Yes, I do Grade Blog Posts

Does this make me a bad teacher?

I don't grade all of them. My kids write too much first of all. Last school year I had one student who wrote approximately 170 posts in a 200 day school year. I was impressed. While I don't grade all them, I definitely read every single one that passes through my RSS reader, comment on a fair number of them, and take take them all into account when is time to look at overall writing progress through the year.

My kids are free to write about anything that is "appropriate" (yes, I know, a very loaded word. And yes, I am the ultimate arbiter of what is appropriate for my classroom). I consider their blogs to be hybrid spaces where they have to sometimes post on certain things, but where they can also write about their favourite bands or their weekends. So many parents are not aware of what their kids do online that I consider this a time that I can talk to them about being good digital citizens.

But at least once each week they need to write something that is school related. Right now, in our thinwalls collaboration, this post must have something to do with the reading they are doing from iGoogle. Concentrating on world view and global news, each of the students in both classes has a tab called Around the Globe with five blogs on it that we have given them as well as several more of their own choosing. This tab is their textbook. Constantly updated, free and authentic; what more could we ask for. Each week the students in each of the classes needs to spend some time with this tab, finding something that has been posted that is of interest to them. Then they need to write. They need to research, find outside sources of information, insert links, embed videos, find pictures that are appropriate and licensed for them to use. I subscribe to the web adage that the more you send people away by providing additional links and additional information, the more useful your blog will be to your readers.

I think blogging is different from writing on paper. Online writing can be much more complex and involve many more media than paper writing. This is why I think it needs to be assessed, graded and discussed. We will often pull up pieces of writing in the classroom and discuss, looking for high points and low points. Asking how they can be improved and doing an "extreme blog post makeover."

In the end I grade the posts like this:

Each post is usually out of 10 marks.

5 is for the writing itself (including spelling and grammar)
3 is for the links to outside information sources included (embedded videos, links, pictures, etc.)
2 is for the formatting and information architecture (interesting title, included sub titles, etc)

I'd be interested to hear from others about this. Do you grade blog posts? All of them? Some of them? What do you require? How many of them? How do you actually grade them?

Tags: blogging, school

Comments

[Cheryl Oakes]

Thanks for these great words worth sharing. So glad you are in my network! Cheryl Oakes

[Leif Harboe (Norway)]

Yes, I grade blogs. I grade them about three times a year. The first two times is to give them an idea about how they are performing. The last time - I go through their production, and all the text give me a very good foundation for giving a grade, more that a single essay would do. Last May I wasn't so happy about spending days and days going through 85 blogs - but actually it was easy and rewarding work for me.

[Jon Hoff]

I have often used student blogs as ways of uploading and assessing their work. Not only writing but work in Photoshop.

[Mitch Weisburgh]

I'd be really interested in either you doing a short article or being interviewed on using iGoogle and blogging to teach writing. This would appear at http://www.thewritingteacher.org. Feel free to contact me at that blog site if you are interested.

[Judy Pederson]

My students are just now learning how to do blog posts; there first post will be due next week, and I will grade them when they are a response to an assignment. So far I have been grading comments to my blog posts. Some are credit or no credit while others are graded for content.