Blogging=Freedom

I honestly think that blogging can be an extremely helpful thing for an English class at the high school level or higher. After all, I feel it would give each student the chance to share any thoughts that might have related to the reading material. I know that I many times after a class discussion, I personally end up gaining a new perspective about the material. Unfortunately, since I usually end up realizing it after class, I have nobody to share my thoughts with. So if students are given the opportunity to blog, they can post any thoughts that came to them after class.

I also think that blogging might also be helpful for students, like me, who are too shy or embarrassed to speak up during class discussions. Many times I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on the material, but I never say anything since public speaking makes me nervous. So I’ll keep it to myself and I’ll feel bad because maybe I had an opinion that was different from the ones discussed in class. I’m also well aware that there are many other students who have similar experiences. Now if each student in the class were required to keep a blog, then this would give the shy/nervous students a chance to share their thoughts. Therefore, it would be a good idea to give participation points for blogging.

Even though blogging is a good idea for higher grades, I am not so sure about using it in the lower grades. While a class blog might be taken seriously in an honors level class, I’m not sure if that would be the case in regular classes. So, I personally think that I wouldn’t considering using a class blog for middle school students.