Why I Want Students to Blog

Got a screen-clipping I'd like to share with you.

This is from the blog of one of my Freshmen in West Civ class. You can see the titles of his recent posts: "Exam Practice", "Battle of Tours Wiki Source", "Notes West Civ 5/20/10", "Is Monarchy More or Less Effective Than Democracy?", etc.

You'll also notice the number of posts this student published in 2010. He published 113 blog posts.

One-hundred and thirteen blog posts.

During a semester long course.

The required number of blog posts for the course?

65.

What is going on here?

What's going on here is a case where we've got a student who OWNS his blog. We've got a student who has turned his blog into a veritable compendium of West Civ that he is going to be able to use as a searchable reference throughout his high school career.

He is going to eat AP Modern Euro for lunch. He is going to pwn British Literature in his senior year.

Because he owns his knowledge. He owns his understanding. And he's made something authentic: his own personal resource... and a record of the history of his own ideas.

That's why I want students to blog.