Year Nine Blogging

For years I've wanted to blog with my students as it's one of my favourite activities to do. As you well know, I've been writing for a LONG time here on this blog. Writing ever since I was at five. I told one of my Year 9's the other day that I was going to bring my diaries in. I still need to do that just to prove how long I've been writing and why I love writing.

So - my year nine class. They have trouble with their spelling and completing their work. Pretty much like ALL of my students EVER in existence. But these kids are powerfully positive and try hard when they know that they have high expectations. And boy do they know I have high expectations.

The process so far:

* What is blogging? - In this series of lessons we looked at what blogs were and what made a good blog. The kids that game have more of an understanding of what blogs are. Proud of you Tyrese!
* Setup of blogs
* Free writing - topics in the free writing section was focussed on whakawhanaungatanga and general introduction posts.
* Planned writing
* Free writing
* Trusting students to work on their own
* Testing students trust and checking their work
* Keeping students accountable - needed to get them to write a minimum of two posts each day or each couple of days. Some students are writing LONG posts and some people are not writing much.

At this point, I think the main thing I need to do is getting them writing planned pieces and encouraging them to write about things that they're interested in.


More to come later :)