Purposes of Blogs in the Classroom

People always ask the question of why I use blogs in the classroom. So here's a quick and dirty answer (much like the 2 minute description of the dissertation that you construct in graduate school).

There are many reasons for blogs in the classroom. The one that stands out for me most as I use a blog in my summer gender and literature class is that students get the opportunity to write about the texts that we read and to see and respond to what others in the class are writing. They seem to find affirmation that they are puzzled by, frustrated with, amused by, or totally hating the same things about the texts.

The thing that has been most fun for me thus far is the immediacy of the responses. At 5 p.m. on day one Sandy Student says she hates the text because the characters are so disconnected and then at 8 a.m. the next day Sandy says something clicked for her and it now makes sense for her and she realizes why the author has developed the characters in the way that she did. I get to watch the interpretation and analysis process for the student. Another interesting thing so far has been that as students get to think "out loud" and hear responses to their thoughts it becomes another part of the writing process. It's more akin to the peer review process at the invention stage. The response papers that I receive from classes that use the blog seem to reflect this additional preparation.

There's an active blog going on for my ENGL 360K course now.