There are several inexpensive and
user-friendly options for education
blogs. My classes use Blogger, which is
free and does not require knowledge of
any of the markup languages used to
format text online. Will Richardson’s
book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other
Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (2006)
is an excellent resource for more help.
I used my already-established class
blog for the discussions, creating one
post for each literature circle. Each
circle wrote discussion prompts that
I quickly approved and added to the
comments section of the relevant post
and style; proper mechanics; and “con-
tribution to the learning community,”
which we defined as meaningfully
building on a previous comment or
stimulating the discussion with original
observations or questions. (See the
complete rubric at www.ascd.org/
ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_201009_
kitsis_rubric.pdf.) At the same time,
I reminded my students that digres-
sions, questions, and new directions
are a natural part of real conversations
about books. Eventually, some groups
were able to continue their discussions
without formal prompts, but others
I saw students who almost never
turned in traditional homework
regularly contribute to the blog.
so that students could respond. Another
option would be to create a blog for
each literature circle, with a separate
post for each discussion prompt.
Prompts ranged from general (“Talk
about a moment that stood out to
you”) to specific (“As of page 179, how
is Mother coming to terms with her
own identity?”). Themes that emerged
from both online and offline conversations were later incorporated into final
projects in which the group creatively
shared the book with the rest of the
class.
In the beginning, assignments
were highly structured; students were
required to contribute one comment
between each weekly discussion and
adhere to a limited length (usually
200 words) for each comment. These
requirements ensured that the conversation was not too cumbersome to read
and that no one voice dominated.
I also provided a rubric covering
ideas and topic development, including
the use of evidence from the text; voice
continued to need direction to guide
their conversations.
Benefits for Students
Our students are constantly connected
to one another through what may seem
to outsiders to be a mind-boggling
stream of status updates, text messages, and tweets. Today’s learners
crave immediacy, reacting quickly and
expecting the same from others. They
are also highly social, often preferring
interactive or team-based learning environments (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005).
Social-networking technology can
provide the rapid responses students
value without putting an undue strain
on the teacher.
My students’ level of engagement, a
key measure of how meaningful they
find the work, was high. When I asked
students to share with me their impres-
sions of the assignment, Alex wrote, “It
was interesting to look at the blog right
before going to bed and to see how
my peers had responded to my posts.”
Compare his interest to that of students
we have all seen stuffing meticulously
graded papers into backpacks or
trashcans without a second glance. In
my classes, I saw students who almost
never turned in traditional homework
regularly contribute to the blog.
