Thursday, September 07, 2006

On teaching (literature) with blogging

A few weeks ago, Keri requested that I write an entry about everything I've learned while using blogs to teach literature. Having used blogs only twice (ok, thrice) in literature classes, my experience is limited, and so I've been a little hesitant. But after she posted a whole load of new blog entries, I thought the least I could do is try, in honor of her renewed blogging.

I'm not primarily a literature teacher, of course, but I do have a pretty broad background in literary studies, so I teach a lower-level lit class from time to time. Here at MU I taught Intro to Women's Lit, a sophomore level class, last spring and summer, and I used blogs both times, but in completely different ways. (I also just remembered as I was beginning this entry that I used blogs in the last class I taught at SIU, an intro to literary studies class, in July 2004. But I seem to have deleted that blog and don't have strong memories of it--perhaps because I was packing up at the same time--so I won't say much about it.)


So last spring, I asked each student to keep a blog, and primarily the blog was a place for posting an individual response to the reading for the day before class. I encouraged them to read each other's blogs, but mostly they didn't. I required them to comment on each other's blog once later in the semester (when it was all too clear that they weren't otherwise cross-reading), so most of them read some other blogs then. So except for that one time, the blogs were functioning not much differently from a paper journal.

Now, why did I do it this way? It's sometimes hard to reconstruct my thinking, but I'll try. For one thing, the class had over 20 students, so I didn't think a group blog would work unless I divided up the responsibilities for blogging, and I didn't want to do that. (I could also have opted to have a couple of group blogs and divided students up into a couple of groups, but I wasn't so happy with my one other attempt at using two group blogs, so I decided against that course of action, as well. Now I'm thinking I should give the two group blogs idea another chance sometime.) I wanted everyone blogging before class, not just a select few. Being required to write about a text tends to be a good motivator to actually read the text, and many of my students reported to me that they appreciated keeping the blog for precisely that reason. It prompted them to do the reading.

But of course I wanted the blog to function as more than a stick. I wanted it to be a place for them to think, to generate ideas. And while it did function that way for a few students, for most it did not. Most of the blog entries were fairly perfunctory, and at times I suspected that they *might* have been reading each other's blogs, only because some of the perfunctory entries sounded so similar. (But, in retrospect, I think it could just as well be chalked up to the similarity of generalizations in general, if you know what I mean.)

Not having much cross-reading contributed, I think, to this perfunctoriness. Even while many of them reported appreciating the blog-stick phenomenon, it's easy to feel uninspired by sticks, even if they do get us moving in some fashion. If they had really been reading (and commenting) on each other's blogs, I believe the entries would have gained some momentum. (And why did I *not* require commenting most of the semester, you might ask. Well, I was also using a wiki for the first time, and the wiki software I was using had a discussion option on each page. I decided to try this complicated task of having students add links and stuff to the wiki *and*--on a group rotation--post topics to the appropriate page and reply to the discussion. Yeah. I could hardly keep up with it myself. Anyway, I thought all the rich discussion would happen on the wiki, so I thought requiring discussion on the blogs would have been overkill. And it would have been. But what I really should have done was required commenting on the blogs and gotten over my hypnotic fascination with the admittedly crude discussion capabilities of the wiki.)

Anyway, one thing I knew I wanted to do differently when I taught the class over the summer was to make sure they read and responded to each other's blog entries. And because the class was somewhat smaller (14), I thought I would risk using just the one group blog. And it worked really beautifully. With no prompting at all, students were telling me that they loved the blog. (A couple of people complained a bit because they had unreliable or no internet access at home. I understand the complaint, but can't see much of a way around it. I'm not going to stop using blogs.) One thing they seemed to love was the chance to hear other's reactions to the readings. Most of the students were not English majors, and many of them felt uncertain of their ability to make sense of the readings. So the chance to read each other's ideas did a number of things: (1) it gave them new ways of thinking about a given text, (2) it gave them confidence in their own ideas (especially when others commented on their entries), and (3) it prompted them to talk more in class. In other words, it seemed to "equalize" things so that everyone knew ahead of time (more or less) than everyone had different ideas about the text, and that that was ok. There wasn't just one "answer" that I was looking for when I asked questions. There were, instead, a host of reactions, and part of our task in class was to process those reactions, to go back to the text and see what the evidence supported and complicated, but to also consider how reactions get formed (how social/cultural/personal backgrounds, etc. always inform our readings).

And I also used the wiki differently. Mainly, it was a management system, a place to explain assignments (on my part) and to post them (on their part). I had them post their two collage assignments there and to comment on each other's collages. I thought that worked well, though when I do that again I want to have them comment *before* the final submission so that they'll have a chance to incorporate ideas generated in the comments in their final submissions. I also had them post their class portfolios on the wiki.

This is getting long, and so I think I'll close. And what I'm thinking of really isn't about blogging; it's about visual learning. I've been thinking about that ever since Collin put that tag cloud of the last 11 years of CCC on his blog. I've always thought I wasn't a visual thinker, and now I'm realizing how very silly such a thought is. And how that's influencing my teaching but also my thinking in general.

But that will have to be a blog entry for another time.

49 comments:

chris said...

Donna,
Thanks for this reflection. I think blogging is probably one of the best things to happen to writting classes since, well, maybe since the process movement.

Of course part of my affection for blogging is due to the support that the blogosphere has and continues to offer me. As well, i think it's just beautiful that the practice of blogging fits so well with the theories of two of my favorite language/learning philosphers/theorists: Dewey and Vygotsky. Not only do students have the opportunity to gain/enhance their technology literacy skills, but they get to write and respond in a social network. That is, they're not writing in isolation or for one reader only (i.e. teacher). And, for those who have never blogged before, they're learning by doing (Dewey).

I've been teaching with blogs for approximately two weeks now, and as of this moment, it's diffiuclt for me to imagine teaching a writing class without them.

I meant to only comment on your reflections of bloggings-past, instead you get this. My bad.

Donna said...

What's bad? Riffing on a blog entry? That's good! It's part of what makes blogging so generative and wonderful. And, yeah, I was thinking about education and experience in relation to blogging after I wrote this yesterday. It's all good.

Joseph Duemer said...

My experience mirrors yours. Especially with younger students (18, 19) it's hard to get them to use any system that isn't dead easy as well as required. But I want the blog to be a casual, free part of the class. I don't grade student blogging, for instance, except as a part of the participation score. But I try to make the blog a worthwhile experience by posting useful links & information there.

Once with a croup of honors students I had a class blog & also required everyone to keep their own blog, but it was a class on electronic writing so that worked pretty well. In fact, several students kept using the blog after the class was over. But with my usual freshmen, I'm using the minimum blog model--I post & they comment. I'm using one blog with two sections--20 students in each--right now. The Teacher posts / Students cvomment model is not ideal. The best situation would be to give everyone posting rights & I may move to that in the future, though I suspect that posting would be dominated by a few students.

I've just posted my initial reflections on this particular blog experiment at: http://chujoe.net/index.php?id=901

Donna said...

Thanks for stopping by! I've never tried the teacher posting model myself, although I have (in upper level classes) participated in a class blog as one of the posters (along with the students). I tend to grade class blogs more on consistency, but I do definitely require (in the better incarnations of their use) that students both post *and* comment. It helps to keep things lively, which is what makes blogging so wonderful in the first place.

Last semester I taught an upper-level class that focused exclusively on blogging, and in that class (like your electronic writing class) students kept individual blogs and contributed to a class blog. I also added a qualitative assessment by asking them to assemble a blogging portfolio at the end of the class. We came up with a set of expectations/criteria together.

Keri said...

Hi, Donna,

I emailed you and it came back. I met with Lynette today, and she inspired me to try CiteULike. I like.

I wanted to comment about "visual thinking." I'm working on my Cmap. It was really hard the first time (in the Rhetoric class, just because it was new), but yesterday I was searching around and found an article called The Theory of CMapping ,http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryCmaps/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.htm.
It gave a nice overview about how to think about Cmaps, and also gave some suggestions for organizing it.

Have you tried a Cmap yet?

Keri

Donna said...

Hi Keri--Thanks for the link! I haven't tried Cmap again since last fall, though I did use Inspiration, which is really similar, and liked it a lot. I'll have to give Cmap a try again, though, after taking a look at the article.

I wonder why the email came back? It's my last name + dg [at] missouri [dot] edu --is that the one you used?

Anonymous said...

Donna,
I was trying looking for experience of using blogging for teaching. In deed, yours is a very exciting one. I was experimenting on using blogging to teach a Resource Management class for about two weeks. My intention is using blog for group discussion sort of cooperative learning. But I failed to get my students (18 of them) really interested. I thought it was my poor management. Perhaps, blogging does not meet their expectation. Your reflection and comments from blog visitors let me see advantage of using blogging for teaching. I definitely come back again for more learning from you.

Anonymous said...

This was very interesting to read- I am an English Teacher studying Educational Technology, so thank you for your insight! I have begun putting together a blog with tips on how to use technology in the English classroom, please stop by and comment!
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walk2write said...

I found your site by searching for blogging about literature. When I began blogging earlier this year, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to say or what kind of audience/social group I was seeking. I thought about my interests and gravitated to gardening blogs. They have proven to be useful in a metaphorical sense and as an endless source of ideas. Lately, though, I have been feeling as though I am a bull in the china shop of garden purists. It is difficult to engage very many people in that "genre" in meaningful discussions about anything not strictly related to gardening. I am running out of kind things to say to people who visit my site, comment, but entirely miss the point of the posts. Once I finish my graduate degree, I am sure I will be using blogging as a teaching tool, but I'm afraid I would not be setting a good example with the site I've created. Perhaps I am targeting the wrong group of bloggers with it? Your site and the comments I've read here are very helpful so far. I hope to return and learn more.

Ann Glaser said...

I am taking classes right now to get my K-8 teaching credential and interestingly enough we have had to do everything you have listed in your blog. We have had to blog, and post journals, comment on other people's blogs, use a wiki and now create our own webpages. I am enjoying reading your blog and how you have taught blogging. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, but the sheer breadth of writing has made me a better writer and more comfortable with many facets of the web.

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