Thing#4--Blogging Begins with Reading

The genre of blog writing is real. The author keeps the audience's attention by writing about things that they are/were passionate about. The information included is more like an editorial or even an advice column. The blogs include a lot more white space by using the enter key and avoiding the "wall of words" much like a newspaper making the reading easier. The author realizes that the blog reader wants the information now and fast. This is what I found refreshing. The blogs were both descriptive and did not include a lot of fluff and filler. Some were research-based while others were opinion-based.

The writer was able to interact with the readers through comments. The commenting gave the author the opportunity to reevaluate their writing. In the blog, Why I Don't Assign Homework, we see an example of this. Through reading the comments, the author chose to go back to his original blog and update. The comments I read also gave further elaboration on the blog and what impact it has had.

Blogging is an awesome concept for the classroom! Instead of having the students write a paper, why not have them write a blog! They will still be doing the research however now they prove it with hyperlinks. No more having to go back and check resources and praying that the student included every little slash and dash in their bibliography. This way the student can directly link the resource and they are able to check to be sure it's right. More accountability for them! And through this, we can also teach responsible web searching!

P.S. This does not take the place of ALL papers! =)