Transforming Writing Instruction through Blogging

Analysis of a Class Blog

Goals of the Class

Collaborative Learning Emergent Pedagogy Audience Awareness Writing as conversation Multiple perspectives Understanding of blogging

Basic setup Freshman seminar 2 sections, 30 students total Class blog (everyone contributed in the

same place) No set assignments or topics No set requirements for blogging Formal papers derived from posts Portfolio

Some numbers

500 blog posts; 1250 comments 265,000 total words (about 700 pages) 9,000 words per student (about 23 pages

on the blog alone) By October, averaging 250-300 visits per

day Over 50% of visitors from off campus

Correlations

PostsComm Made

Comm Rec’d

Links

Posts - .548 .863 .659

Comm Made

.548 - .275 .827

Comm Rec’d

.863 .275 - .438

Links .659 .827 .438 -

Posts and Comments Received

Top posters received 4 comments per post on average

Comment threads in many cases developed into conversations

Top posters/commenters responded to comments received

Comments Made and Links

Those with more links were more widely read and interested in adding to conversation

Making comments usually led to receiving comments (self-promotion)

Desire for the blog project to work

It’s all about linking The one factor that

affected portfolio grades was linking: the more links, the higher the grade

The top 5 posters averaged at least two and as many as 4 links per post

Wide range of topics Models Sources well

integrated Audience awareness Complex arguments More practice More feedback Learned more about

their own writing

Audience: Before “All I thought was my professor’s going to be

reading this.” “I was writing probably to myself . . . Because I

didn’t know who I should talk to.” “I really couldn't get out of the idea that we

weren't just writing for our teachers.” “I really didn't think that anyone outside our class

and maybe their parents who had been told about the project would be reading the blog.”

Audience: after

“Nothing happened until we got an audience. It’s all about the audience.”

“I tried harder to write blogs with more mass appeal. . . . thought that if the topics had to do with news on a national level or topics that everyone could relate to, then more people would want to read them and I would draw in more readers.”

Audience: After

“When I realized that other people were gonna be reading this, I began to think of what other people's perspectives were, like what are they coming from, what are they expecting to see and things like that.”

“I was writing to an audience that was interested in the same topic.”

“Bloggers not only passively read the news, but also write posts, make comments, and create links. They get actively involved. This vigorous participation makes the ‘web’ look like a real web, a chain of connected sites. The absence of involvement makes the web look like a set of unrelated dots. You can only see the dots; you cannot see the whole picture unless the dots are connected.”

Overall experience