Kelly,+Stephen

=2-D-2, Blogging Current Events Lesson Plan:=

Background & Overview:
I have my students go to CNN Student News (www.cnn.com/studentnews) immediately upon entering the classroom – there is a 10 minute video clip – updated daily – for them to stay abreast of current events. They aren’t expected to finish the entire thing – but I find it’s a nice buffer activity while the class gets settled and I hash out forgotten student passwords and similar crises.

I haven’t introduced blogging to my students yet, but there is a blog on the CNN Student News site. I hope to get my students to use it to respond to the news.

Goals:
By the end of this unit, student will: 1. Have a concept of what blogging is, and be able to articulate how it is similar to and different from other forms of writing. 2. Post relevant reflections on a focused topic.

Introduction & Anticipatory Set:
After all students are in the room and attendance has been taken, I’ll ask them to pause the news and remove their headphones. I’ll announce that while up to now we have watched the news, that starting today, we’ll talk back to it. I’ll ask for student opinions on ways in which we could respond to the news, and after entertaining some responses, suggest that we blog about it.

Direct Instruction:
I’ll indicate the blog link on the CNN Student News website, and we’ll go to it together. The CNN Student News blog posts questions about the stories covered in the news clip, and invites student responses. We’ll read the question of the day together, and then I’ll demonstrate on the smartboard how to add a comment.

Students don’t need e-mail addresses to post on this particular blog – all that’s required is a first name, to protect student’s privacy. It’s a moderated blog too, so after posting, students will see that their comment has been received but awaiting moderation. We’ll discuss what’s meant by moderation, and I’ll solicit ideas as to why someone would want to moderate a blog, including using foul language to simply being off topic and not answering the question.

At this point, I’ll permit student to post comments of their own, and confirm that they are awaiting moderation.

Extension Activities:
Should a student finish their post and still have time, they will be instructed to read the posts of other students on the same or other topics. They can also comment to other students’ comments, adding another layer of commentary on the topic.

Assessment:
I’ve created a Blog Post Record Sheet in MS Word, where student are to copy and paste the text of the Blog post for a given day’s news. They will be expected to complete a certain number of posts by the end of the marking period. Because not every blog post they enter may make it past the moderator, I wanted them to have a local record of all of their work, which I can later use as a search string on the blog itself to see if the post made it up or not.