Reality: In the rush of requirement, it is hard to keep meaning going in the classroom, particularly with writing. We recently offered journaling in class as a way to give students time to write in an open ended fashion. More than one student stared back at us in disbelief. “What do you mean, just write?”
“Yes, we said, just fill the page.” Some of them got into it. So when we offered blog post writing for some additional credit, several gravitated towards the opportunity. The agreement: entries would be posted unfiltered, unedited and anonymous. As agreed, we’ve started to link them using a very basic tumblr blog. You can read them too. Here is the link, which can also be found on our students page: http://idabstudentswrite.tumblr.com/ I can hear their voices and it means a lot to me that they shared their thoughts. We’re offering this blog posting opportunity again, and will keep updating it as we go along.
