Voice in weblogs
I want to write about voice in weblogs. I remember reading years ago about the importance of voice in Donald Graves “Writing: Teachers and Children at Work.” It made an impression on me then but I don’t think I truly realized the power of voice for students until I started using weblogs. Weblogs take us outside the classroom walls. Student voices can be heard and respnded to by an audience that can be random or pre-selected. When students get a response from someone outside the classroom, generally their first reaction is one of awe and pleasure. They cannot believe someone cares about what they wrote. This begins the process of having their writing validated. It’s a good feeling. Students start to see a purpose for reading and writing. This usually motivates them to write more and they begin to care about improving their writing. The reason is that their voice has been heard. I think there is something very empowering to students about getting this recognition from others outside of the classroom. It is special. They enjoy being taken seriously. The anticipation of opening that weblog and hoping to have a response is exciting. Writing is fun! All of this is the beginning of understanding the give-and-take between writers and readers.
This month’s Educational Leadership Journal from ASCD is devoted entirely to writing and it is outstanding. It is packed full of articles that are relevant and timely for our work with weblogs. Tom Romano’s article, The Power of Voice, says “To become accomplished writers, students must do more than master grammar, spelling, and puncutation. They must develop a presence on the page. He breaks teaching the qualities of voice down into:
- information
- narrative
- perception
- surprise
- humor
He talks about teachers who write and how we can free students to write boldly. It is a great article and provides some good “food for thought” for educators using/or thinking about using weblogs in their classrooms.
October 11th, 2004 at 1:00 pm
I’m not convinced that blogs are the best place for a lot of instructional tasks, like learning multiplation tables for example. But I think you’ve nailed it here. There are very important benefits to learning that derive from going public, and writing is much more than logic and words. In both cases blogs seem uniquely suited to foster a love for writing and to help individuals find or develop their voice.