Blog Day 2

We are really into it now. The students have officially blogged twice - three times if you count their first stating the name of the book and why they chose it. It is getting quite involved, actually. Some people are putting pictures on their blog sites, some are posting photos for their profile pics (I won't let them put actual photos of themselves - no identifying elements). We have worked it out so kids can access their blogs anytime on the school computers, so many are going during study halls. I think a lot of students are having some fun with it. I put up a poll on my page to see how they felt about it, and I am anxious to see the results.

There have been a few times that some troubleshooting was needed. There are some comments going up that aren't really "academic." I feel really out-of-control with these; I can't delete them from anyone's blog - the blogger him or herself has to. I am also fighting the problem of spelling, usage, mechanics. Microsoft Word does so much work for people when it comes to spelling etc. It automatically capitalizes the "I"'s, it will automatically correct the spelling on words, it will do things without the typer even realizing it. The composer on the blogs doesn't do that. It is very obvious on the blogs. Frightening.

I have decided to give 10 points per blog. I am keeping track on a chart of page numbers read and points given per blog. I need to come up with an actual rubric for these. My process so far has involved deducting points for not reading the assigned page amounts (1 point), not answering the question (1 point), and mechanics (1-2 points depending upon severity). I have given topics to blog about. The first blog was : give a physical description as well as a description of each character's personality. Does the author use a direct or indirect method of revealing the characterization? The second blog was: describe the setting - include location, time period, and socioeconomic characteristics.

I guess personally I really like this project. It is taking some organization - which I can always use the practice in - and some time to get everything set up, but I like that I'm not lugging around papers. I can actually give kids a lot more feedback - and much more quickly - than if I write it on thier assignments and try to find time to hand the assignments back. I'm getting information about a lot of books that sound good, too. Now if I only had time to read some of them.

B - Day

No...it isn't my birthday. Today B-Day stands for Blog Day. We jumped right in today and started the blogs. For the first class things went smoothly. The blogs were unblocked and then the kids were able to create their accounts. They went through the set-up and were even able to write their first posts. The problem occurred when they went to view their posts...they were blocked. The IT lady had to get each kid's blog URL and un-block it individually. I am finding that I am creating a lot of work for her, but she is a trooper and is helping a lot.
The kids seem to be more impatient than me. I knew we would encounter problems - most likely with the dreaded "ACCESS DENIED" sign popping up on the screen - but the kids had a very low tolerance for this. Maybe they had experienced this too often before and were tired of seeing it. By the time I was finished with the class, I was in a full body sweat from running around to the students and troubleshooting. Really, though, first period went fairly smoothly. Third period was a whole other story. EVERYTHING was blocked, and Mrs. Johnson hadn't changed anything from 1st period, so she didn't know why it wasn't working the same. The kids were frustrated, and I was worried for a while that we wouldn't get any blogs done for this class. Eventually it worked out, though.
I have started to read through the initial posts, and I have tried to comment on each one briefly. I hope I can find the time to do this after each blogging day; I think it will be important for the kids to see that I am keeping up with their posts. It probably won't occur to them that I have 50 of them to read through. The most shocking thing so far has been the horrible punctuation, spelling, grammar, and capitalization in their posts. So many kids don't capitalize the word "I." I know they know they are supposed to - so why don't they? If I failed to capitalize the word "I" in one of my blogs, I probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night. I guess that is why I am the English teacher.

Check out the students' blogs on the left, and you can judge for yourself how this project is working.

The Assignment

The Literature Blog project has been launched. I was pleasantly surprised at the reception by the students; most seemed to be - well, not excited - but at least no groaning and complaining. The assignment went like this:

English 10 – Literature Blog
Step 1: You will be choosing a book to read. This book should be age and ability compatible (No Junie B. Jones books) and something you haven’t read before (That rules out Harry Potter and Twilight for many of you). It can be fiction or nonfiction. This entire project will require you to read approximately 300 pages (100 pages per week); you may choose a book with at least this many pages or you can plan to read a couple of shorter books. Keep in mind – it isn’t very often that you get to read a book of your own choosing in English class: Choose wisely. You will have no excuse for not wanting to read since you were able to choose your own book.

Step 2: You will be setting up a blog where you will discuss your book. This blog is where you will be graded in this project. You will be graded on the content of your blog as well as on the mechanical engineering of your blog (spelling, punctuation, grammar). You will have class time to work on your blog, but you can also work on it at home or the library if you have access to a computer at these places.
The blog will consist of a summary of what you read, observations and opinions of what you read (Do you like it? Why? Do you NOT like it? Why?) , and occasionally responses to questions that I will supply for you.
You will be creating approximately 10 entries to your blog. We will be alternating days between reading and working in the computer lab.

So…when we come back to school on the Monday following Thanksgiving break, you will need:
• A book to read.
• An e-mail address
• An explanation (at least in your mind) of why you chose the book you did.

The most common questions were "How long will the blogs have to be?" and "Will we have time in class to work on this?" Of course, when we were going over the part where they have "no excuse for not wanting to read," I had one student correct me. His excuse was he doesn't LIKE to read...ANYTHING. Next we went to the library and the kids picked books. I had some kids choose books like Twilight - some had them at home and were waiting for time in their busy schedules to read it. Some chose nonfiction. Most found something they would be interested in. I also had them write down the title of their books and whether or not they have an e-mail address.

I also spoke to the IT lady, Mrs. Johnson. We have several obstacles to beginning the blogs - such as all blogs are blocked at our school. Also, if a student doesn't already have an e-mail address - there were only 2 or 3 - they can't just make one on hotmail or something because those are blocked, too. As of right now, she will have to manually unblock these when we are working on them which requires her to be present at those times. Since she is at a different building every other morning, we have to match our blogging to her schedule. It looks like we won't be able to begin until Tuesday.

My favorite moment so far...when a student asked "Why are we doing this?" I love it when I have an answer - a good answer - for that question. It seems that the new Iowa Core Curriculum includes students reading books of their own choosing AND technology. Oh ya - Iowa Department of Education, you finally gave me something I can use.

Found Time

Here it is Thanksgiving and the English 10 classes are all through my curriculum for the 1st semester. Somehow I came out 3 and a half weeks ahead of schedule. I've been thinking about what to do with this found time. I would love to insert another novel into the 10th grade curriculum, but it's not like I have a bunch of novels lying around waiting for me to have time to use them. We use what we have. (Except for Animal Farm which I refuse to teach because I HATE it.) So what to do? I'm sure that most of the sophomores would be fine with 3 and a half weeks of free-days or movies, but they are just sophomores and can't be expected to understand the gift that this found time is. Usually I am trying to figure out how to fit everything in.

Enter the epiphany.

We are always trying to incorporate more technology into our curriculum, so why not start blogs for the students. Initially, I am feeling pretty proud of myself for this brilliant idea. I am an educational genius. Then I remember that I am much better at ideas than I am with practice. How do I organize 50 students' blogs. How do I grade them? What should they blog about? What requirements will there be? Will these blogs be blocked at our school? Do all of the kids have e-mail addresses? I don't even know how to create a blog myself!

And so...here I am, writing a blog about making my students write a blog. I am often disappointed when I embark on adventures such as this one. I think it will be fun. The students often don't. They are such killjoys sometimes. I guess we will see.