Reminder: What should a basic "meets standards" blog post look like?

This post is for students who are struggling with how to structure a basic blog post or relying too much on retell.  Please remember that your blog is a place for you to RESPOND to your reading, not to retell the plot or to merely "review" it.  I want to know where your mind wanders while you are reading or after you put the book down.  If you don't naturally do this, the discipline of having to write a response weekly will help you practice.

Keiame and Mustafa both have great mentor posts that demonstrate this.


Paragraph One: Draw your reader in with an interesting lead.  Give the reader a few sentences of context (character, setting, conflict) so he or she has the basic idea of what is going on.

Paragraph Two: Introduce your THEORY, or your idea about what the book is actually about. Your theory can be about any macro idea or micro detail that is interesting to you. Then, UNPACK your theory...which means you can elaborate on why you believe it or how you came to it to begin with. You can use textual evidence to unpack your theory. 

Paragraph Three: CONNECT your theory to the world outside of the story.  What does the author want you to know, feel or think?  Can you relate to it at all? What does this story have to say about the world or people?

Once you have mastered this basic structure, please feel free to experiment and be creative in your responses. There are plenty of great examples/all star mentors of this, especially HERE.  

The Fifth Annual Scarlet and Gray Day! Class Pictures and Contest Winners!

First Quarter Reading Challenge Participants! Everyone read at least 1,200 pages and up to 5,000!

Harry Potter 7 Reread Book Clubs...

Before you start your epic (and FOCUSED) post about Harry Potter, please visit my blog to review all the different threads that were discussed. This might help you narrow down the options (or realize that there are endless threads to be discussed in Harry Potter, which is why we'll reread it forever).

So, 804 blew me out of the water.

There were too many great things to have a single all-star mentor this week.  Here are my highlights and what made reading blogs feel like leisure rather than work:

All Star Creative Writer of the Week: Annie Futterman

All Star Great Connections and References to Other Texts of the Week: Jesse Naranjo

Analyzing the Cover as Art: Susan Guaman

Digging deeper into the true issue: Kai Junn Lathrop

Seriously great post *and* thought provoking comment threads: Nathalie Pages and Molly Smith

Passionate and honest voice: Audrey Bachman, Nora Dellafera, Louis Bonnet (Nora's contains Harry Potter spoilers...be careful!)

Well written, poetic connections and multimedia: Pia Wahlston

 There were others, as well, but I am running out of time. Keep up the good work, 804! AND many of you need to start commenting!!

Is there a social justice issue in your book?

Here are some questions that might help you locate where social justice issues might be lurking in your independent reading books...

1. Is this story fair? Why or why not?

2. How does this text deal with individuals and groups? Are the people acting alone and in competition with each other, or does the text help us imagine people working together?

3. What really hard things are happening in this book? Are these things happening in the world now? Where?

4. How different are people allowed to be in this text? Does it assume everyone is happy and good in the same ways?

5. Who has "power" in your book? How does it get shown? Is if fair?

6. At what points do you notice yourself resisting the book, characters or author? What does your resistance say about the book, and what does it say about you?

813's All Star Mentor of the Week: Hannah Seitz

Hannah is an excellent writer, as you will see when you read her post HERE. She can weave together small moment narration and interpretations of a book--and it's all so engaging.  Her blog is hands-down always thought provoking!

813 had a great week for posting. Other favorites:

Mustafa (a good mentor for structure)
Jenifer (a good mentor for processing through an issue)
Pip (a good mentor for going deeper)

I saw a lot of improvement based on the lessons in class in your posts this week, 813.  I also enjoyed the creative writing aspects many of you have added. Keep up the good work!

812's All Star Mentor of the Week: Malik Padellan

Not only was Malik an all star mentor in the writing of his post (he looked at lines from "World on Fire" really closely), he was an all star COMMENTER! Please remember that you need to be following and responding to at least 3 of your classmates posts.

804 All Star Mentor of the Week: Max Piersol!

One thing I'm looking for in your blog posts is whether you are retelling too much versus whether you are developing a theory about the book you are reading (remember our Charlotte's Web work? A theory can be a big idea you come up with based on a micro or macro detail...)

Max came up with an interesting theory based on his reading of It's Kind of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. Read his post HERE. Check your entries to see if you have been coming up with theories or retelling too much.

804 in a vocabulary review game frenzy!

World On Fire Video Link

If you want to rewatch the "World on Fire" video we watched in class, you can find it HERE.

804's All Star Mentor of the Week: Pia Wahlston!

Pia's post about Looking for Alaska is beautifully written. Enough said.

812's All Star Mentor of the Week: Nushrat Anisha!

Anisha's post was like reading a letter from a friend. Her voice sounded sophisticated and she made some solid connections with her Harry Potter reading experience.

813's All Star Mentor of the Week: Keiame Lee-Chong!

This week's honor goes to Keiame, whose post was extremely well written and engaging. I loved how she started the post with truly thought provoking questions...not the cliched kind of questions. They really got me thinking as a reader and as a person!

The beginnings of community: the art (and fun) of the comment.

(Much of this is adapted from Ms. Rear's post. Thanks, Ms. Rear!) 


So now that we've all started posting about our reading, it's time to begin interacting with each other by responding to each other's blog posts.

In order to create a tighter knit reading community, you are now required to create a "blog roll" (or "link list") of the blogs that you want to keep up with regularly.  You are required to comment on at least 3 blog posts from your class weekly.  My hope is that you will get to know each other better as readers (and nonfiction writers) and that you will learn from one another. I  will be checking these responses.

A good, thoughtful blog comment might:
* praise interesting ideas in the original post
* ask for clarification of any unclear parts of the original post
* add the responder's own thoughts to original ideas to build strength
* contradict or challenge (respectfully!) by explaining another aspect or asking a question to further dialogue
* contain connections (to the self, the world, another text, or another part of the same text) to deepen thinking about the post

***  AND good, thoughtful blog responses  always
* are respectful and coherent
* use standard vocab, spelling, and grammar (so that everyone can understand)
* show consideration of the original blogger's work and thought