Using Rubrics to Assess Student Blogs

Every time I talk about blogging with students, I am inevitably asked about the assessment process. I understand that some educators are wary of "grading" this new(er) medium for student writing, but I think that blogs are actually much easier to assess and to offer feedback on than are some other forms of traditional assessment.

First, most blogs have a comment section. I often leave comments for students in this space. I find that students are excited to see that I've commented (because I don't always do it) and I have found that they often will correct whatever I've suggested in a timely fashion.  Typing, for me, is easier and quicker than writing by hand. Students cannot lose their blog post, but they sure can lose a piece of paper that I've commented on!

Over the past three years, I have been working to develop rubrics to use with student blog posts. I have narrowed down my general criteria to the following six:

Evidence of Critical Thinking: Thoughtful observations, connections between readings and the larger world and/or your life, and growth in your thoughts/ observations from the beginning of the year.

Evidence of Critical Reading: Evidence of thorough readings, comprehension of reading materials, insightful reflections, and connections between readings materials.

Evidence of Creative Thinking: Inclusion of photographs, music, videos, or other media that enhances the presentation of the post; original ideas presented in readings are extended in a creative manner.

Evidence of the Ability to Write Clearly and Effectively: Grammar, spelling, capitalization errors do not interfere with audience understanding. The structure of your blog posts allows for understanding and is easy to follow.

Evidence of Awareness of Diverse Audience: Opinions, justifications, rationalizations, and summaries are written in a way that allows a diverse audience to understand your intent. Writings are not offensive, but engage audience members in your ideas and opinions in a creative manner.

Community of Practice: Wherever necessary, credit has been given to original source for photos and ideas. This is done through embedded hyperlinks.

Why these six? There are some specific challenges and opportunities that are presented in blogging. The challenge is that students cannot write a whole lot of text, because no audience wants to read on and on when they're reading on a computer. Blog posts need to be a lot more concise and quick. There are no five to ten page literary analysis papers on my students' blogs. This does not mean that we do not do this type of writing; it is just not appropriate for a blog format.

Another challenge that actually helps to build students' skills as writers is the unknown audience factor. A student who writes a post as if the audience is comprised only of me and his or her classmates has not prepared an unknown audience to be able to comprehend the meaning or significance of the post. This fact helps to create better student writers.

Something that blogging allows for that the traditional pen and paper routine does not is the ability to add-in images, videos, and songs. There are several students in my classes who do not think in a linear, linguistic fashion. Allowing students to add-in other types of media has helped those students who are not always able to completely express their thoughts through the use of language. I have absolutely found this feature to be invaluable in the blogging process.

Students are required to contribute to the blogging world with their thoughts, but also with their links. Just as plagiarism is not okay on a research paper, the same is true in a blog post. The more that students link to the outside blogosphere and web pages, the more that their writing will be picked up on google. This is just good practice for social responsibility. 

Finally, I wish that you could see students' faces when they look at their counters (cluster maps and flag counters). These counters allow students to see that their writing is being read by a huge, global audience. Once in a while, students will get a comment, but usually viewers will leave comments on my blog. Students love and cherish these comments; they are proof that the world cares about their thoughts and opinions.

I hope that this criteria helpful. I welcome feedback and suggestions for other items that I may have overlooked.

Real World Reflections: Students Blog about the News

As I've mentioned before, I start every workday by driving to school with National Public Radio (NPR) blaring from my speakers. I am more than a fan of NPR; I am obsessed. The difference? Well, if I don't get a regular dose of news in the morning, I feel disconnected. If our local station is conducting a pledge drive or if the radio is so static-y that I can't listen, my day is not as smooth. There is something about being informed that makes me feel, well, part of the world.

Though what my students listen to on their ride to school in the morning differs from my choice of stations, I know that they're interested in what's going on in the world. They may not be ready to sacrifice a half-hour or twenty minutes of music for news, but that does not mean that they don't care about what's happening in the world. Their world.

For instance, Miep Gies, the brave soul who helped hide the Frank family during the Holocaust, died this past week. She was 100 years old and humble able her role in saving Anne Frank's diary so that the rest of the world could read it. As I listened to an interview with Ms. Gies, I knew that students needed to know about her life. I had planned for students to write a blog post about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his contribution to the Civil Rights Movement. I still wanted to give students the option to write that post, but decided to offer an alternate assignment. Now they could choose to write about either Dr. King or Ms. Gies. Some students chose to write about both.

Part of my realization in this lesson was that most of my students are disconnected from the daily news, but truly care about important events and happenings when someone takes the time to share it with them. As I introduced the day's blogging assignment, a regular feature in our classroom, many students genuinely wanted to know more about Miep Gies, the Holocaust, Anne Frank, and genocide. We had a rich discussion about these topics, which totally lead the whole lesson for the day off track, but I did not care. We talked. Like people who care about the world and humanity and history and society talk. It was real. They learned from that conversation, and so did I.

I promise to continue to bring up news items in class, even if we are lead astray and I don't accomplish all of what I've planned. I look forward to have real, relevant discussions with students about news that matters. Just as I need to hear the news on my drive to work to feel connected, talking about important news events like Miep Gies, the recent earthquake in Haiti, the economy, elections, and other items of interest will engage them in the larger world.

Here is a student sample blog post about Miep Gies:

Student 1

What To Do With Inappropriate Posts

For the first time, I had a student who wrote something that was very inappropriate in a blog post. I've used blogging with students for about a year now, and was very surprised that this student decided to use this platform to discuss such private information. The post was not mean or anything, it simply disclosed all kinds of personal information about her life and her family. As I read it, I had to decide just how I would deal with this issue.

I did not want to come down so hard on this student that she felt discouraged from sharing her story with others. I needed her to understand that her student blog that is connected to other students and to the world through my classroom blog is not the appropriate place to post her inner most feelings about her childhood. As I read her post, it occurred to me that her writing felt like something I would read on myspace. Almost all of my students have some sort of social networking account; I did not realize that they would confuse the public and private sphere so drastically.

This was a learning experience for me. I now plan to talk openly with my students about the identity they create when they write online. I don't think that many students understand that what they write online will follow them for the rest of their lives. Some students seem to have an awareness of this fact but many do not. I know now that I need to talk with them about their online persona and the different types of writing that they'll post online and what's appropriate where.

Luckily, this student was completely understanding of the fact that her post was not appropriate for our classroom blog. I hope that she still feels like she can use her words to let out her frustrations and fears. Part of me wants to give her an old fashioned pen-and-paper journal as a place to record and collect her thoughts. Another part of me, though, is excited that she wrote pages and pages of what amounted to a good start to a personal memoir, à la Jeanette Walls or Tobias Wolff.

Whatever comes of this for the student, I know that I need to think about backing up the train, so to speak, and starting the new year with a lesson on blogging without sharing personal information to the entire universe. After all, once your persona is out there, it's almost impossible to go back and recreate your online self.

Bloggers Unite!

Recently, I came across a website called Bloggers Unite. The purpose of this site is to gather together bloggers who are interested in supporting any number of international events, like International AIDS Day, Human Rights Day, and International Animal Rights Day. I stumbled across this site as I was looking for information on International AIDS Day in conjunction with a lesson I was planning. Though I was not able to use this site with students for this event, there is serious potential to have students choose events or cause that they have some sort of belief or passion for and to support that interest by blogging.

All of my students have blogs that we use on a regular basis. The challenge in using this platform with students, I believe, is to make it as relevant and real as possible. If students are burdened with artificial tasks on their blogs, their blog space will not become the reflective, representative place that it has the potential to be. I think that there is enormous promise in sites like bloggers unite to allow students a safe entry into the realm of editorial writing. Students can choose a cause that they read about on this site, blog about it, maybe research it a little to gain extra facts, and then upload one of the badges provided to show their support of that particular event. This is an easy way to get students connected to international issues and to allow them to develop their sense of global citizenship.

Another way to use this site is to connect one of the events to whatever unit you're teaching at the time that the event occurs. For instance, I plan to use this site to get students blogging about International Human Rights Day in conjunction with A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. There are definitely instances of human rights abuses discussed in this memoir and my students are feeling the impact of those abuses through Beah's powerful use of language and imagery. Though my students are far removed from the setting of Beah's memoir, they can definitely use their online presence to support an increased awareness of this cause.

500th Post

I can't believe that I just wrote the 500th post for my classroom blog. This is the third school year that I've used a blogging platform to communicate to students, parents, colleagues, and unnamed others around the world. Also, this blog has turned into a tool to help lead instruction during class rather than a mere one-sided report-out spot.

I feel like this blog is one of the best representations of what it is like to be a student in my classroom. I try to make learning an exciting, interactive, intelligent enterprise. I hope that the blog shows this passion for teaching and learning.

So, hurray for me and for my students and all of those people who've enjoyed this blog in the past. I hope to keep this going and can't wait to to write my next post!