Welcome and Introduction

Welcome to Blogging and the Teaching of Writing, a research project for EN 309, The Teaching of Writing, at Northern Michigan University.

The very fact that you are reading this project on a blog shows that changes are taking place in education. It's been awhile since students and teachers were restricted to using paper, pencil, and chalkboards for lessons, but in the 21st Century, even advances such as whiteboards, DVD players, overhead projectors, in-room PCs, and word processors are being augmented and made obsolete by smart boards, digital projectors, laptops, netbooks (mini laptops), smart phones, and a wealth of free or cheap online tools for blogging, chatting, editing photos, and social networking.

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Many of the most enthusiastic users of new digital technology are young people: as of 2009, 85 percent of children aged 12-17 use some form of electronic personal communication (Pascopella 46). In Angela Pascopella's words, our students are already keeping up with new technology and they "aren't waiting for us to teach them the ins and outs of writing in these digital spaces" (ibid). Indeed, "young people increasingly use written communication over any other" form -- the written communication just happens to also be digital in the form of texting, blogging, tweeting, or Facebooking (Clark 1).

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Accordingly, definitions of literacy are changing. Rebecca Mullen and Linda Wedwick insist that "The literate of the twenty-first century must be able to download, upload, rip, burn, chat, save, blog, Skype, IM, and share" (Mullen and Wedwick 66). Now, in 2011, that list might include tweeting, reblogging, "liking," and syncing.

These digital literacies resonate for English teachers far beyond a knowledge of what their students can and should be able to do.  In 2008, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) released a "Definition of 21st Century Literacies." The NCTE notes that the technological landscape continually increases in complexity, and that, in the 21st century, this means a person must have "a wide range of abilities and competencies" to be considered literate. In particular, the NCTE holds:

that Twenty-first Century readers and writers need to

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments (NCTE).

These standards go far beyond the simple presence of technology or social media in the classroom, or even explicit endorsement by the teacher and inclusion of technology in lessons or projects. Students must not only learn to use the technology, they must use it towards building digital literacy and they must learn to use it appropriately and responsibly. It is the teacher's job, then, to prepare the students to make the best use of technology for improving literacy skills.

[by Natalie Dee]

This blog looks at the place of blogging in teaching writing to elementary and secondary students. As a blogger and enthusiastic blog reader, I wanted to know 1) if and to what extent blogs are being used in writing classroom, 2) how students respond to blogging, and 3) if using this "new" technology can increase student interest and improve writing skills.

The project separated into five pages: The Benefits of Blogging, Blogs & Motivation, Preparing to Blog, Student Privacy, and Potential Problems.