Conversations via comments

I have found lately that I have done a fair amount of reading and commenting but not much blog writing. I had big plans to review my blog and write an entry about some of the key ideas I have encountered in the last year (March 15 marked my first year of writing). Maybe I still will because I know there are some important concepts hidden back in earlier blogs that I need to revisit…but for now my point…..

and Clay have been discussing on their blogs the best pedagogy in approaching blogs with students and helping them become writers. It has been a great conversation moving back and forth between comments and the blogs themselves. However it has made me wonder about the intersection between writing and conversing.

Reading to write…becoming a writer…. Commenting to converse and to be stretched and to learn....How do these concepts fit together?

This is a personal question and it also has implication for student practice. I know it is not an “either or choice” it is a” both/ and” but it requires balance. In practice that balance may not be very neat or symmetrical because there are times when our engagement with ideas may not happen so much on our personal blog as they do in interacting with ongoing conversations on the blogs of others.

What does it mean for our students?

For me? Maybe it is a case of writers block or overload....being a conversationalist has been fun!