So I told you guys that I was having my students create their own blog. Why? You might ask. Well, I thought it would be a great way for them to get into the habit of writing. I’ve never done anything like this before and am freakin’ out because I’m just starting to realize how absolutely huge this project is, not so much for my students, but for me.
I teach 3 sections, all of which have 29 students. You do the math, that’s a lot of blogs to keep up with. I’m not so worried about that. That’s way google reader will help me with, I’m mostly concerned about monitoring the commenting that is going on.
I have a lot of students and a lot of blogs and I’m totally clueless as to how to monitor all these blogs effectively, efficiently, and fairly (yeah adverbs).
The students will begin posting on Tuesday, so I have about 6 days to figure it out.
Oh did I mention, I’ll be blogging with them. Again, I’m insane. I wanted them to have some kind of model to look onto, and to have a space where they could comment if they felt nervous about commenting on peer blogs.
So far the reception to this project has been mostly negative. The students–most of them–are not eager to do this project partly because they think it’s busy work and partly because it’s something new which is scary to them. There have been some students who have expressed a lot of interest and I’m thinking these students will make the most of this project and get the most from it.
On a side note, I still don’t have an office space and will be posting pictures of my little space. The boyfriend and I will be building a desk this evening–when I say the boyfriend and I, I mostly mean the boyfriend. I’m looking forward to having a neat space to keep my work organize.
By the way, there is a deadline for a short story contest today and I’m scrambling to get it done. Lord have mercy.
Any suggestions on how to make this blogging project a success?
One Mean MFA's Blog 