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 As an undergraduate student in the writing concentration program of the English Department at Bridgewater State College , I was constantly writing journals that reflected on my reading and writing for my courses. Dr. Lee Torda always believed in the power of writing journals as tools for both critical thinking as well as for practicing writing. When I began teaching first year composition in the writing program at Ball State University years later as an MA student I held fast to the beliefs of writing journals that I had been so accustomed to. As my time as an instructor progressed, as well as my education and knowledge of technology and multimodal composing, I found a new way to pursue these writing journals. I currently have my students create blogs in which they can reflect on readings and course ideas, just as they would with journals, but they can also communicate with one another myself and each other using multiple modalities including written, visual, and audio, as well as hyperlink to a variety of sources they find relevant to the course. Blogs allow students to compose using multiple modalities that suit their audience and purpose. Blogs also allow students to communicate and share ideas, technologies, and comments with their fellow peers quickly and efficiently The Blog Assignment
Below you will find the blog assignment sheet I provide to my first year composition students. Course Blog
As the instructor, I create a main course blog that serves as a hub for the student blogs. The course blog contains a link list of each students blog so everyone can easily communicate with one another. In addition, I blog about the student writing, material I come across that is relevant to class, and post links to images, text, and video sources that will be helpful to the students. Click the image to view a sample course blog. Student Blogs
Click on the images below to view samples of student blogs.   Blogging Tools
Below are a links to some popular blogging sites that can help students get started with blogging: Visual Essays Electronic Portfolios
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