Monday, August 30, 2010

Response to "That's online writing..."

Blogging is a new adventure for me.  While I love reading my good friends' blogs and find them to provide wonderful insights into peoples' lives, I have never taken the initiative to create my own blog.  I think I'm partially intimidated by having, what I think of as such personal thoughts, open to the public eye.  However, I'm excited to start this blog, even if it was required for an academic setting.

Although I've never blogged, I feel like I can relate to students' feelings in "That's online writing...".  There seems to be a certain untamed level of creativity that exists in blogging, and it's clear that the students in the Talkback Project found a sense of freedom in their blogs.  For students like Cassandra that found tremendous pressure trying to write in the classroom, blogging was a great way for expression and formulation of thoughts.  Since the classroom often brings with it pressure to perform to a certain level or achieve specific goals, writing often forces students to feel that they have to conform to a teacher's expectations.  However, blogging allowed students in the Talkback Program to express freely, even though they were still being slightly monitored.  It eliminated pressures to have correct grammar or the perfect sentence, and students seemed to thrive.

While blogging is new to me, I can relate to students' experiences.  I don't feel nearly as much pressure to write perfectly, and it feels great!

2 comments:

  1. Welcome to the blogging world Rachel! I feel the same as you when you mentioned you are wearing of putting such personal thoughts on the internet for the public eye. I guess it makes me nervous especially when you hear about employers always looking up things about you on the internet. Good thing we are in an academic setting.

    I also liked how the teacher incorporated an aspect of technology that she knew her students were interested in, like blogging, and make their writing sessions more of a success. This is a perfect example of teachers keeping up with the times.

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  2. So does a teacher still need to teach grammar? And in what settings? Is it important for our ability to communicate? Is there some other need for it? I'll be honest - I'm one of those jerks who gets frustrated by the lack of grammar on the Internet. :)

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