Welcome to our fourth week! You’re in for a treat this week as we have a special guest contribution from Linda Yollis.
But before we get to that, let’s take a look at a good starting point for writing and blogging: commenting.
I’ve mentioned before that when your students first start blogging, it can be a wise idea to teach them how to write high quality comments, before moving on to any posting.
You might be comfortable with sticking with a ‘teacher posts — students comment’ framework for the whole year, or you might move on to having students:
- guest posting on the class blog occasionally
- being regular contributors to the class blog
- setting up their own blogs.
There’s no right or wrong here but the important thing is to set your standards high if you want to achieve the best possible outcomes from your blogging program.
But don’t worry if you haven’t set high standards of writing from the beginning and you want to backtrack and raise the bar. This is what I did!
When I first started blogging, I didn’t set any standards for commenting. Guess what happened?
These sorts of comments…
- Your blog is cool!!!!!!!!!
- This class is awesome!!!
- I like your blog 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I recently came across this blog post I wrote at the start of 2010 where I announced that I had decided to raise the bar and improve my approach to teaching commenting. I didn’t realise that I spent 2008 and 2009 without commenting guidelines! It’s funny the things you learn, looking back at your own blog posts.
Seeing what happens when students have free rein is actually interesting. It taught me that high quality writing doesn’t come automatically with age.
I ended up having seven years old who were writing better than a lot of adults just through applying this model…
What's In This Post?
Why Are Comments Important?
You might think posting is the main method of communication through blogging. This is true, but comments play an important role too.
- Comments turn your blog from a static space to an interactive space.
- They allow for back and forth conversation which can lead to a huge amount of learning.
- The fact that comments aren’t instantaneous (like online chat) can fuel deeper reflections, responses, and research.
- Comments allow for feedback, constructive criticism, and the adding of ideas and opinions to the original post. The content can grow and evolve.
- It can be encouraging for students to do their ‘best’ work knowing they have an authentic audience who can connect with them.
- A single comment can be the start of a fantastic working relationship or friendship. You never know where that can take you and/or your students…
Commenting Guidelines
Many of you might already have commenting guidelines. Some people combine these with general blogging guidelines. This is a matter of preference but personally I like to separate the two.
My blog guidelines would provide a general overview of the conduct expected from blog contributors and visitors. The main purpose here was to keep students safe, and keep the blog a friendly and respectful space. Basically, a framework to ensure everyone is a ‘good digital citizen’. Find an old example of blogging guidelines here.
My commenting guidelines are where I would set the standard for high quality writing. I would have a ‘How to Comment’ page with things like:
- a screencast showing how to comment
- written instructions on how to comment
- our commenting guidelines poster
- a tip to copy your comment before publishing
Here is a more recent example of the above from Kelly Jordan’s blog (my former team teaching partner who I still work with as a relief teacher).
You can see my old commenting guidelines poster below. You might like to have your students come up with the content and design of your own guidelines if you haven’t set up something like this yet.
Other Commenting Guidelines
Here are three more interesting approaches to commenting guidelines.
REMINDER: As you know, you can’t copy other people’s work without permission and attribution (saying who it’s from and where it’s from). Feel free to use my work with attribution but make sure you ask others for permission.
1) Huzzah in Canada is a grade 6/7 class that has a more detailed set of commenting guidelines than the ones I used with my younger students. There was more student input into these as well.
2) Sometimes commenting guidelines have more of an academic focus, like these ones from the old English 10 blog.
3) I really like Heather Alexander’s TAG approach. This could be used for any age. TAG stands for:
- Tell them something you like about their work
- Ask them a question
- Give a suggestion
(FYI: Heather is a part of our group)
Rubrics
Another idea for setting standards for commenting, writing, or blogging in general is using a rubric.
Teachers could make this to meet the needs of their class, or students could create their own.
Here are three examples:
- I created a blogging rubric which I didn’t restrict to a certain year level.
- Heather Alexander created this rubric for blog entries.
- Silvia Tolisano shares a blogging and commenting rubric on her Langwitches blog.
5 Ideas To Teach Commenting
So you’ve got the guidelines in place, and maybe even a rubric. That’s a great start, but then how do you actually teach and maintain a high standard of writing on your blog?
- Consistency: Consider spending a couple of minutes each day or a few times a week to focus on commenting as a whole class. You might read comments together, write replies together, and have students come up with constructive feedback. (Allowing students to read out their comments sometimes motivates them to write extra comments at home or in spare time!). I also used to use our whole class blogging time to delegate who was going to take care of certain replies when they had time.
- Mini Lessons: You can embed on-the-spot tutorials into whole class blogging time. Check out some mini lesson ideas I put together with annotated examples.
- Explicit Lessons: Come up with a few more detailed lessons on commenting. For example, I used to give my grade two students some example comments to sort. Older students could find examples themselves and analyse them on a much deeper level.
- Literacy: When you use literacy lessons to teach various conventions (like letter writing, editing, grammar, spelling, punctuation etc.) have students practice these concepts through commenting. If you have literacy rotations, blogging is always an excellent activity station!
- Involve parents: If you’re working with primary age students, you could contact the parents and ask them to write a comment with their child at home. You could send a copy of the commenting guidelines to help educate the parents too.
Let’s Hear From Linda Yollis
Linda Yollis is a 3rd grade teachers in California. I met her though blogging in 2009 and met her in person in 2012. We still stay in touch regularly! Linda has had a huge impact on my teaching and blogging programs over the years.
Over to Linda…
In my 31 years as an elementary educator, I have never seen a project more powerful for sharing classroom learning, making global connections, and building a positive digital footprint for young students than having a classroom blog.
I recommend every classroom teacher consider flattening the walls via blogging. There are so many benefits!
Educational blogging is also a fantastic way to teach and promote high standards for writing. Students want their writing to get published and educational blogging is a great way to leverage that interest.
I have two educational blogs that I use in our learning.
Mrs. Yollis’ Classroom Blog is a public blog where classroom events and projects are published. The comment section is where the blog comes to life. Students and parents interact in this online community.
My second blog is called Yollis’ 365 Blog, and it is a public photo-of-the-day blog.
Students, family members, and other classes throughout the world contribute photos and text. The digital images are used to inspire creative stories, spark poetry entries, and share information and/or personal hobbies and interests.
Learn About Blogging Videos
Below are TWO videos I’ve made to help teachers begin blogging with their students.
1. This is a video made by Mrs. Yollis’ students called How to Compose a Quality Comment! It offers FIVE tips to help take comments to the next level! I use this video to teach students about content.
2. This is a new video made by Mrs. Yollis’ students called Tips to Ensure Quality Blogging. It outlines the rules for participation in our classroom blogs and the agreements the students make when publishing on our blogs.
Thank you, Linda and students. These insights and videos are such wonderful resources. I’m sure they’ll be useful to many of you, no matter what age group you teach, or how long you’ve been blogging!
Final Thoughts
Don’t forget that you need to model a high standard of writing too. Every time you write a post or comment, you should use the same high quality writing that you’d expect from your students outside of your blogging program.
Just because you’re writing online, doesn’t mean standards should be lowered or shortcuts taken.
As Langwitches points out, students need to know the difference between social and academic writing. You are possibly the first place students will look for guidance on their writing style.
Newbie Technical Checklist
We’ve talked a a bit about quality writing but maybe you want to learn more about the technicalities of commenting?
Check out the user guide on commenting.
This user guide has tutorials for moderating and managing comments, changing your settings, dealing with spam comments, and more.
If you want more clarification, just leave a comment below, ask on our Facebook group, or email our support team. We’re here for you!
Your Task
There are a few choices this week. Take your pick!
- CREATE something for your class (or with your class) to promote high quality writing. Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post and share your work! Your creation might be:
- Your commenting guidelines (type them on a page of your blog, or make a poster if you’re keen).
- A rubric for writing standards, or any other aspect of blogging.
- A ‘How to Comment’ page on your blog. Maybe you could add written instructions and/or a screencast that outlines how to comment (Loom is an easy-to-use tool if you’re new to screencasting).
- A lesson or activity to teach your students about commenting.
- Your own idea!
OR
- SHARE and tell us about some ways you already set high standards for writing or teach commenting skills.
OR
- VISIT Mrs Yollis’ class blog and take a look at the post she made for us. You’re welcome to leave a comment on that post and ask her students a question.
AND
- CONNECT … as always you’re encouraged to reply to at least one other person’s comment and/or visit their blog and comment. To the people who have been doing this: you’re amazing!
Next Week’s Topic: Finding images, Creative Commons, and copyright issues.
I’ve used various ways to teach commenting over the years and what works best for me is this:
– students recieve their first comments before atttempting to write their own. These are written by me and are something meaningful, positive and specific to the post, and always adhere to all grammar and spelling conventions introduced in class.
-comments students write to others must be modelled after mine. We co-create a checklist each year that alwalys includes: positive, decent grammar and spelling, and must have something in them that is specific to the post they are commenting on.
-the class is often a part of the approval process for any student comments that appears on a blog. This rewards the writer and in situations where the comment is not approved because it doesn’t meet guidelines, it shows the writer what they need to do differently the next time they comment
– it always seems to take new writers a long time to teach them not to write to and from in a comment like in a real letter!
-I wish there was a way for students to edit a comment after writing. Is there?
Hi Becky,
I love the idea of moderating together!
I’m curious as to why you don’t like students using a greeting a closing? I’ve always been a fan of this style of commenting.
Editing comments… are your students logged in users of your class blog? If so, they should be able to?
I don’t expect a greeting and closing because
A) my students are just learning to type and I’d rather they spend time on comment content
B) it seems redundant when students comment on classmates because the name and avatar of both commenter and commentee appear automatically.
And… I’ll have to explore my settings for more closely for comment edit permissions. Currently I can, they can’t.
I also can’t edit my comments here… that first one I wrote is a mess!
Haha, don’t worry. I didn’t notice. You’re not being assessed on your “high quality writing” 😉
And that makes sense about your greeting and closing too. My mantra is definitely to find what works for you and your students!
Hi Becky,
My students are only starting to comment on their colleagues posts. They are saying “Hi” because often they don’t belong to the same class or year. But I also agree with Kathleen that commenting is similar to starting a conversation, so I would encourage them to greet.
However, I’m a bit scared with their typing speed: two of them took the whole session of 45 minutes to answer a comment from Sue Wyat in English. I could help them with the translation, but they were so slow they even lost their grit and asked me to finish the last sentence, but required the computer back to sign their names!
So, I think they see the act of commenting, in this case, for a foreign teacher, as an act of communication that includes to adress someone and sign with your name, to make it personal.
On the other hand, when I was a teacher and my students commented freely in our pb wikis, they would sound much more familiar and playful, as we assumed the wiki as our private playground, or the “backyard” of our blog. The comments were open just to the students, not to the whole world. They never were impolite, but they were very informal and didn’t follow a structured writing as I ask them to follow on the blog’s comments.
Ines
I work as an Elementary School Librarian and do not have a blog of my own. One of the “menu choices” my students can choose from once they finish book selection is to explore Linda Yollis’ blogs. My kids particularly love her 365 blog due to all of the fabulous photos!
I do not allow my students to comment during library because we generally only have about 10 minutes for book selection. I want the students’ comments to be the high quality that I model for them in our 3 lesson mini-blogging unit. One of the lessons I teach focuses upon the elements of a high quality comment. I created a PowerPoint slide show with “sample” comments – all of which can be improved upon. Some are quality in content but may be lacking in other areas (missing the greeting/closing, too many exclamation points, grammatical errors…). Other comments are poor quality and lacking in content. Students read the comment and give it an overall “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” rating. I then elicit from students what improvements could be made to the comment. It’s amazing how much constructive feedback the kids can provide to improve upon each comment!
I only see my students once every 8 days, so I offer some “Blogging Buddies” opportunities over the students’ recess time. Interested students from a particular homeroom (there are eleven sections of 4th grade!) meet with me in the library and collaboratively write a quality comment. I choose the post ahead of time so that I can select a post which does not yet have any comments. We don’t have the time to read through previous comments to ensure that we don’t repeat what others have already said.
I am the typist as the students compose the comment. I have found that the ideas flow more smoothly when the students are not struggling with the typing. As students talk among themselves to suggest strong vocabulary, there is a lot of revising going on. I let the kids do all of the talking, and I simply record their thoughts and their revisions. It takes about 20-25 minutes from start to finish to compose a quality comment of 2-3 paragraphs. When the kids see the final draft of their comment on the screen right before I post it, you can sense their pride in their work 🙂
This year, I wanted to encourage students to independently comment on the Yollis 365 blog from home, but I wasn’t sure how to manage this close to 275 4th grade students. My fear was that when working from home, my students would neglect to include the elements which make a high quality comment. Linda guided me and helped me to create a blogging permission slip. On this slip, I included all of the elements we discussed in class which must be included in a quality comment. Students interested in blogging from home must get the permission slip signed, and a parent/guardian/adult must proofread their comment before the student posts it. So far this year, I’ve had about 25 permission slips returned, but only a few students have taken the initiative to blog from home. The students like meeting in blogging buddies groups at school but are more reluctant to work independently at home. As they become more familiar and comfortable using Google Drive, my goal is to encourage students to work collaboratively on a shared Google Doc. For anyone who is feeling frustrated, remember that there are always opportunities to revise and improve. I’ve tweaked my blogging lessons several times over the years, and I imagine I will continue to do so in the future 🙂
Sallyann
Thanks for sharing your journey with classroom blogging, Sallyann.
I also love Mrs Yollis’ 365 Blog and can see lots of potential for using such a idea as a prompt for creative writing and journaling in my classroom. You mentioned typing. I was wondering whether your students use a keyboard or a tablet? I’m not a “digital native” and learnt to type on computer keyboard (those big clunky ones). I suspect that most of our students’ first contact with a keyboard is on a mobile phone or tablet device. Do you think this has an impact on students’ typing skills?
Keep up the great work!
Donella from Australia 🇦🇺
Great question regarding typing skills, Donella! I am wondering about this too!
Hi Donella,
I would say that lack of exposure to an “old clunky” keyboard has had a big negative impact on students’ typing skills. Most can’t really type at all! Many grammar schools in the US no longer teach a structured typing course, and by high school bad phone and tablet habits are impossible to correct. Those that have been exposed to genuine typing and have had some practice show a huge increase in speed and dexterity over students with simple texting or video game exposure. This is a tremendous advantage moving onto college and also some business careers.
Sallyann,
Have you thought about having students use Google Docs with the speech to text feature? I used that a lot with my graduate classes. I found it useful to keep the thoughts flowing and that if I wanted to go back and look at it (or Blackboard died and deleted everyone’s work) it was saved in another place. Just a thought.
Sara
Dear Sallyann,
I enjoyed reading about your efforts in dealing with so many students, and your blogging buddies groups sound like a great strategy, so I was not surprised to read that students “like” meeting in those groups. But I do wonder if those at home are really more reluctant “to work independently”, or if their reluctance has more to do with the fact “a parent/guardian/adult must proofread their comment before the student posts it.” Even now, decades beyond the 4th grade, the mere thought of having my father proofread all my comments raises my stress level. Your blogging buddies groups are probably less judgmental than a lot of parents are – another point in their favor.
Commenting is what we have been working on in class! Last week I had the students do a “Table-top Text” discussion about “What make’s a good comment.” They wrote back and forth. Then we shared our ideas as a whole class. The kids made really good points such as “A good comment is positive,” “A good comment keeps the conversation going,” etc.
At this point I read them one of my posts. In pairs they were asked to write one “good” comment that fit our class criteria for a good post. I actually had some really good comments handed in that day.
Tomorrow, I am going to start the lesson by having each student write a “good comment” on that same post to practice further. This way they get to apply what they learned on the actual blog. We can then at a later date go through the comments and see who did comments that were easy for me to respond too, positive, thoughtful, etc.
This is my first time teaching this, I am excited to read what others have done to teach commenting. At this point my students have been commenting on each other’s work but I just want to do more direct teaching of the concept.
We have been working on commenting to student blogs this year, I have been increasing the requirements each time they must comment. I try and post a model comment before I ask the students to read through the posts and comment. I adapted commenting guidelines for my students at added a page to the class blog http://mrsalsclasses.edublogs.org/commenting-guidelines/
Later this week or early next week my Honors classes will read a post on my blog and comment on the story. I believe I need to add a few guiding questions for them, especially since I will be at a state conference and not in my classroom. The post is located here http://mrsal.edublogs.org/2018/02/04/pittsburghs-bomber-mystery/
I will work on the assignment throughout the week before I roll it out to the students.
I think this guide will be very effective for your students! I like how you pulled a few things from the great resources in this week’s post to create guidelines that fit your students’ needs. I also like that you kept it short and to the point. I also find that if my guidelines get too lengthy, I can lose my audience!
Nice job blending the TAG guidelines with Kathleen Morris’ graphic. Also, kudos to you for the thoughtful compliment about their work.
Week 4: I will share one idea I have for encouraging high quality writing. As I was looking at all of the great resources shared this week, I thought that a good place to start with students might be to have them view a variety of quality classroom blogging sites. Then, allow them to use FlipGrid to make a short video telling what they noticed on these blogging sites that made them high quality. Then, compile these into a class video or poster of our own. I know that by allowing students to explore, they will be able to come up with most or all of the important things…but if they discover these on their own, they will have more ownership, and a higher likelihood of remembering these and implementing them when they get their own blog! And if there are any items they miss, I can always prompt and guide to make sure these are covered before setting them loose to post and comment.
Jennifer,
I like that you are allowing your students to explore other blogs. I think this is a great idea because they can develop their own ideas about high quality writing. This will encourage them when they begin to write their own posts.
What an excellent idea, Jennifer!
So your students are actively involved and discovering themselves,
which is the most important, in my opinion.
Thanks for the all info! I am learning a lot through this course. I teach college level composition, and this is my first semester requiring my students to keep a blog.
The interactive nature of blogging, which involves responding through comments and feedback, is a big factor in why I decided to begin blogging with my students.For all my assignments that require comments (not just blog posts), I have always mandated a minimum word count. But this requirement along didn’t always amount to quality comments (just more words to meet the minimum requirement). I require students to proofread comments and posts for correct spelling and grammar, but I also want their comments to engage with the writer and the topic.
This morning I left my own comments on several of my students’ posts, and my comments are models of what I would like a comment to be. I got a chance to really see what they have been doing over the past week–I am letting my students blog about what topic interests them, and I am seeing some good results so far. Students are beginning to discover others in class who share similar interests or experiences, and this naturally prompts some eager interaction. They are also learning (and I am too) from others about many random topics of interests.
I like the idea of creating a page on the blog specifically for leaving comments, which will include the following guidelines (Credit to Heather Alexander for the TAG approach):
Guidelines for Leaving Quality Comments:
TAG approach to commenting
-Tell them something you like about their work
-Ask them a question
-Give a suggestion
Proofread your comments for spelling and grammatical errors
Don’t reveal any personal information in your comments
Leave a comment that is relevant to the topic in the post
Constructive criticism is welcome, but comments that are bullying or use abusive language will be removed.
Be encouraging, never negative.
I’m going to add more to this
I really like the acronym TAG. That would be really helpful to younger students who may struggle with remembering what they are supposed to do.
Hi!
I really like the acronym, TAG, too. So simple and effective. I used it with great success with my first graders last year.
What is ‘college level composition’; I’m thinking it must be music or English?
Cheers!
Upon discovering Mrs. Yollis’ commenting video 5 years ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDVSw54VU1A) as a 6th grade ELA teacher I used it to teach my students how to give good feedback. I still highlight that video in any workshop session or presentation I give about providing feedback with writing in general or blogging. Those are the cutest 3rd graders I’ve ever seen (although they’re probably in high school now and cringe at the videos)! The rule of thumb for commenting includes:
-compliment them on something they’ve done well
-offer a bit of constructive criticism (mostly looking at grammar rules)
-make a connection (if they can) to something the writer wrote about
-ask them a questions that would assist them in extending their writing.
These worked wonderfully! When we initially started, I added all students to a shared Google Doc of my writing and they practiced each of those tip one by one. Our feedback rules were posted on a flip chart within the room and glued into their writing journals. It made a world of difference in the quality of feedback that was received!
Hi Mrs Jeff – thanks for sharing your approach and reflections. The bullet point list you’ve provided here looks so useful that I am going to use it to further prepare my own international school year 3 class to comment on our own class blog, which will go live in the next few weeks (once permission slips have been returned) and will mainly begin as a showcase for their own work. Thanks again, Ms Min.
I updated my blog… It is a great journey this blogging course! I learned new and useful things and I’m eager to start second semester next week and apply the things I had learned. http://mrschristina2018.edublogs.org/comments-guidelines/
P.S. I hope it is no problem that my posts appears under two names (Cristina Elena Voicu & mrschristina2018)… It appears the same profile picture…
Hi Cristina,
That’s no problem about your display name. Thanks for pointing it out so people realise. 🙂
You’re off to a great start with your blog. Keep it up!
I find your work great. I would have so many things to say but doing it in a proper English it is not easy. I mean the topic is too advanced for my language skill.
I’ ve left behind my blog because my principal had the nice idea to change the school website and that work takes me a lot of time.
Anyway, in my experince commenting is the hardest things in blogging. My students have just began writing simple posts about the work we do. And I’m asking them to write comments on each others post but none of them has begun yet. Maybe they are too shy.
I ask them to write comment with:
1. compliment about the schoolmate work;
2. give some idea about the topic and suggest
3. try not to use some kind of Whatsapp language and shortcut
4. to be polite
I teach a pratic subjet, restaurant and bar service, so writing is not my first goal. But I believe that blogging or building a site is an important goal to achiave and important for future work.
Great post your about digital citizenship, I have translated it and if you authorise me I will post it on our school blog.
I hope you can understand my thoughts.
I really like the TAG idea. I work with 3rd through 5th grade students in Music and I think that would be an easy way for them to remember what they need to do. We use Google Classroom and the students are ALWAYS commenting on assignments, but it is usually something like “what’s up?!”, “Hey, so – so”, etc. I think I may start using the TAG acronym for that also! I am slowly working up the courage to publish my blog for my 5th grade class. I think I just have to hit “Publish” and go with it!
Have you hit publish yet, Lynn? 😉 Go for it! Linda Yollis used to say that she almost broke out in a cold sweat when she was about the hit publish. It can be nerve wracking! But you can always fix things up once you hit publish anyway.
I hear ya about the casual/social comments. Some say those sorts of comments are due to social media but I just think it’s a natural thing. Even when I was teaching grade 2 and 3 about 10 years ago (when social media definitely wasn’t a factor), they’d default to that sort of commenting without any guidance.
Good luck!
Hi Everyone! This week my y3 class (and our school) took part in Safer Internet Day by making superhero posters who offered advice on staying safe on the internet. We tied this into commenting by first using a click-through story about unkind commenting called “Three Little Monsters and the School Competition” (aimed at younger children) prepared by the UK Safer Internet Centre. We then talked about what makes a good, bad or useful blog comment. We reminded ourselves of what makes a useful critique using the story of Austin’ s Butterfly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqh1MRWZjms) and were then ready to try commenting ourselves.
As we don’t have more than the teacher computer in our room, we used post-it notes as our comment boxes and put comments on the superhero posters they’d made. We then reflected on the effectiveness of our comments and related this to commenting in cyberspace.
I then showed them the skeleton of our class blog and I made a comment on it with their direction. I then showed them how, as an administrator for the blog, you can review, allow or block comments. Permission slips for our class blog went out this week also, so things are falling in place for the students to comment on our blog ‘for real’. (It is a private blog at present, viewable only with a password, due to the demographic of our school and the level of parental concern about protecting the identities of their children and minimizing digital footprints).
All of this would not have happened without my participating in this course.
OMG! I just discover a great blog! It is so inspirational for me because I teach History and I’m interested to motivate my students, to find ways to make students not only to learn history but to love history. https://year7historygr.edublogs.org/
This blog it is really amazing! So happy! I’m going back to click more on it…
Hi Cristina,
This is one of Roslyn Green’s blogs. You can read her blogging story here http://betterblogging.edublogs.org/2018/01/31/blogging-story-roslyn-green/
I agree. It’s fabulous! And what a wonderful feeling it is when you find a useful resource online. 🙂
I’ve been using blogging for my high school Media Literacy class, and have been extremely pleased with the results. I assign an article or blog post for students to read once a week, and then direct them to my blog to read my posts about the same article. They are to comment on the post. The first week, we included a mini-lesson on appropriate commenting which involved watching a couple of youtube videos (I believe one of them was Mrs. Yollis’ class!), from which I created a rubric. Comments the first week were a start, but left a lot of room for improvement. But I have seen tremendous growth in the weeks following. To be honest, I am getting more meaningful thoughts from my students about the content than I have for a long time through traditional essay-writing. They are discussing the content, and being critical thinkers. Ironically, it has been more of a conversation than we have face-to-face! My plan is to gradually release responsibility for posting to the students. I wanted to model the type of writing I was looking for, and also to give them practice at appropriate commenting before I let them loose. I feel confident that they will be ready to have their own blogs by the end of the year. And because I teach all the English classes in our small Christian high school, I will be all set to continue blogging and growing with them next year as well!
I have a “Blogging Expectations” page on my classroom blog. It is a bulleted list of what I expect from students on a daily basis and every time they blog. It is a “living” page as the requirements have become more strict as our school year progresses and the students abilities improve. You can see them here:
http://mrmccraysclass.edublogs.org/blogging-expectations/
I have really taken on a great deal this year, as my administrator has been really supportive and loves what she has witnessed in my class. I have applied for the pilot program through CampusPress and will be spearheading the implementation through at least the rest of the school year. If any one has done this or knows the ins and outs of it any support or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Keith,
I really like your blogging expectations and I love the fact that this is a living document too. I’ll have to remember to share your example in future.
How fantastic your administrator has taken note of what’s happening in your classroom. I know a lot of people would be envious of that sort of support!
Amazing you’re going ahead with setting up a CampusPress program too! How widely are you looking at extending this? Across your school or other schools too? 🙂
Good Morning Kathleen!,
Thank you for your kind words on our expectations! I really did luck out with my administrator this year. It is her first year in the building and everything I have come to her with she has given me her full support! I have had previous administrators tell me that they support me but she is actively campaigning for my room and recognizing our accomplishments! She knows I want to move up and expand my sphere of influence and she is doing everything she can to help me make it a reality! Right now I am looking at just implementing it in my school. I am at an intermediate school in Maryland (Grades 3-5) but we have over 450 students in our building. If I can successfully execute it in our building then it provides me with a solid foundation to present it to our Central Office and look at getting it into all 27 of our elementary schools in the county!
What an exciting time for you, Keith!
You could definitely set up an excellent model to encourage the program to spread more widely.
I look forward to following your progress and while I haven’t personally set up a school wide program (I would have loved to) I’m happy to help if I can! Hopefully others have some insights to add too.
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen,
I think this might be my favourite week of blogging so far. Such an interesting and useful post! I really loved looking over the Mrs Yollis’ blog and her students’ fabulous videos! Thank you so much for sharing!
This week, I have commented on Mrs Yollis’ classroom blog. I’m keen to check out her photo blog but I haven’t quite got there yet. I have also posted a TAG poster on my own blog, for when the children begin commenting. We haven’t started that yet as we have only been back at school one week, but I’m really keen to jump into as soon as I can. Hopefully in Week 2!
I really loved the idea of ensuring that the students can type! That is something that I’m going to work on.
Just going back to Mrs Yollis’ video, are we allowed to share it with other teachers who are not doing the blog course? I felt that it really highlighted the benefits of blogging, and I would love other teachers to see it.
Thanks again for a terrific course!
Kirsty
Hi Kirsty,
So happy to hear you enjoyed this week’s topic!
Definitely feel free to share Mrs Yollis’ video. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve been posting it on Twitter and I even put it on The Edublogger yesterday. I think a lot of people will enjoy it.
I’d love to see your TAG poster too! 🙂
Sorry! I meant to post the link to my blog with the poster. Here it is: https://blog.seesaw.me/1n2018
Love it! Thanks, Kirsty. It’s fabulous how versatile the concept of TAG is from the youngest learners right up to upper secondary school.
Hi Kirsty,
Love your TAG poster – it is such useful acronym, easy for students to remember, too.
Thanks,
Sue
This week has also been challenging as it’s the 2nd week of the year (1st full week) but I’m glad of some wins.
We’ve only had access to our iPads this week so many classroom expectations have needed to be established.
***I did get an enthusiastic student to post a story she wrote on our blog.
This prompted a little more interest in commenting. I’ve had many students look at our blog when at home but none have braved a comment as yet.
This coming week we will do a lesson on peer feedback and blog comments to begin to create our commenting guidelines. We may make a video about this or an interactive. Sorry I’m feeling behind with this task.
During this process I intend to use the post it notes first then move onto posting on the blog. Thank you for the tip on the post it’s … I’m not sure of the origin.
Some further hurdles I have are some very low ICT skills with my grade 3s.
**Also a question, how do I get around the short term problem of the grade 3s who don’t have email accounts set up for them yet?
I really want them to have the success of seeing their comment in print on the screen!
I am also really keen to have my grade follow Ms Yollis class as they are similar age and doing amazing things! They’ll be watching their video on blog comments this week!
**My win was a fantastic comment by the student’s parent on her story! With little information sent home about our blog on how to comment her post was spot on.
Please add comments or view our blog
http://msbspecihill.global2.vic.edu.au
I am really enjoying this course and it’s helping me find creative ways to integrate blogging into teaching and learning (in the most challenging times of class set up in a new classroom and year level.) It’s actually setting the tone for this to be an everyday practice.
Another question and win I have is our new Chinese language teacher is keen to use our blog and I was hoping to install that google translator widget? If anyone has some tips on this it may save me a lengthy trial and error journey.
Have a great weekend
Felicity
Hi Felicity,
This time of year is always pretty exhausting. I bet you have a long to-do list!
I saw the story on your blog. How fabulous. To make it even clearer that this is the work of a student you could write “Guest Post By CB: The Mystery Cave” or something like that as the title. Or do a sentence in bold or a different colour at the start of the post to say it’s a student’s work. Just a suggestion!
The students might get more more interested in commenting at home when they’ve had a bit of practice at school. Using post it notes is an excellent idea too. I haven’t tried it myself but I know lots of teachers said it worked brilliantly.
Don’t worry, students don’t have to have an email address to comment. Just go into settings > discussions in your dashboard and untick the box that says commenters must enter a name and email address. Instructions are here if you need more help with that https://help.edublogs.org/discussion-settings/
Alternatively, some classes have their students use a class email address. Personally, I used to find it easiest just to turn off the requirement to put in an email address but I did have a class email address for the purpose of commenting on other class blogs that did require an email address (for example, if you wanted some kids commenting on Mrs Yollis’ class blog down the track, it might be a requirement that they enter an email address).
Good idea adding the Google Translate widget. These instructions should be pretty simple to follow but let me know if you need help! https://www.theedublogger.com/2014/06/23/how-to-add-a-google-translate-widget-to-your-blog/
Hope that helps a bit 🙂
Hi there,
When reading this week’s post, I was very interested to see your old commenting guidelines poster Kathleen – my blogging guidelines were very similar, but I love the way you have yours set out – I am not as creative, but would like to use your model to make a poster for my students if I may? I was happy to see that I was on the right track.
This week I plan to create a lesson for my Year 5 and 6 students, to start with, on how to write a quality comment. I would like to use the video from Mrs Yollis’s class, I think that their 5 tips would be great way to introduce the concept of quality writing. Before we actually attempt to comment on the blog, we can practise writing comments in our books, and see how we go. The students can share their comments with each other, and ‘post’ responses in their books.
I may then have to revise my Blogging guidelines, taking into account the difference between blogging and comments.
Sue
Hi Sue,
You’re very welcome to use my model! I’m glad to hear you found it useful.
Let’s know how your lessons goes. I’d love to hear. I hope your students enjoy Linda’s video too. Sometimes it can be powerful to have other students share a message.
Good luck for the week ahead. It sounds like you have an excellent plan in place!
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen,
Had terrific response to the video, it generated very valuable conversation with the students in Years 5 and 6. Our lesson followed about the type of language to use in comments to create quality writing.
Next week I plan to build on what we have started, practising written comments in our books, sharing and responding in small groups. We only have an hour for lessons, the time flies!!
Sue
How exciting! So glad it went well and the conversation was flowing. Your plan for next week sounds perfect too!
Hi Everyone,
As I’ m just beginning to introduce some of my students to the art of commenting, I chose to write a post about how to encourage high quality writing.
http://stora.edublogs.org/2018/02/10/encouraging-high-quality-writing/
Although I’m keeping my goal to turn our writing workshop blog into an interactive blog, I understand that what is at stake in my school is a kind of “culture transformation”. As I’ m not teaching but tutoring, my colleagues turn to me as a pioneer who will introduce them in the art of blogging, mainly technically. Only afterwards they will have the chance to initiate their own students and integrate blogging both in the classroom and in the curriculum.
The true results will be visible only by then. In the meantime, I’m receiving poetic works written by 60 7th graders whose their teacher gave me to put into a blog and make them a surprise when they will be back from our week break.
Hopefully, it will be a good motivation for the students to start commenting on one another’s texts.
Ines
Hi Inês,
Your activities and strategies are fantastic … and sweet 🙂
Congrats on your post.
Alexandra
Hi Ines,
I enjoyed reading your post. You’ve got some great ideas to get the students using their imagination and you sound so supportive of all your students. Even though I work with high school students, I have a number who are English language learners or who struggle to express themselves. I can see some of your ideas might be helpful for my students as well. I am also the first teacher in my school who is using blogging and hopefully if I’m able to get good results, the other teachers might have a go too. All the best for this year. Jen.
Hi from Portugal,
I’ve just finished my first round on week 4. Juggling schoolwork – now testing and grading time – family issues and this TDC has not been easy, but giving up doesn’t belong to my vocab list, especially when it’s something I really love.
In my first round, I read week four post, watched the videos and then commented on Linda Yollis’ class blog. In what concerns my own blog, I decided not to write a blog entry but to add a page providing the info on quality commenting I consider essential at this stage. Here is the link
http://teacheralexsoure.edublogs.org/how-to-comment/
Hopefully, I’ll get some more feedback this time 😉
Best wishes,
Alexandra
Having a page with details on how to comment is so important and a great reference for everyone using your blog. I love how you included the video and graphics for those people who like/need the visuals.
Hi Stef,
Thank you for your feedback. I’m a very visual learner and being a foreign language teacher (and lifelong learner) I’ve come to rely a lot on visuals. I tend to use them a lot, and intentionally from fellow teachers, to show pupils I’m not alone in my crusade, that my worries and goals are shared by peers around the world. Based on those materials and adapted to our own reality, I create my own resources.
Best wishes for your blogging programme,
Alexandra
Happy Sunday afternoon fellow bloggers. This week has been very busy with back to school here in Tasmania. I have added most of my secondary students to the class blog and sent them their logins and passwords so they can get started this coming week. I think I’m probably going to have some issues being a bit unstructured and as I’m not at the campus of most of my students, doing all this remotely may prove a bit tricky, especially since none of the teachers overseeing the class have blogged before!
With that in mind, I will be directing them to visit by Why Blog, Blogging Guidelines and Quality Commenting pages/posts. I work in an LMS so will be asking them to respond after they have visited. I’ve already made a few videos explaining why we are blogging and how it makes up part of their course. I hope this will ensure that we are all on the same page. I wrote the Quality Commenting page today after reading the wonderful Week 4 post. http://mrshowellonline.edublogs.org/2018/02/11/quality-commenting/
Have a wonderful week.
Jen
I like the idea of making videos, especially if you are not on the campus with your students. It brings you to the front of the class and they learn so much. Our students are so social media driven that using something they can relate to is a great idea. Also, you mentioned that the teachers that are on site have not blogged before, so what a great way for the teachers and students to learn together, one group modeling for the other group. I always find it so important to make sure that the students know I can learn as much from them as they can from me. A great learning experience. Good luck with your blogging.
Because my blogging experience has primarily been with first and second year students in primary school, I’ve generally done a lot of typing (or parents have done the typing) for students. However, I like to use that time to explicitly model with students how to craft a high quality comment. It’s particularly useful for students with little-no prior writing experience because we read a post or comment together then have a discussion around what we want to say in response. Then we relate it back to our text type writing and how we craft a letter to someone with a greeting/closing.
This year I will be creating a poster with my students about how to write a high quality comment – I don’t have an example now because I want to do it with my students and we’ve only just introduced the class blog. Fortunately, I have a few siblings of older students I’ve taught prior and have trained them well so it makes it a bit easier having a few students and/or families who already know the expectations. I also want to give them more practise at commenting during the year, possibly through reading groups, so we shall see!
I spent some time this week going through MIT’s commenting guidelines with my mentor teacher. Not only did we learn a new word – egregious – but we also found the best way to describe commenting guidelines to parents was to be clear and unapologetic that this is for the students and their learning and not a forum to berate and belittle other parents. This was a great task for begining a blog with a class and when you have never considered the importance of reminding people of manners in online comments!
Hi Kirsten,
Thanks for sharing the MIT guidelines and here is the link in case anyone else would like to take a look. https://www.technologyreview.com/about/commenting-guidelines/
I love the way these are set out. Visually, it’s really easy to read and to the point!
I had never heard of the word egregious either so I’m glad I’m not alone there.
I agree with you about being unapologetic and clear in your approach. This will really benefit everyone.
Great work, Kirsten 🙂
Love these. Adding the link to my page!
Thanks!
Kirsten, I love the idea of being clear and unapologetic. It definitely is about the students’ learning and, quite frankly, nothing else. I teach in a very small community, and nasty comments can be quite damaging (and spread very quickly) if they get out there. I think I will definitely adopt your approach. Great idea!
The first time I had my students comment on my blog, even after watching Mrs. Yollis’ youTube video about appropriate commenting, a few of my students made inappropriate comments. They were very unhappy with me when I graded them accordingly, but it created a teaching moment. I like the encouragement to be unapologetic– I also have a very small school, and we have had trouble with inappropriate comments and emails already. We need to hold the standards high with our students so that they will know where the boundaries are. Incidentally, on the next assignment, we had one of the most positive “discussions” of the past five years of teaching. While kids these days don’t seem to want to share their ideas face-to-face, they do seem eager to comment online. As long as they know what is expected of them, I forsee this being a great mode of discussion in future.
I keep the rules to a minimum with my students. We are just beginning a class blog, so this assignment is timely. I designed a poster in Adobe Spark that addresses the main points I want to review with my guys. I like the poster a lot and may print it for the wall too! I also have a link to a Padlet I use for netiquette in a couple of places. Here is a link to the post. Short and sweet! http://mrseddinger.edublogs.org/2018/02/12/commenting-guidelines/
I love this poster! (I also love Adobe Spark… but that’s just a side note). I think it is great that you let the students print it as a constant reminder in their notebook. Until those rules are stuck in their hear, it’s nice to bring them up every time! Thank you for sharing.
I am not yet ready to introduce my students to my blog. I don’t think I have worked it out properly yet. When I do though, I really like the idea of having different pages dedicated to different skills, as Roslyn Green said that she does for her German class. I am imagining a Vocabulary page, a grammar page, a spelling page, a punctuation page and a comprehension page (I am an English teacher!). I think this would be a great way to have all of the rules and strategies in one area for students to look back on when they need it. I also think it would be good for some parents, as we have some parents with low-level literacy who find it difficult to help their children.
Eventually, I would like to use these pages to set weekly homework, focusing on different skills each week, with their homework posted in the comments. All of my students have devices that could access the blog at home. They are often glued to their devices so they may be more motivated to complete their homework on them! I would have success criteria (or perhaps a little rubric) attached to these tasks, depending on what I expected from them. We would have lessons focusing on how to achieve those success criteria (and how to actually post). I think I would start with a paper-based activity, so that they are concentrating on the content of their comments. I would have a range of workstations where the task/post is written on a piece of paper on a display board/window/wall, and they would construct their comment/s and stick them up around the original post. We could then look at the success criteria/rubrics and peer assess a variety of comments. We would then graduate to doing this process again online.
I have created a very short commenting guidelines page. It is not so much about quality comments just yet, as I think I need to set the rules first. http://missbarnewall.edublogs.org/commenting-guidelines/
Hi missbarnewall,
Your commenting guidelines perfect! You have managed to get your expectations across in a clear and direct manner. Short and Sweet and very effective.
Well done!
Kae Cunningham
We have introduced a formal approach to editing. Students self- edit and peer-edit their writing. They have a uniformed set of symbols we all use to ensure that their meaning is understood. Teachers are grading their papers using the same symbols. We have spent a lot of time talking about fair editing and how to edit a peer’s paper. The students enjoy editing their own work and with practice are picking up on more aspects of their writing. I have found they are significantly better at editing when they print their work, then on a tablet or computer. We are looking at how to increase these skills online.
http://adventuresmedialiteracy.edublogs.org/sample-page/
I started looking at the sample commenting rubrics and pages and got overwhelmed. This is my first year teaching Media Literacy. At my school, it is an elective course that is only offered to the high school (and I can’t remember the last time it was offered), instead of being taught incrementally through all the grades. It is something that we need to work on. For now, my students watched Mrs. Yollis’ youTube video about appropriate commenting, and I have created a checklist from that. I want my expectations to be much more dynamic in the future, but it is a start.
I visited Heather Alexander’s blog. I really liked the sentence starters. They line up with accountable talk anchor charts our students refer to during group work. Since I’m just beginning a blog I haven’t had kids comment yet. I’m still at the stage of getting permission slips back.
I would like to create the commenting guidelines with the students. Perhaps do some type of activity where they analyze a variety of comments and also look at other blogs to see their guidelines. As a group, we could then figure what will work for our purpose.
I don’t want to just post guidelines, I’d rather work through the process. That alone is challenging due to the pressures of curriculum coverage, testing prep, and so forth with limited class time available. I would like to get creative and have them complete some type of homework assignment they will need to bring to the table at school. This could save some time and introduce students to the importance of meaningful commenting and why commenting is needed. A work in progress!
Actually working as a group to create the blog guidelines is the best. Every classroom is different and blogs are created for specific purposes, so I like this approach. Furthermore, students get involved in the process of setting a blog. A good idea is to show them good and bad examples of comments so they can decide what should and shouldn’t be included in a comment. They can discover by themselves the blog guidelines.
Catlin Tucker http://catlintucker.com/ has some good resources pertaining to discussions. Most of these would work for blog writing as well https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0Bzs4f_wo9QnoZ2JLOWpDZTUtaWc?usp=sharing
For Week 4 , I have been rewriting my Blog Guidelines page to incorporate a more detailed set of expectations for creating both high quality posts and quality comments. I reviewed Mrs. Yollis’ class blog page and thoroughly enjoyed the video posts her class shared with us. I also reviewed several other commenting guideline posts and have now published my revised page.
https://cunninghamclass.edublogs.org/tips-for-success-safety/
Along with this revision, I added a sub page that introduces my high schoolers to a bit of HTML code.
https://cunninghamclass.edublogs.org/tips-for-success-safety/html-a-little-bit-of-code/
The first group I will introduce to Blogging this semester is a Desktop Publishing class. We are learning about various elements of design so I thought is would be a nice addition to get them immersed in just a little bit of coding and have them play around with text effects. More lessons on actual class blog posts will follow as the semester progresses.
🙂
Kae C.
Hello Mrs C,
I have seen your great post about safety.
It is a nice and well-organized post which is based on so many tips. I will try to write something in my blog ,you have really focussed on what is good for this week’s tasks.
Hello,
I have posted a comment on the blog by Yollis.
I have really loved the post and the reality she has presented. I liked the layout and the images and I felt that she is working hard to get her students interested.
I will post something later. Meanwhile , thanks a lot.
I created a quick visual aid that I would attach to Google Classroom or to my blog. I based it off of Flipgrid’s video response netiquette. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D6dK9BDPQd9ILOaMCNA7an7ATtINHyHcJipYioiqns4/copy) I might print a copy and hang it up in my room. It could easily be turned into a checklist/rubric (yes/no) for students before they publish.
Hi Sara,
I’d love to see this! It says I require permission to access. Would you rather I request permission or would you be comfortable changing the sharing settings so anyone can view it?
Thanks!
Hi Sara,
Your visual aid on netiquette sounds interesting and I tried to look at it, but it is still not public (I say still because I see that Kathleen had the same problem 10 days ago). So when Google said I had to send a ‘request’, I did. I hope that works.
Hi again Sara,
Sorry for the delay. I just found the ‘invitation to edit’ you sent in my spam folder.
I think it’s cute the way you have a photo/drawing for each point. I particularly liked the drain — I will have to remember that idea for the future. Format-wise, I’d probably add another blank line after the first line so that the first and second point (and pictures) stagger as well as the third and fourth.
Thanks for letting me see it!
Kat
This week I plan to explicitly teach the children how to write comments on a blog. We will look at some classroom blogs from other schools and post some comments as a grade. I love all the ideas that have been shared. I will also put some guidelines for commenting on my blog.
I already had school sessions on commenting posts. I presented the blog and we read the About and Guidelines page together. Taking into account Commenting Guidelines from Mrs. Yollis’s class blog, it would be good to have mini-lessons with examples of how to NOT comment, letting students infer the guidelines and judge why those comments are good or not.
Hi Derly,
Mini-lessons of how not to comment sound like a great idea. Did you have any students who found the non-examples funny and tried to replicate them in their own work?
The idea of having students infer guidelines for commenting sounds practical and relevant. It could also be a good idea to have peers review students’ comments before they’re posted. As teachers have control over which comments go live or not, peer reviews could happen before comments are posted, like something along the lines of ‘ask 3 before you ask me’.
Happy blogging and commenting. 😊
This week’s topic has me reflecting on the functions of a learning management system (say Moodle or, in my district, Schoology) and a class blog. My learning management system has a discussion feature and a commenting feature in assignments (which at times confuses students). Most teachers will use the LMS to assign discussions for students to respond to. These discussions can be “managed” through a gradebook and parents who have created Schoology accounts can see what their student has posted (and are unable to see the images of other students or what they have posted to the discussion). The advantages of this system is efficiency for the teacher and privacy for students. The negative is that LMS discussions aren’t as authentic as blog post discussions. Also, the discussion feature is teacher-directed. Students are asked to respond to the teacher’s thinking rather than develop their own.
Hello,
When teaching commenting skills, I teach my students that comments need to be positive. That results in lots of comments along the lines of ‘good work’ and ‘I like this’, which is a good start. Once my Kindergarten students start to get the hang of that, we talk about how comments need to be constructive and relevant. This also helps their reading and comprehension as I found there were quite a few comments of ‘I like this’ on notes home to parents. I’ve taught them to think about what’s happening in a blog post before commenting. I like the specific format of the TAG strategy (tell/ask/give) that was mentioned and think that will be helpful to employ. I use Seesaw as a digital portfolio of work and also use the blogging feature. When commenting on blogs, students have the option to type or record comments using the microphone. This is helpful for engaging non-writers or saving time when typing is laborious for little ones. Plus, they always like to the sound of their own voices!
Focusing on commenting is such a key aspect of blogging, thank you.
Hi Brittany,
It sounds like you have a really useful system for commenting! You’re definitely right that creating relevant comments requires the students to build their reading comprehension skills. It’s often things like that that might seem obvious that really need to be pointed out.
Great work!
Since I am creating a blog to share technology information with teachers, I decided to set up a page on Digital Citizenship. As I come across good articles, blog posts, and resources to help the teachers have an honest conversation with their students, I will post it to this page. I started with a few resources on commenting. I hope this helps the teachers feel comfortable to teach the students about online responsibility!
http://technoteswithkelsey.edublogs.org/digital-citizenship/
Nice work setting up this page, Kelsey! Such an important topic and hopefully some of your teachers will get some new ideas from browsing your curated links.
I decided to make a post about my commenting and posting procedures.
http://swoods2.edublogs.org/2018/02/26/commenting-and-posting-procedures/
Although students know my expectations for writing, I feel as if they will need a reminder once we begin posting on the blog. I want them to understand that the same procedures apply even when posting on the internet. This will be an adjustment for some of them, but I know they will enjoy writing online versus on paper.
Hi Sara,
I tried to check out your guidelines but it came back as no post found.
Also the theme you are using doesn’t show the pages across the top so you have to go into appearance> widgets in your dashboard and drag across the Pages widget to drop in the sidebar area.
My posts are private meaning only my students have access to them. I did it for safety reasons. I have pasted my post below for you to see. 🙂
Dear students,
When you add a post or comment on the blog, please be mindful of your language. Listed below are the procedures for posting and commenting:
Always use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Re-read what you type before submitting.
Compliment the writer by asking a question or adding more ideas.
Do not post personal information.
Make sure your comment or post is related to the topic.
Make sure to have fun when posting and commenting.
This is a learning opportunity for all of us.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Woods
One problem my university students have is wordiness. When introducing a conciseness exercise, I once said “Why use two or more words when you can say it in just one?”, and a student quipped back that his philosophy was “Why use just one word when you can show off that you know 10?” Show off? Most ‘successful’ students (which university students are) have learned to give teachers what what they think teachers want to see. I cannot change that, but I can change what they think I want to see. From that course on, I have made it clear that “my” expectations are that they leave my classes equipped to write for readers in the “real world”. Thus, I no longer create style sheets or writing guidelines for any of my writing classes. They use guidelines from authorities in the field. My web writing class uses the Yahoo! Style Guide and W3C links. Naturally, these are supplemented by articles, examples and exercises (mine and others’).
My students accept that ‘good’ web writing is concise, but they have trouble making their own writing more concise. This semester, I had a fun article by Shane Arthur for inspiration: “7 Simple Edits That Make Your Writing 100% More Powerful” (Smart Blogger, Dec. 18, 2017 ). (I love the way it starts!) But for practice, I have adapted an exercise by Stephen Wilbers: “Make every word count”. Students are given the link, but in class we use sentences that better reflect our contexts. They then try to reduce a piece of their own writing by 50% using the principles. Few achieve 50%, but most manage at least 25%, and they are armed with a few strategies for the future when chunks of their drafts are marked “wordy”. By the end of the course, when they have also learned make use of other word-savers in web writing (e.g. bullet lists), they actually come very close that 50%. When they compare the first and last piece in their portfolios, they are normally stunned by the difference.
My comment (above) shared how I try to “set high standards for (web) writing” more generally. It did not address commenting in particular, because what I advise is essentially the same as what we saw in Mrs. Yollis’s blog. Beyond that, we discuss how to respond to different types of comments. But commenting is an area that my students have few if any problems with, so I have never needed any special exercises for it.
Hi Kat,
I love your reflections on high quality web writing. I agree with your thoughts. I tend to be put off when reading posts that are written in a more academic style.
I love the Smart Blogger article and Stephen Wilbers exercise too. I think I could use some of those tips at times 😉
This topic is only becoming more important as so much of our reading and writing is online. If we want people to read our work, we need to adapt! It sounds like you’re making some great progress with your students. Thanks for telling us about it. 🙂
I love your response, Why use two words when one will work?” Students will ask me, “How long does my paper have to be?” I tell them when they have answered the question/s. I also tell them I don’t like to say, “Your paper must be x number of pages long because I don’t want you to bore me by rambling just to stretch your paper out.” I will have to apply this motto to blogging also! Thank you
So, my blog is one for teachers, giving them information on what technology tools they have available to them, both from the school and for free. The comments I expect to receive would be questions regarding those tools. My goal is to teach them about the technology and introduce them to the correct terms to use, so when they ask questions I understand what they are asking. To do this, I must model what the tool is, maybe by video, and then in writing introduce them to the technical terms they should be using. This way I won’t get the question, “My Office 365 isn’t working?”, instead I will get, “I want to use Office 365 Notebook. but every time I try to save it, I am not sure where it goes? Can you please help me?”
II have been working in technology a long time, and getting “My computer isn’t working?” is such an open ended question that requires either a back and forth email tree or me actually going to the classroom, only to find that the power strip was turned off. This will help in all facets of technology learning for the staff.
Hi Vicki,
Excellent reflections here. It must be so frustrating to have so many vague questions. Your goal to introduce your teachers to correct terminology etc definitely sounds like a useful idea! Many teachers could implement the same thing in their classroom.
Hello, everyone!
I have blogging guidelines in a page (το blog μου) but i decided to create also a post about how to compose a quality comment, so i made a PowerPoint. It is my last post: http://anastasiakazanidi.edublogs.org/
I might use the tips shared in this interestin post for teaching my students how to make comments
http://ditchthattextbook.com/conferences/prev-sessions/blog/
It would be nice to check some blogs and see what is wrong or what is not good.
On the whole I would have to work on the skills as my students are not used to commenting.
Sorry for posting late my post now.
Hi Tiziana,
Thanks for sharing this link. There are some interesting articles there. I noticed one of my posters is there too!
Shame he didn’t recommend Edublogs 😉 I’m not even sure his Kidblog is export friendly which is a big concern if it’s not.
Thanks Kathleen,
you really provided great tips and I feel that this course has enriched us
We have only commented on a peer’s blog one time. This is something we have to work on a bit. For most of their posts the students make, I grade them on one or more areas of the 6 Traits. Sometimes I chose not to grade them. I want to allow them authentic writing experiences – they try to critic each other’s posts before submitting.
One area I am struggling with a bit is getting them to be a bit more careful about grammatical mistakes. Because I teach 5 classes a day and see about 110 students a day I have to be thoughtful about what I correct and how I correct it.
Is it ok to overlook the grammatical mistakes and just keep plugging away with them teaching the students the importance as we go?
Lisa Meyer
Hi Lisa,
I agree with you– you can’t pick them up on everything because you just wouldn’t have the time and you also don’t want to turn them off the process! So I guess the best approach is to set a high standard of writing overall without feeling like you need to reach perfection? I know it’s tricky to figure out the best mix! I think your idea of plugging away at it is a good one.
Maybe you can also set up some peer feedback at times to have them help each other? It might take the pressure off you!
Hi Lisa, I noticed your comment and wanted to suggest a free google add-on called “Grammarly” (find @ www. grammarly.com). I just reminded my high school class about it today… I literally asked ” You guys ever heard of Grammarly?”- overall response, “yeah”. Then I said “Use it!” The little ones are not the only ones that need the help!
Kae Cunningham
Our school already has two up and running blogs. These have been great tools in this experience as we are able to view a functioning blog, then apply our observations to the use of our own. To teach about commenting, I had students log into our school’s Literary Response blog and make a T- Chart listing the comment they thought were quality comments and the comments that were not. We had some brilliant conversations that day and I believe my students left with a better understanding of academic blogging.