Small Strokes Big Oaks

Today’s post is a video tutorial that I created to show you, in 5 minutes, the benefits of including blogging in your classroom. Personally, I have been unable to include blogging in my classroom this year because of many reasons, not least of which being because my students’ comfort level with technology is extremely (and surprisingly) low this year, but I have done it in the past, and I know many teachers who incorporate blogging with great success.  Do you incorporate blogging in your classroom?  If so, how?  I’d love to hear some ideas!

Video Transcript (after the break):

This is a presentation about Literacy and Blogging and how blogging might just help you teach literacy in your classroom without your students even knowing it!

Slide 1

Literacy is a big buzzword among the education community now, and in its most cursory definition, being literate means being able to read and write.

As teachers in any subject area, we teach literacy every day.  We read from textbooks and novels, we write journals, we check for understanding, we have the students read directions and assignment prompts, and the list goes on and on.

Slide 2

Like anything important, the concept of literacy has been debated by theorists for a long time.  There can even be entire graduate classes taught about literacy – trust me.  Yes, literacy means reading and writing, but it is much more than that.  For many theorists, understanding literacy is also understanding the situation in which the literacy occurs.

For John F. Szwed in particular, literacy is situational, and each literacy event consists of five parts: the text, or what is being read or written; the context, or under what circumstances the reading and writing is being done; the function, or what purposes and uses the reading and writing served; the participants, or who is involved in the reading and writing process; and the motivation, or what tensions, desires, or needs motivate the writers and readers.

Slide 3

Let’s take a typical literacy event in my classroom as an example here – writing a journal entry about a chapter of a book.  The text is the chapter of the book being read, and the journal entry being written.  The context would be in class because I told the students to write it.  The function of this journal might be to use it as something to start off the class, as a check for understanding, and possibly for some critical thinking.  The participants would be me giving the instruction and grading the assignment, but the student is writing the journal mostly alone.  The motivation then is, for most students, the grade and not much more.

Slide 4

If you add blogging to the mix, you’ll see that this creates a shift in the participants involved in this same literacy event causing a shift in the rest of the parts of the literacy event, particularly in the motivation and the function.  Let’s take basically the same assignment, but put it on a blog.  The text is the same prompt put on the blog, but now students are responding to it and each other in the comments of the blog.  The context is outside of class, in front of a computer where our students already feel very comfortable.  The function is still a check for understanding, but by adding comments and discussion between students to the mix, you’re asking your students to think critically and respond to each other.  The participants are still the teacher and the students, but the students are participating together, simulating dialogue.  The motivation then is not only the grade, but also the desire to be heard, or read, and understood.  This will make the students more aware of how they are writing and what word choice is appropriate in order to be understood by the students.

Slide 5

You add a whole new layer of literacy to this simple assignment just by moving it from a solo journal entry to a group blog.  In order to be understood by their classmates, students must carefully think about their word choices and arguments before posting them on the internet.  Posting a response also makes it more permanent than turning in a five-sentence journal on a half-sheet of paper, which will motivate students to write more.

Slide 6

But here’s the headfake.  You’re teaching your students reading and writing techniques, but you’re also teaching your students critical media literacy.  Students look at material written and published and assume it is true – like Wikipedia for example.  But blogs are like any other media outlet: someone writes them!  And by showing students that it’s OK to disagree with or question something on a blog, you’re also helping them to understand that it’s OK to disagree with or question something they see in the media, and that is a true life lesson worth teaching in any classroom.