Student Blogging Reflections

Earlier this week, I reflected on my experiences with the first-ever Classroom Slice of Life Challenge and shared some of my students' thoughts from our 3rd quarter reflections.  Even though the challenge wasn't yet complete when we did those quarter reflections, most of my students cited blogging in general and/or the March Challenge as one of the most enjoyable and helpful activities of the past nine weeks.

Now that the challenge is over, I wanted to see them reflect more deeply on their experiences with trying to blog every day for a month.  I gave them several sentence starters to guide them (thanks to Lee Ann for the ideas!), and I was really impressed with their insightful reflections.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• "For the first time..."

"For the first time... I enjoyed writing."  Enough said!

• "I learned..."

how to get writing ideas and how writing connects people! 

how to use others' comments as models for good commenting!

empathy for others!

confidence!

how to appeal to an audience!

• "I enjoyed..."

(She was originally very insecure about sharing her writing, but loved the connections she found!) 

He "used to hate writing", but he really got into blogging!

(We got comments from as far away as New Zealand!)

•  "I wish..."

So many students echoed this feeling!

She's a senior!  :-)  Wouldn't it be cool if she wrote next year from college?