I work with some terrific teachers who are eager and willing to try anything. This morning I introduced making “quality comments” to our 2nd graders.

We’re using KidBlog which is a simple blogging platform for younger students. Although KidBlog doesn’t have the capabilities of other blogs, it’s very easy for students (and teachers) to use. The teachers are excited about using the blogs in their classroom to encourage writing as well as to share what’s happening at school with parents.

Although our 1st – 4th graders blogged last year, I didn’t do a good job of guiding students to create quality posts and comments and I was determined to do better this year. I discovered some excellent blog resources from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano’s Langwitches blog. Silvia has created a fabulous “Guide to Blogging in K-8.”

First, the students watched a video about quality comments created by third graders in Mrs. Yollis’ class. What makes this so effective is that the students are giving tips on leaving better comments – teachers can say the same thing but kids listen to their peers! The 5 tips were:

1. Compliment the writer in a specific way.
2. Add new information.
3. Make a connection.
4. End with a question.
5. Proofread your comment.

Then we talked about some sample comments to determine which ones would be appropriate. Finally, we let the students give comments on a post about some stories they had read in class. For a first try, and with not a lot of time to write, we felt like the children did a good job. One of the teachers even went back and responded to each comment! Feel free to read Mrs. Cooper’s blog.

Everything worked well for 2 classes. However, by the time the 3rd class came in, the internet was not cooperating! A few of the students in this class were able to submit comments but with an unreliable connection, too many didn’t have time to do anything. I must say, though, this was a very patient group of students! Hopefully, we’ll be more successful next week.