Blogging and the Teaching of Writing

I am excited and honored to be a part of this new educational blog. Thanks, Scott! As an elementary school principal I use my own blog as a place to share my thoughts regarding the practical side of my job. I have been writing for a number of different audiences (parents, teachers, administrators, and students) which is more challenging than I originally thought because each group perceives education from a very different point of view. The idea that someone else had asked me to write some thoughts for a new blog led me to think about some experiences I have had with writing as a child, a teacher, and a principal.

I always liked to write, and I owe my enjoyment of writing to my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Stegman. In her Language Arts class, we had “creative writing” once a week during which time we could write about any topic of our choice (this was 1973 and the precursor to the writing workshop concept). Each week, we would turn in our stories for the teacher to read and, of course, she would grade our work. Mrs. Stegman always offered us a chance to read our stories to the class, but most students chose to remain quiet. One week, I had written a story about a fictional character I called “The Dude.” I liked my story, so I decided to take a risk and read it to the class. To my complete surprise, the other students actually enjoyed my story. From that day until the end of the school year, my classmates looked forward to the weekly adventures of The Dude. I was 11 years old when I discovered the power of writing for an authentic audience (and not just for the teacher to read).

These lasting memories transferred to my professional life as a classroom teacher. I really enjoyed teaching writing, and I searched for ways to combine writing with the other subjects I taught and for ways to spark the same love of writing in my students. I often felt frustrated, however, with students who were not serious about the writing they turned in to me. Then, one summer, I found Nancie Atwell’s book In the Middle (1987, 1998 Boynton/Cook Publishers). I incorporated her ideas for a writing workshop in my classroom, and I searched for ways to have students publish their work for larger audiences. This was always a struggle.

For most of the last 12 years as an elementary school principal, I have found that I used writing mostly as a tool for disseminating information to parents, staff, or students. This was frustrating. I never found an appropriate vehicle to express my thoughts and opinions regarding education and raising children - until Web 2.0 came along.

I realized the potential for this new method of communicating with people at Alan November’s BLC conference last July.  I learned how we can use the “Read/Write web” with students and as educators to truly bring about change in our profession.  I will never forget the feeling I had the day after I put a ClustrMap on my blog.  I received a hit in Japan!  I was so  jazzed up by this.  Someone in Japan actually looked at my blog.  Maybe he or she read what I wrote.  Did I spark an interest in someone somewhere else in the world?  Talk about an authentic audience!  As the red dots accumulated on my map, I became increasingly more excited with this new medium for writing.

Today, I am hooked. I have never been more motivated to write. I can’t wait to create another post on my blog, and I hope and pray someone will reply with a comment. I also am infatuated with Bloglines. I have found that I am now reading more professional material than I ever did before I discovered blogging. I enjoy commenting on others’ blogs, especially when true dialogue takes place over the course of a few days.  This truly is a learning tool for me as an educator, and the more I read, the more I want to write. For years, educators have been discussing the importance of the reading/writing connection.  Blogging is the perfect vehicle this.

I often think about what I would do if I were a teacher today. How would I use blogs in my classroom? Is writing a blog post or commenting on someone else’s blog more motivating to students than writing on a sheet of paper? I believe so. The power to publish one’s writing for the entire world to read is enough to excite many more students about writing than when I was a student writing for my teacher, hoping to receive a good grade.

As administrators, we are role models for our staff and for our students. I believe that if we model the use of blogs, along with Wikis and other relatively new forms of communication, for our teachers and for our students, we may have as much of an impact as any inservice training we could plan for our next faculty meeting.

Comments

[Kimberly Moritz]

Dave, I have felt much the same way about blogging as you describe so perfectly in this post. Unlike you, this is my first experience with the power of writing. It was a surprise to me to find out how much the writing process clarifies my thinking. And like you, I learn more now than ever before in my career from what I'm reading elsewhere and from comments to my own blog. We have a snow day today and the first thing I thought was, "I'll be able to really think about everything I read in bloglines this morning, not just hurry through it." Great post--Kimberly

[Marion Ginopolis]

Dave,
Your post (and your wonderful school website) are excellent examples of school administrators using the technology tools and applications that we want teachers to be using in classrooms. What better way to support teachers' use than modeling? This certainly supports what I wrote in my post (preceding this one) about administrators participating in online courses so that they model what is expected of and, in Michigan, required of students. Also, just to let you know, in some of the Web 2.0 presentations that our program team makes in Michigan, we show your website as an example of what principals can and should be doing.