Genre Study: Blogging

Many times students are assigned a novel but receive little to no background knowledge about the author and the life experiences that may have influenced the novel. According to Johnson (2010), one way to engage students with literature is by “developing a depth of knowledge about the author” to help create meaning and connections (p. 174). Providing students with an authentic audience, such as an authors’ blog, can create a powerful learning environment to promote the 21st-century literacy skills of critical and analytic thinking.
For this purpose, I followed Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Mad Women in the Forest” blog because I enjoy her books and she is a native of Syracuse, New York. As I perused her blog, Anderson used literacy to describe her day, offer suggestions of young adult literature, praise new authors, offer a safe space for developing authors and musicians, and a natural plug for her own writing and clothing. Anderson also posts pictures of her family and nature that both surrounds and inspires her writing while in the forest. The personal touches pull you in and her positive and inviting tone holds your interest to continue reading. The thought of starting my own blog has occurred to me more than once while following her blog. Digging deeper into her blog, her alma mater was putting on a production of one of her books, and she wrote about the dread she felt in returning to school. I connected with Anderson on this note, and realized I like her books because she writes about adolescents in the tumultuous years of high school.
As a secondary English teacher, I am drawn to books that relate to my students to remind myself of what it is like to be a teenager in our technology-driven world. No longer do paper and pencil assignments engage our 21st-century students. With blogging, the skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking are combined to “allow students to create content in ways not possible” (Johnson, 2010, p. 179). Students can now post a comment about a written paper or provide a link to offer a suggestion or revision as well as post a video, which adds “new layers of meaning” (Johnson, 2010, p. 179). I welcome technology in my classroom to further engage and promote thinking among students as well to provide an authentic purpose beyond the paper and pencil assigment.



Reference:
Johnson, D. (2010, November). Teaching with Authors’ Blogs: Connections, Collaboration, Creativity. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,54(3), 172-180.

On my nightstand....

Take another perspective on life through the narration of death and his watching of Liesel Meminger, a young girl living with foster parents in Molching, Germany during World War II. With 560 pages, the book appears daunting but Zusak's diction and description keeps me mesmerized!

Wonderful book..highly recommended!