A Word From the Presenters

Using blogs is an excellent way to enhance your academic writing classes.  Blogs help to lower the affective filter and increase students’ desire to write.  They also challenge students to think about not only organization and grammar structures, but also about their content and audience.  Blogs can be used at any level of writing skills, and many composition teachers in our program use blogs on a weekly basis. In our presentation, we will demonstrate the two different ways that we use blogs in our classes and will show examples of class blogs, student blogs, blog prompts, and student comments.  We have also created this blog as a resource for you.  Look under Explanation & Resources to find handouts describing the way we use blogs in our classes, links to popular blogging sites, a list of blog topics, and student comments regarding blogs.  We hope that this presentation and blog are helpful and that you will be able to successfully incorporate blogs into your writing classes! 

Suggestions and Comments

Do you have any suggestions on how to use blogs in writing classes?  We would love to hear from you!  Please feel free to blog on the presentation or share your own ideas with us!

Rationale

-Encourages creative writing that focuses on content
-Reminds students that they are writing for an audience
-Motivates students through the use of technology
-Allows for flexibility to work anywhere at anytime
-Enhances class discussions
-Makes students check their work for accuracy
-Encourages peer-editing
-Allows the teacher to identify common grammar mistakes and offer feedback
-Helps students practice typing
-Promotes community as students learn more about each other