Blogs and the Pass Test

After reading Troy Hick's Chapter 3, I re-examined my feelings toward face to face conferences with students about their writing. This week we are all writing and teaching the various types of writing modes in preparation for the TEST. I am thinking yes, we will peer edit and teacher conferene, but would it be a better to blog with each other as we write and respond to the various types of writing which will take place this week. This would certainly save time for the teacher and the student. Some students are actually embarrassed if a teacher speaks to them in clas about their work. I have not done a survery or created a poll, but it appears boys in particular do not like having their work discussed while thier friends are near. Having a blog may help them feel less conspicuous in the classroom. It would be better to respond to students's writing on a class blog site because they often do not even read your comments on their paper, unless you read it with them. But, I feel I really do not spend enough time conferencing with students on an individual basis. Sometimes, I feel very torn between promoting digitial writing verses gettingt students prepared to write an essay using paper and pencil. Our students will soon be graded on how well they can write an essay-given a prompt they have never seen before. We were told, that yes neatness does count-that these readers spend aproximately 4 minutes per paper. You can imagine for those students whose handwriting is well frankly, bad to illegible, their paper may not even be read. And, perhaps more importantly, what relevance does this have to do with them. Won't their job, career, even academic career revolve around writing digitally? Anyway, I still will continue to introdue more digital writing. Wordle is one way I have asked my students to respond to and look at their own writing.