Blogging to Promote Better Writing

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After reading the article The Influence of Classroom Blogging on Elementary Student Writing, by Ewa McGrail and Anne Davis, I became inspired to incorporate a blogging component to the class participation grade on my syllabus, next year.  The results of this study helped me arrive at the conclusion that requiring students to actively blog is a practical way to support them in becoming more proficient writers.  Encouraging students to write extensively in this authentic manner provides numerous advantages.  One important benefit being that students are much more willing and motivated to write when they deem that they are writing for real-life purposes.  

I have always found it to be a serious challenge motivating my students to write.  In previous years, I have developed numerous activities and projects to help support students in reinforcing their writing skills.  Projects ranged from daily journals to writing restaurant critiques.  Sadly, in spite of the time I devoted to create something new and (what I judged to be) exciting, students always completed the assignment with an apathetic attitude.  They did the absolute minimal amount of work to earn the grade that they desired, but they lacked enthusiasm for the assignment.  Perhaps this lack of investment was linked to the students’ belief that the activity was tedious or not relevant to their future lives. 

I remember when I was a teenager I was extremely motivated by social situations.  Conversely, I was not always inspired to work as diligently on academic assignments for the reward of gaining knowledge alone.  Therefore, I am not discouraged when I recognize the same behavior amongst my students, but I see it as a characteristic of that developmental stage.  However, this being said, students still need to be provided with the incentive to work on improving their writing skills.  Related to this concern, I have had a few questions running through my mind the past couple years.  How can we provide students with the necessary encouragement to write frequently?  How can we demand that they use standard writing and not abbreviated communication as they might use in a text message?  After reading this article, I feel that one excellent option is to provide them with a community with whom they can interact, while writing information and sharing knowledge…a blog.  Blogging is quite popular in today’s culture.  There is little argument that blogging is not applicable to students‘ social lives.  Most high school students are familiar with blogging as readers or bloggers. 

Blogs make available a larger audience for the writer to direct his message.  This can help inspire students to work more diligently to construct insightful posts / responses and hold them accountable to create better quality writing.  In an online article focussing on the ways in which blogging improves writing, author Ali Hale agrees that blogging motivates individuals to write because of the large audience.  Ali claims,  "Sometimes you just aren’t “in the mood” to write. When you’re feeling motivated, though, the words come easily. Knowing that real people are reading what you write is a huge boost – something you can only appreciate once you’ve experienced it. Even on days when you’re feeling less than inspired, the thought of your readers can be enough to get you writing."  To read about the four other ways that blogging improves an individual's ability to write, I'm including the cite http://www.dailywritingtips.com/five-reasons-why-blogging-improves-your-writing/. 

The authors, McGrail and Davis, evaluated the outcomes and claimed, “As student bloggers came to know their audience better, a sense of community and belonging emerged.  The back-and-forth comments stimulated the conversations and nourished active participation within this community” (426).  There were numerous examples provided of student bloggers who felt empowered and motivated as a result of feeling like an accepted member of the “blogging world.”  When the students wrote about their interests, they felt like experts on the topics, which encouraged them to be more open about sharing their opinions.