May
18

Improving Quality of Student Comments

Filed Under (Blogging) by blogwalker on 18-05-2008 and tagged , , ,

As I move through the 31-Comment Challenge (ok, I’m behind), I’ve been thinking about ways to help students improve their commenting skills. Via Donna DesRoches’s “Blogging and Reading Comprehension Strategies,” I found a great free resource to provide some scaffolding for young bloggers: Comprehension Strategy Posters provided by ReadingLady.com.

readingstrategies.jpg

The posters are available in both Word and PDF formats and include:

  • Asking Questions
  • Determining
  • Inferring
  • Making Connections
  • OWL (Observe, Wonder, Link)
  • Repairing Comprehension
  • Synthesizing
  • Visualizing

If students were encouraged to focus on one strategy per week, and could refer to the posters, teachers might see less of the “I liked your post” one-liner responses and more of the thoughtful kind of writing the improves literacy skills – and bumps up the learning possibilities of the blogging project. I like how Donna explains the importance of encouraging better commenting: “Blogging is a great communication tool but it is the use of effective commenting skills that will extend and engage global conversations for our students.”

*Note: Image from http://classroomtechtips.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/readingstrategies.jpg

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3 Responses to “Improving Quality of Student Comments”

  1.   Mathew Says:
      May 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm

    I like the link between comprehension strategies and blogging comments. These posters are aligned with Open Court… http://www.opencourtresources.com/ocr/gradex/pdfs/Comp_Strategy_Posters_2008.pdf and are slightly different but also do the job.

    Thanks, Mathew. I just checked out your posters and like your graphics better.

    [Reply]

  2.   blogwalker Says:
      May 18th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Thanks, Mathew. I like your graphics better:-)

    [Reply]

  3.   Jose Climaco Says:
      May 18th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

    Those posters look pretty cool.

    [Reply]

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