To encourage teenagers to continue studying as we approach the end of the academic year, our school has launched a class blog competition. As my class has long finished the coursebook and also taken their exams, I thought a blog would go down really well.
Why do I like the blog idea?
- It's a rolling activity that keeps students interested from one lesson to the next.
- It allows students to choose how much or how little they want to contribute.
- It is completely personalised writing, as students choose the topics.
- It allows free expression.
- It is a genuine interactive task because students can comment on each others' posts.
- It creates class unity.
- It allows the teacher to assess their writing informally - and the students don't even know. :-)
But... my teenagers were not amused....
"Yeah, we did that in school."
"I had a blog about three years ago, but I don't write anything now."
"What's it for?"
Yet again the old-fashioned teacher has tried to get inside the teenagers' heads and failed....
However, they livened up somewhat when I mentioned that it would be a class blog, not individual. (Hmm... so they like working together.) And they positively got excited when I gave them the first task. (I have never seen the whole class take out their notebooks and write down the homework!)
Task 1: Find a famous person, living or dead, with the same name as you and write their biography as if you were this person.
- I got two queens, a princess, a sports commentator and a painter.
Task 2: Post a painting you have strong feelings about and explain why.
- Such a variety of artistic tastes. I never realised my group thought so deeply about art!
Task 3: Read four short texts and comment on the one you find most interesting.
- I then planned a lesson based on the text that was commented on most.
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