Why Blogs?

First semester is almost halfway over, and we're finally ready to post new blogs.  As you're being forced to post blogs and comment on them, you may wonder what point of it all is.  Why are you posting your work to a blog?

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My reasoning behind having students do blogs is threefold.  First of all, it creates a real-world application for your work.  It's one thing if only your teacher, and maybe some classmates, will be looking at your writing.  It's another thing if it's out there for the world to see.  Posting your work on a blog gives you extra incentive to do your best work.

Secondly, your blog is a way to create a portfolio of your work.  Instead of creating a paper portfolio at the end of the school year, your blog becomes a living portfolio which is regularly updated with your work.  You can look back at your blog and see how you've grown and changed as a writer and as a person over the course of the school year or, depending on how long you've been in this class, your high school career.

Finally, having students post blogs and write comments creates a forum for us to talk about writing and see one another's work.  Reading one another's writing will help each student improve as a writer.  It's always interesting to see how students come up with many different takes on the same prompt, and it's both interesting and beneficial to see the though process of your classmates.

For the sophomores and juniors, I'm sure it's been a change from last year not commenting on blogs every day at the beginning of class, but that is not going away completely.  Now that your first blogs are being posted, you will often have a bellwork assignment to read and comment on a classmate's blog.

Overall, your blog should be a safe place to share your work and receive comments and critiques.  Take advantage of this opportunity to show your best work to the world!