For the past week, I have followed Ree Drummond's blog, "The Pioneer Woman". At first, this site was very confusing to me because of the complexity of the pages. However, the more time I spent looking at the pages, the more comfortable I became with the setup of her blog and the multiple pages and headlines it included. Ree has 7 pages with two or three columns on each page. After reading Lisa Zawilinski's article, I found out that this set up, of multiple pages and two to three columns, is a typical blog set up. I was brought to Ree's blog because it was on Time Magazine's list of Best Blogs for 2009. I remained interested in it because Ree is an author, she is a mother of four children who she homeschools, she lives in the country and owns a farm, she cooks, and she is a photographer. Ree shares each of the activities, plus many more, in great detail and fun pictures on her blog. I would want to use her blog as an example of how to set up my own because it is organized and interesting to read and look at.
Denise Johnson states in her article, "One way to enrich students' engagement with literature is by developing a depth of knowledge about the author". I liked this quote because this is one way I could get elementary students interested in both blogging and literature. She also states that blogs usually provide more personal and insightful information than other printed sources. Blogs such as Ree's allows readers to learn background information from her writings and pictures, which allows them to form connections with authors. Johnson also suggests following young adult author blogs, which is also something I would be interested in personally and with students. She describes these blogs as being lead by "critically acclaimed young adult authors" and a new book or books are featured each month. Followers of this blog can then read the featured books and talk about them with each other and eventually with the authors of the books. Communicating in this way is both authentic and meaningful and it also promotes critical reading and thinking.
