Sixth Grade Teachers

As you know, our sixth grade classes have begun maintaining their own personal blogs. They have now posted at least twice, and had the opportunity to read each other’s blog posts and comment on them. Before posting on the blogs, we spent a lot of class time reading blogs and brainstorming appropriate topics for posts. We discussed the content, structure, and style of blogs we read, and what factors made us want to read someone’s blog. Mr. Kjellstrom helped us immensely by posting tips for us on how develop our ideas into informative, reflective, and interesting blog posts. Read Mr. Kjellstrom’s tips for bloggers!

For several nights in a row now, I have sat on my couch glued to my computer screen, reading the blog posts. Around ten o’clock (which is extremely late for me to still have my eyes open, let alone reading something) my husband, Matt asked me, “What are you still doing on the computer? I thought you said you were done with your work for tonight.” I explained that I was reading my students’ blogs. Even after I explained what the blogs were all about, he still didn’t get it. “Well, what do they write about?” he asked. I shared some of the posts with him, and his reaction was: “These are sixth graders’ writing this? Really?”

Yes. It’s true. It is hard to believe as you read the students’ first posts that they were written by twelve-year-olds. As I read the posts, I was struck by the depth of the students’ insights, and the honesty in their writing. The students have written on a variety of topics including technology, writer’s block, memories, their families, balancing sports and academics, encouragement and perseverance. Some took on controversial topics such as the war, the epidemic of obesity in our country, and saving the environment. It is inspiring to read about the students’ concern for others and for social issues.

So, why blog? These first posts demonstrate the power of blogging. Our sixth grade students are writing freely about topics that matter to them personally. They are expressing their ideas and opinions in a public forum, and responding to each other’s ideas. Their posts are creative and reflective. I am certain that when you read them, you will be impressed by the depth of the students’ thoughts and the eloquent way in which they express their ideas. So, check out the sixth graders’ blogs and you will not be disappointed!

Here are a few examples of the excellent sixth grade blogs to get you started:

Emma K.’s blog: http://trinityweblog.org/emmku0708

Linzy’s blog: http://trinityweblog.org/linsc0708

Drew’s blog: http://trinityweblog.org/dreja0708

Happy reading!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 9:08 pm and is filed under Getting Started, Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.