I was talking to my students yesterday, telling them that I had an epiphany. We were reading a reflective essay on tornado chasers. After reading the essay, we then wrote our own relection on what we read. The students then exchanged papers and reflected on each others comments. It was then that I realized that what we were doing was blogging on paper!
For weeks, I've been trying to figure out a way to get the students involved in this blog, and the tornado chasers article finally gave me the answer. If I put a blog on my blog page for students to comment on, this give us all yet another avenue of discussion that we might not get in the classroom. I quickly put together a mini-lesson on blogging and how it could be used in my ELA classes. Some of the students seemed quite interested and excited about getting involved with all the discussions.
For now, I will be using the blog as extra credit, with each post students share worth extra credit points. Reflection is a great tool when trying to implement new strategies into the course of study. Though we often reflect, I sometimes wonder if we really act on our reflections.
My classes change constantly, and though each class learns the same material, it oftentimes is delivered differently from class to class. This is because I always evaluate (reflect) on every class I teach. I figure out what went well, and what didn't go so well, and alter the instruction to suit the needs of my students.
This tool can be used by students as well. I always want students to journal. In relecting on a day's events, we can sometimes see what things we could do to improve our quality of life. Sometimes writing things down helps us to make better choices, as we can see on paper what our options really are.
Were it not for reflection, my students might not have been able to see this blog, and it would have gone unnoticed among the thousands of other blogs out there. I think we should all take time each day to reflect, and in that reflection, make good choices for ourselves and those around us.
Bravo! I could not agree more. It is through reflection that we grow, mature and become better at whatever it is that we are reflecting about. As a fellow English teacher (in the same building) I have found these kinds of activities valuable on many levels. Although all the kinks to the system need to be reconciled, this idea of offering a student this kind of forum as a means to sound off about something that went on in class really knows no bounds. I would be interested to see what finally comes of it. Well done!
ReplyDeleteI think that we should do more of those kind of things in class.It is really fun to see what other people think of what you write. i want to become a writer and i think the only way to see if anyone likes what I write, is to have them comment on it.You make a really good point :)
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