Last week my 6th grade class was comparing the blog posts of two writers with opposing views on Modern Technology. It was during this rather straight-forward lesson, comparing these two examples of argumentative writing, when something unexpected happened. As a sidenote, this is one of my favorite aspects of teaching–the little surprises that bloom from the ordinary. In the lesson, one blog writer celebrated all the ways technology could enhance our lives while the other warned against the dangers of total immersion in tech. We visited the actual blog site of one of the writers in an attempt to see how old he was when he started his blog. As it turns out, he was just twelve. So as we were thinking about blogs, I said, “You know, I started a blog about teaching after I had my stroke all those years ago.” The kids looked up at me incrediously, and Drake, sitting in the back row, called out, “How are we just hearing about this?” I shrugged and explained, “You guys, it’s a blog about teaching. I didn’t really think you’d be interested.”
As if to say, “We’ll be the judge of that,” the Chromebooks started opening all around the room, and the kids began asking for the name of the blog. We had less than 10 minutes left in the class period, so I allowed this meandering from the original plan. I’m not entirely sure I had a choice, but I like to think I’m in charge at all times…even if it may not seem that way to the untrained eye. I really anticipated that the kids would take a cursory look at the site, close their devices, and ask if we could play a game. They love to play a little game in the last five minutes of a class period. But that is not what happened.
As a writer, it’s most rewarding to hear how your words land with a reader. I walked up and down the aisles as they perused the posts, and I nonchalantly listened to their comments and chatter. Addison looked down at her screen and said, “Oh…that’s sad.” I stopped and asked her what she was referring to. She told me that the introduction in which I explained how the blog project started as a tool for reflection and healing was sad to her. I think she had forgotten I’d been sick. A sweet boy looked up at me and said, “I liked the one about love.” Jenna asked, “Who sprayed pepper spray at the school?” I froze and frantically thought back on all my posts, “When had I written about THAT?” I told her it was a long time ago, and it was an 8th grader who is probably nearly 40 years old now. She shrugged it off and returned to her reading. Austin double-checked with me and said,”There are over thirty posts. You wrote ALL of these?” I assured him I had, and he nodded like he was impressed.
We were getting close to the end of the hour and kids started saying things like “I’m going to follow you.” and making suggestions like, “You should write a blog post all about us!” As they filed out after the bell rang, a notification pinged on my computer. It was a text from Word Press, the site for my blog. I opened the message and it read, “Your stats are booming!” Those crazy kids had blown up my blog with all their activity on my site.
So I decided to take their suggestion. I wrote a blog all about them…my original followers.
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