Just another way to get my students to practice their critical reading skills. From our Class Blog:
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My Blog Post of the Week!” Award       So that we are practicing reading critically we are each going to find a blog post that we choose as our “Blog Post of the Week!” As you read others’ posts cut and paste the URL of any post you think is well written onto an Appleworks page that you save as:
“My Blog post of the week of 2-20-09â€Â  ÂDuring our class discussion about what “well written” means, you said: Uses proper English and punctuation, good spelling (at least), explains well and describes well, shows doesn’t tell – as much as possible.
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Then on Friday we will each revisit those posts to select our post of the week. Once selected we will post a comment on that person’s post explaining to them that this is your winner and ALL the reasons why.ÂÂ
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Learning is messy!
Each year at Academy Awards time I do Blogger Awards. The categories are serious and goofy. I leave the meaner awards (Worst Spelling, Most Ridiculous Blog) blank but the kids love to guess who gets them. See them here http://areallydifferentplace.org/node/1569
I’m struggling to find a balance between “requiring” so many posts a week, rewarding for posts, punishing for no posts or just letting it run its natural course. I made a huge effort to teach good blogging and good commenting and as long as I was requiring several posts a week I had a lot of participation–when I dropped the requirement, participation bottomed out.
Hi Nancy. Yeah I know what you mean. So in my class we are constantly getting new posts to write and part of that is so that those students that are more skilled have new things to write about while the students that need more time have it. Some students are in catch-up mode sort of … however the way I handle it is some posts are required while others are handled a bit more loosely. I don’t totally let my students know this however. Then occasionally when we have 30 minutes or more students that have unfinished posts work on those (and I tell them which ones to get done first – the “required ones”) and the others when those are done. Students that are finished get time to read and comment on blogs. It mostly works pretty well. I think you tweak this to fit your situation.
Brian
I love the idea of picking a Post of the Week. This makes me think about why we blog, and why we write. Writing needs to have purpose, and blogging needs interaction, otherwise it may as well be in your writer’s notebook/journal etc.
I think reviewing posts gets us to thinking about audience and content. Beyond looking at other writing, it gives us ideas for our own writing. Isn’t that what good writers do? Plus doesn’t having a simple award like “Post of the Week” get us more invested in the process?
I’m student teaching now, and can’t wait to bring a blog to my kiddos in my own classroom. This idea will certainly come along as the process evolves. Happy blogging and be well!
Pete