Classroom Blogging: Bringing Together the Academic

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Classroom BloggingBringing Together the
Academic Social Purposes to Students Audiences

• Facilitated by
• Wendy Seger, Cornerstone Literacy Fellow
• 2008 Cornerstone Winter Meeting

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Shift in 21st-Century Literacies

• There has been a shift from a page-based to a
  screen based society. This shift is causing
  drastic change in literacy. Its a different
  way of encountering communication or thought or
  human expression. Out of school and workplace
  literacies are becoming more and more divergent
  from in-school literacies.
• Blogging, instant messaging, podcasts, video
  production, desktop video editing, and graphic
  design are all things kids are going to encounter
  as they move out into the workplace.
• -William Kist, Assoc. Professor, Kent State
  University
• November 2007 NCTE Council Chronicle

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Student WritingEssential Questions

• Why do children write?
• What types of writing are most motivating for
  them?
• How often do we engage our students in writing
  with authentic purposes and audiences?

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For what reasons do children write in school?
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For whom are they writing?...Themselves, peers,
family, teachers, administration, DOE, public
institutions,
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Our Inquiry Questions

• How can we help our students to gain the capacity
  to communicate with 21st-Century literacies?
• How can we bring the academic and personal
  purposes together in the classroom?
• How can we expand the audience for both important
  sets of purposes?

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A Blog is

• A web log.
• form of writing with purpose to an audience that
  is important to the writer.
• done on a webpage available to an audience who
  has access to the Internet.
• interactive for all the participants who log on.

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SegerkidsWriting Project 2005-Present

• A protected blog
• -used a web service
• -available only to those with the user name and
  password
• History of Segerkids blog
• -genre study in year long graduate project
• -intervention group targeting literature
  response
• -class project of new Cornerstone school
• Service fee for blog protection
• -14.95 monthly fee

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Theoretic Framework

• Sociocultural Theory/Language Socialization
• (Bakhtin,1981 Gee, 1990 Gebhard, 1999 Heath,
  1983
• Schieffelin Ochs, 1986 Vygotsky, 1978
  Wertsch, 1991)
• Systemic Functional Linguistics/Genre Theory
• (Christie, 2002 Hasan Perrett, 1994 Halliday,
  1994
• Schleppegrell, 2004)
• Computer-Mediated Language Learning
• (Belz, 2002 Lam, 2004 Ortega,1997 Shin, 2006
  Thorne,2003
• Warschauer, 1999)

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Genre Study

• District Reading Plan for 2nd Grade
• friendly letter, recounts, procedural writing,
  expository writing, reports, persuasive writing
• Genre-based Pedagogy for teaching academic
  genres
• Scaffolding linguistic and structural features of
  genre
• Socially meaningful purposes
• State/ District Standards Writing Standards
  19-25
• 19 Write short accounts of personal experiences
  that follow a logical order.
• 20 Write in a variety of forms of genre for
  different audiences/purposes
• 21 Revising to make the thought clearer, more
  logical, more expressive
• 22 Standard English Conventions
• 23 Organization ideas in a way that make sense
• 24 Research for generate questions and collect
  information
• 25 Assessment Explain why they like certain
  parts of a story

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Study the ExpertsRead Aloud texts included
authors memoirs and other books based on
personal experience.
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Explicit Instruction and Scaffolding (example of
Recount)
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Crafting to Model the Process
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First Draft
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Typing first draftDuring the composing meaning
time of the workshop, students were able to
support each other as they created their first
draft into a Word document.
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The Writing Process

Scaffolding of genre knowledge
Writing on Computers
Feedback in the blog
Posting draft
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Assessing Text
Checklists and rubrics based on the six traits of
writing were designed to support student growth.
These tools were used for peer editing,
formative, summative assessment.
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Crafting LessonCo-constructing language for a
persuasive letter to replace computers
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Segerkids Blog
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Text on the Blog
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Conversation on the Blog

• Students used the blog to
• creating personal identities, maintain
  friendships, communicate with family
• Learn the language of schooling

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Purpose Audience
Among the many comments was one from a professor
who had two computers available from a previous
grant. Another comment came from one of the
parents who would regularly write from her
computer at work.
Mariernis, The is a great letter and I hope
that you get the computers that you guys want. I
think it is a great idea how the Mrs. Seger is
educating the students. We need more teachers
like her. Love your mom. Posted by Mayda
June 06, 2006 at 0135 PM
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Current Blog Applications

• Literature Response Cognitive Comprehension
  Strategy Work

Dear Miss Seger, The story I read was named
Aurthor and the Invisiables. My schema about the
story was the boy sacraficed his life for his
family. Also they needed money to pay the
rent. When I had to give my 100.00 to my mom. I
sacrificed my money so she could have money to
pay the rent. Posted by tywayne November 16,
2007 at 0127 PM I have a lot of schema for the
book named THE BAD BEGINNING. My schema is that
there are three kids. Their house burned down. It
reminds of me because he likes to read and I do
to. Posted by Brittany November 16, 2007 at
0130 PM
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Collaboration among School, Peers, Family,
Community
FAMILIES
SCHOOL

PEERS
COMMUNITYLIBRARY
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Issues

• District technology requirements
• No pictures
• No public access
• No identification of students
• Parent permission
• No Risk (offensive comments, threats)
• Management of computers
• Management of text (posts)
• Monitoring of student comments
• Cost

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Reflection on Inquiry

• The blog does
• Give students an expanded audience
• Provide a venue for school student purposes
• Allow for the development of 21st Century
  expanded literacy
• This Time, Its Personal Elevating Creative
  Discourse Through Student Blogs
• Students recognize and own their progress--not
  only as writers and thinkers, but as group
  members and as directors of their own education.
• -Barbara Ganley
• Lecturer Director of the Project for Integrated
  Expression at Middlebury College, Vermont

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Objective for Participants

• Participate on a blog
• Identify ways this technology could be useful in
  the classroom

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URL

• www.segerkids.typepad.com

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Logging on

• User name segerkids
• Password gerena10d
• Sometimes it is necessary to try to log on
  several times (3 or 4) before success.

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Implications

• Would you use this type of literacy if available?
• In what ways would this technology be useful in
  your classroom?
• What are your possible challenges?

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References

• Collier, L. (2007) The shift to 21st-century
  literacies. Council Chronicle, 17, 4-8.
• Ganley, B. (2007) This Time, Its Personal
  Elevating Creative Discourse Through Student
  Blogs (ASCD website) Retrieved December 1, 2007
  from https//my.ascd.org/login.cfm (search
  blogging ganley).