change is not for the faint of heart; Barbara had to be willing to learn alongside her students, making
mistakes and discoveries as the year unfolded. There was the technology, the language, the content, and
safety issues to contend with. There was the mobile laptop lab and inadequate wiring with hourly power
outages and bulky furniture and wires to climb over during class. All of these obstacles were trifling
compared to the result. Student w riting on the blog had voice. Students were motivated to write, and they
wrote for a purpose and audience other than the teacher. Over time, as we experimented more with blogs,
students’ response to literature improved in terms of quality and depth of responses. Mini-lessons helped
scaffold students’ entry into the blogosphere will help. Discussions of media literacy and critical literacy
followed. Our understanding of blogging as a genre led to more discussions of audience and more
proofreading of student posts. Overall, we found the blog to be more than an online tool, but the entry
point in thinking differently about our classrooms and students.
Is it hard to implement new practices in your classroom? Definitely. Is it worth it? If our job is to
prepare kids for authentic and contemporary writing and reading, yes.
References
Barnes, D. (1992). From communication to curriculum. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.
Herring, S. C., Scheidt, L. A., Bonus, S., & Wright, E. (2004). Bridging the gap: A genre analysis of weblogs. In
Proceedings of the thirty-seventh hawaii international conference on system sciences (hicss-37).Los
Alamitos: IEEE Press.
Knobel, M. (2001). 'I'm not a pencil man': How one student challenges our notions of literacy 'failure' in
school. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44(5), 404-414.
Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2005). Teen content creators and consumers (No. 202-419-4500). Washington,
D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Leu, D. J., Jr., & Kinzer, C. K. (2003). Toward a theoretical framework of new literacies on the internet:
Central principles. In J. C. Richards & M. C. McKenna (Eds.), Integrating multiple literacies in k-8
classrooms: Cases, commentaries, and practical applications. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Richardson, W. (2003). Web logs in the english classroom: More than just chat. English Journal, 93(1), 3943.
The Missouri Reader
Vol. 33, No. 2
Spring 2009
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