If you’re an English teacher, chances are you have used literary journals in your classroom. Maybe you have your students respond to journal prompts as a warm-up activity, or use notebooks for reader response after finishing a story or a chapter from a novel.
The literary journal is a fantastic teaching and learning tool, but it can also be a pain in the rear for a teacher to grade. Even if you only have one class using journals, you still have to try to balance 30 notebooks on your desk while you’re grading - or worse – lug those things home with you at night. Then, of course, there’s the problem of storage – if I used literary journals with all of my students, I would have to find room to house 150 notebooks in my classroom. Most of us just don’t have that kind of cabinet space.
What’s the solution to this problem? Take your literary journals to the next level. Integrate technology into your classroom by having your students create blogs instead of notebooks. Storage problems? Solved! Grading? Online! Classroom technology incorporation? Done!
Blogging is a skill that will teach your students several things at once. First, of course, they will learn the English content you want them to understand as a result of completing the assignments you give them. This hasn't changed from the traditional notebook format. In addition to those skills, your students will learn other valuable lessons from blogging. They will become familiar with web publishing; you can teach them all about writer's voice, and presenting themselves to the public through the forum of the Internet. They will learn about using tags and categories for their writing, which they can use in other fields as well. Additionally, if you ask your students to comment on the blogs of other students, they will learn about providing valuable feedback and Internet etiquette. They will need these skills if they ever take an online class (which, chances are, they will). Blogging has as many valuable qualities as journals do, but without all the paper. So what are you waiting for?