Quote: “I’m having my students keep a personal blog on any subject they like–primarily to establish a practice of near-daily writing in relation to reading. Some like it, some don’t. But in those that blog often, I have seen a marked improvement in their writing. I think it is because blogging connects writing to thinking in a very concrete way…” (Taken from here.)
Certainly, the more one writes, the better one gets. Holds true for just about anything. I guess the question then is what’s the best way to bring students to the Web logging habit? I like the idea of a reader response notebook, or a reading journal. Ask them to do 5-10 minutes a night? And, the other point here of course is finding some way to evaluate the improvement in their writing…

So much to do.

Our school has been running a 4 x 4 block schedule for about six years now with pretty good success. One downside, however, is the relative inflexibility of the schedule. So, we’re starting a process to look at some alternatives. There is another high school in our area (about 30 miles away) that’s interested in taking a look at this with us, and yesterday my principal broached the idea of using a Web log to communicate. Could be another opportunity to see how they facilitate collaboration and communication.
—–