Blogs and Literacy

Teachers have to endure competition from different media as we struggle to motivate students and have them actively engaged in their learning activities. Some students rarely read for pleasure and only write what is necessary to compete assigned tasks. As such, teachers need to present students with opportunities to engage them in authentic reading and writing activities. One way in which this can be achieved is through the use of blogs.

Kadjer and Bull (2003) identified some Literacy activities which can be used by teachers in blogging activities. They are:

• Character Journal- this approach challenges students to write as a fictional character.
• Character Roundtable - this allows students to make posts as multiple characters.
• Open Minds - students are encouraged to fill a picture of an empty head with images representing what a character would say or do in a given situation.
• Think-Aloud Postings - this facilitates students posting reflections or responses to readings using the approach that would be used during reading.
• Literature Circle Group Responses - students are encouraged to post reports on literature studied in the class
• Nutshelling - this is a review technique which encourages students to examine a paragraph and select the most meaningful line of the paragraph. This line is then used to begin a new paragraph.
• Devil's Advocate Writing - facilitates interactive dialogue among participants thereby encouraging various arguments to be explored.
• Exploding Sentences - this strategy encourages students to revise sentences and expand them into rich, thick, descriptive detail.
• Photoblogs - allow for images to be incorporated into blogs.
• Storyblogs - allows for or encourages students to submit literary pieces which were done in Creative Writing.