It's Only Fair....

It can often be heard from my 7th grade students, "It's only fair that if we are writing on our blogs, that you should be writing in yours!" I would have to agree with them, so here we go.

I really enjoy challenging students' minds by showing them innovative and thought provoking lectures from TED Conferences presented around the world. The quality and expertise of many of the presenters is top notch. Note: caution should always be exercised and all talks previewed for age appropriateness. I know that should go without saying, but it kind of sneaks in there sometimes and when you least expect it.

Our latest TED talk blogging assignment was based on Derek Sivers' presentation called, "Weird, or just different?" (Shown below for your viewing pleasure)



One of the main reasons we take time to critically think and write on our blogs is that I firmly believe my students just need more time to practice writing about their thinking and opinions. But I don't just want them to GIVE their opinion (anyone can do that), but rather I want them to have well reasoned and articulate opinions! They should have ideas that are thought out and logically informed. This is pretty hard for Middle School kids. Now add the element of doing that writing in public (authentic audience) and things get really interesting.

I believe it is vitally important for use to give our students the opportunity and mentoring needed to be effective public writers. For me anyway, public writing can be excruciating. Not only do I worry about spelling, grammar, and usage, but there are issues of tone and perceived meaning of words and phrases.

If anyone is interested in reading their ideas on the above subject, you can check them out here

As much as possible I try not to give "direct instruction" blogging assignments (I wrote about this in an earlier post), but I hope this assignment give students time to slow down and be reflective writers.

The one area I hope to get feedback on is the spiritual implications of truth and the its' opposite. We'll see if that comes out in this groups articles.

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