I’ve posted earlier about Lani and the difference she has made for my blogging students this year. Another person making a difference is Bronwyn G.
Bronwyn G’s profile tells me she is female, a writer, and from Australia. I could not find an email address on A Witness to Tolerance to write to her. I wanted to thank her for her comments. What a writer she is! You know, this is one of the best aspects of blogs, it’s the people you meet and then the conversations, connections, and learning that develop. I follow a lot of blogs, especially the student blogs and I have found Bronwyn G’s “blog-prints” on many of them. I’ve read her comments to these students: Chloe, Jadae, Jason, Derrick, Graciela, Marisela, Angel, Jose-Juan, Zachary, (on Zachary’s note the additional comment to his mom – awesome!) and Ellie.
I’m sure there are more. Of course, I have to follow them. I love her responses. She is so encouraging yet pushes the students to think and kindly offers gentle suggestions for improvement. She’s offered her thoughts on mine as well, like here when I was thinking about podcasts. That is so appreciated! She even extended a warm welcome to Miss Neville, a young teacher just starting a school blog.
Her blog is also a great model to teach writing. I plan to use her opening paragraph of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer as an example to show students how to really hook a reader. Her comments always lead me in different directions along paths I hadn’t anticipated. This is not aimless surfing but the following of connections and seeing how we learn from one another. I can’t foresee the results but almost invariably a new thought or a way of applying this learning will emerge.
There’s nothing more motivating for young bloggers than having mentors who are really listening, caring and responding. I wanted to extend a personal thank you to both Lani and Bronwyn G. I think they should both consider writing their suggestions for commenting. They are exceptional! I also think we need to spend more time teaching our students the value and the power of commenting back and forth on blogs. I’ve experimented with comment starters and had discussions about comments but I plan to do more exploring in this area.
I’m hoping that BlogHer 2006 will have a track on using blogs to teach writing (and critical thinking) at the k-12 level. I’l love to have you on a panel!
Main BlogHer site:
http://surfette.typepad.com/blogher/
July 28-29 2006
Anne,
I do appreciate your kudos very much.
Why, thank you. Liz, thank you for the nice invitation to be on a blogging panel. I suppose Lani, Anne and I could be on it. It is good to see the priorities of female bloggers examined. Not to be compared to man bloggers, but we do have a different style. Liz, it may fall into my holidays, but it may be term-time again (I am a writing student at a TAFE which is like a community college where you live. I am instructed at university-level in some courses.).
Thank you for saying something about my book review. I have not read much more of the book due to other circumstances afoot in my life, but I am sure I shall have a captive audience next time I do. Right now I am reading the Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. This is such a play on the conventions of literature.
I will whole-heartedly ditto Anne’s comments! Thank you Brownyn for your comments each and every day. “How does she write so much and so long,” as one of my students said the other day.
And I’ll have to tell Chloe that she’s on your “watch list,” Anne!
Dear Anne and Gordon,
Thank you very much again.
I am sure Chloe will be pleased.
There are some new bloggers who may need a hand, if your classes need/want extra people to write to.
http://stjohns.edublogs.org/
The St Johns’ kids have co-operated in making rules about blogging which seem eminently sensible. I really support what they are learning about the nature of Open Source through their education. It will make them eminently employable. It isn’t just a Windows XP world for us any more.
Now how to write comments that people will read. I must say I haven’t really studied the science of this. First of all, you treat the blog with respect because it is an art form. You have to have a lot of feeling for other people’s writing to criticise or just talk about it. Also, you have to see where they are in life and what they’re doing. I think I learnt much of my commenting technique from the way my teachers have commented on my journals over the years. They always had good and wise stuff to say which I could learn from and apply next time. They also helped me to tune into my audience. One thing about paper journals which always disappointed me is that I was only able to write to my teachers. From 1992-1995, the technology had not yet advanced. We were just getting computers into our classrooms. I would like to thank the people who have invented blogs. Then, I suppose, before the intrusion of American Online, the online would was a much more courteous and decourous place. At least that is what experienced online people say. Then I learnt to refine my technique through e-mail, message boards and forums, over the years of Internet use.