Tackling Persuasive Writing Via Our Blogs

Venturing out of our comfort zones, my students and I are tackling our next blog post.  Our goal is to make you (the reader) see our blogging topic in a new light and to perhaps make you take action.

Anchor Chart

We started the blogging process back in October with a discussion about the different types of writing and/or purposes for writing.  A student made anchor chart hangs in our classroom as evidence of our learning.  Before each blog post, I encourage students to decide on their purpose for writing their next post.  Persuasive blog posts seem to be my students least favorite type of writing.  Therefore, we are embarking on this journey together to write a persuasive post.

Before we began our drafting, we revisited the characteristics of persuasive writing.  During a 10 minute mini-lesson at the beginning of writers workshop, I had students reflect on their prior knowledge to build a web. This was a student led activity as you can see in the picture.
When we finished with activating our prior knowledge, we began drafting our persuasive posts.  As the students began their drafting, they could watch me drafting my own post. Yes, the one you are currently reading!

Student Led Mini-Lesson

Even though we are writing blog posts, writers workshop has stayed the same in my classroom.  Through mini-lessons I am still teaching my students about grammar, sentence variety, attention grabbers, etc.  We work on drafting, revising, editing, and of course publishing.  The only thing that has changed is the fact I have embraced technology to allow for creativity and engagement.  Recently, I heard Ellin Keene speak at WSRA. She talked a lot about the importance of student engagement.  Her presentation reinforced what I've been doing in my classroom this year with blogging.   As I look out at my students right now, I see my students in various stages of the writing of their persuasive blog posts.  Some students are brainstorming with others at their tables.  Some are typing their drafts in a Google doc. Some are researching their topic for information or inspiration.  They are ALL engaged.  A smile sneaks across my face as I snap a few images of them working.  It is a teacher's dream to see kids intellectually and emotionally engaged in their writing.   My students are creating!  They're at the top of Bloom's Taxonmy.

Many of my students love to work on the carpet--not at their desks.

So, why should teachers blog with their students? I recently posed this question to my students to gain some valuable feedback.  I was pleasantly surprised by their responses.

One of the most popular student responses was the fact that they enjoy the self-selection of topic. Many students also commented on liking the fact that they could add images, links, and videos to enhance their writing.  Another popular response was made about enjoying reading each other's blogs and making comments to one another.  Students felt like they were getting to know their peers better. And, they felt like they were learning a lot about topics that they did not know much about.  Listen below to  Leah's thoughts on blogging.  She writes a DIY blog, and has won a Bloggy award for best blog in my English classroom.