Entry 9- Reflecting on Blogging

I thought I would use this open entry as an opportunity to revisit the article, Blogging As A Means of Crafting Writing by Jan Lacina and Robin Griffith (2012). I have been engaging in various writing tasks for my blog, and I think I would benefit from continuing to reflect upon this experience with this article as a basis of my reflection. Over the course of this semester, I have engaged in blog writing that responded to specific questions, open entries, and now reading our peers' blogs to bless, address or press. As I read through my peers' blogs and constructed a response, I noticed how my perspective shifted from submitting a general blog post. When addressing Brenna specifically, I could feel how I “became mindful of, and connected to [my] audience” (Lacina and Griffith, 2012, p. 316). I feel that shifting to viewing our peers' blogs and constructing responses has further developed a community of writers in  LTED 618 (Lacina and Griffith, 2012). By moving beyond having only the professor read your writing/blog, there is a unique interaction among classmates that exists when sharing and responding to each other's blogs. 

In many of my undergraduate and graduate classes, I engaged in journal writing. This was similar in that it was more informal and allowed me to process the assignments and experiences from the course. It was more personal, whereas when I blog, I have a specific audience, referring back to that idea of a writing community. Tompkins (2012) describes blogs as an interactive process, and I would agree that this interaction makes me feel more aware of my audience.

I admit that open entries have been a bit challenging for me, I am not used to having so much choice. I found that as I began blogging it was nice to have questions to guide me through my writing process. Open entries have been a shift, but as Lacina and Griffiths (2012) article describes, blogs are, “primarily used as an online medium for self-expression” and that people are, “motivated to write when they have a choice in topics” (p. 316). Blogging was not a tool utilized in my early education, which is why I feel it was challenging for me to have choice, when I have been so used to responding to and following a particular structure. Even in my journal writing, there were often questions to guide each entry. Revisiting this article, and continuing to reflect on my blogging experience, has convinced me even further to instill blogging in my future classroom. I am curious to ask my peers, have you seen or used blogging in early elementary classrooms? Such as first or second-grade? 

Reference

Lacina, J. & Griffith, R. (2012).  Blogging as a means of crafting writing.  The Reading Teacher, 66(4), 316-320.