness, they've practiced the skills for a unit in various ways, and they've created some strong final assessments.

The truth is, though, that if you would have asked me last summer if I thought the blogs would look like they do and that we would have been able to do all of the things mentioned above, I wouldn't have had any idea what you were talking about.