Blog Writing as a Skill for Students

Blog/digital compositions and publishing is a new writing skill that students need to have opportunities to develop.

Blog writing and publishing provides favorable opportunities for students to create, moving their learning to the highest levels of Revised Bloom's Taxonomy, regardless of the content and level of course.


In addition, when students are given the freedom and autonomy to select the direction of their topics, they are more likely to take ownership of their work.  When appropriately connected to the content through prompts or open-ended questions, the students are given venues to take ownership of their learning.

One of the more challenging of the "Four C's" to implement within instructional design is creativity; student-published blogs and digital compositions give students the power to generate and produce authentic work.  Without any doubt, digital communication skills are developed through blog writing and when students can view, comment, and peer-edit each other's work, collaboration becomes embedded within the instructional design.  Teacher feedback has consistently verified student's critical-thinking is appropriately heightened, too, thus meeting all of the "Four C's".

Interesting... Seeing more developed analysis in students' blogs than what they typically give me in essays. Huh.

— Melissa Alter Smith (@MelAlterSmith) September 16, 2016

As they move into a rapidly-changing working environment, many of our students will be required to engage and produce digital media through their jobs and careers.  Blogging and digital publishing is a skill employers will be looking for and it is our responsibility to give students the chances to develop these skills to be Career and College Ready.

In a recent English IV observation, students were being introduced to the creation and development of their own blogs.  Students were asked to share the characteristics and qualities of an appealing blog.  Their initial responses included creativity, organization, original thoughts (of the publisher), specific themes, and grammar.

Interesting to hear that no student believed a blog publisher needed to be an "expert."  Therefore, anyone can compose and publish a blog.

Especially our students themselves.

Thank you for viewing,

CS

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.