Student Bloggers Read for Life

One of the Grad Transitions teachers came to me a few weeks ago with an idea. She wanted students to read books that were contemporary and might give them some insight into the world they are about to enter as adults. The topics could encompass almost anything and we got them started by putting out a display of titles that included themes such as finance, travel, living with disability, the environment, life lessons, memoirs.

A sample of titles:

How To Live Successfully on Your Own
An Inconvenient Truth
Me to We
The Last Lecture
In a Sunburned Country

Then we set up a blog using Edublogs and the students were all given author rights. I love working with Gr. 12s because they know the ropes. Consequently we did not need to spend a lot of time teaching them how to write journal responses. They had done this many times throughout their high school careers.

They were intrigued by the idea that people other than just their teacher would be reading their posts. We offered extra credit for those who got their parents to post a comment. Nothing beats the excitement in the room as they considered what they would write and who might be reading their words.

We talked to them about the importance of tagging. Most had never heard of the concept. We explained how we would be following them using RSS feeds for both posts and comments. They will be required to post at least once per chapter and to comment on other's posts but we are hoping that they will be motivated enough that they will post because they are excited, informed and entertained by what they are reading.

Please stop by if you have a moment and offer your comments, insights and support.
Reading for Life