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Stephanie was worried about this development.She decided to go to her students, to find out whatthey could do together to use the blog in morethoughtful ways. Stephanie started an online discus-sion on the class blog, and her students shared thesecomments:

“Can I put one of my poems up there?”“I want to be able to post questions to the blog andhave my classmates answer them.”“I really want to write about the book I am readingat home...not just what I think will happen next in

Spiderwick

.”

These comments opened up important issues for Stephanie, issues that are essential for all of us toconsider as the Internet enters our reading and lan-guage arts classrooms.The purpose of this article is to explore ways inwhich blogs can support literacy programs, espe-cially to develop higher order thinking (HOT) whilereading and writing. First, I will provide an introduc-tion to and a theoretical rationale for blogging. Next,resources and ideas will be shared to help spark pos-sibilities for blogging in an intermediate-grade class-room. Four common types of educational blogs willbe presented. Finally, HOT blogging, an instructionalframework that uses a blog to develop higher order thinking, will be described.

What Is a Blog?

A blog, short for weblog, is an easily editable webpagewith posts or entries organized in reverse chronologi-cal order. Many different formats for blogs are emerg-ing (Mortensen, 2008), and the features that are useddepend on both the blogger and the tools providedby the blog host.

t is Sunday evening. With a steaming cup of EnglishBreakfast tea by her keyboard, Stephanie LeClair (pseudonym) navigates to the blog she recently setup for her classroom. She is curious to see what her fifth-grade students have posted over the weekend.Stephanie, a dedicated literacy educator, hadrecently incorporated a response blog into her cur-riculum. She felt doing so would integrate writing in away that supported reading. Stephanie posted open-ended prompts to her blog about

The SpiderwickChronicles

by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (2003).The prompts invited students to share their respons-es. In addition to integrating writing to support read-ing, classroom blogging prepared students for thenew literacies of the Internet (Lankshear & Knobel,2003, 2006; Leu et al., 2007).Not having previously blogged herself, Stephaniebegan her journey by spending an hour with theschool’s technology teacher, Ms. Lowe (pseudonym).Ms. Lowe introduced her to

Edublogs

, at edublogs.org, one of the many free blogging sites for educators.By the end of the day, Stephanie had not only startedher classroom blog but also started to connect in-school and out-of-school new literacies (Alvermann2002; Hinchman, Alvermann, Boyd, Brozo, & Vacca,2003; Hull & Schultz, 2002).The weeks progressed smoothly. Stephanie wasposting regularly and her students were commentingon the prompts she posted. Quickly, however, she be-gan to sense student interest waning. Comments werebecoming more brief, superficial, and formulaic.

Blogging is an easy way to beginpreparing elementary students forthe new literacies of the Internet.

HOT Blogging: A Framework forBlogging to Promote

igher

rder

hinking

Lisa Zawilinski

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HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking

teacher may assign a specific page of the blog to asingle student. A parent searching for that student’swriting would easily locate the writing on that stu-dent’s page through a list of names in a side columnof the blog. Similarly, a category for “artwork” mightbe created allowing readers to find all student postsacross the blog related to artwork. Some additionalfeatures that blogs may include are language transla-tors, calendars, and photo viewers. The blog’s author,or blogger, determines which features are used.

Why Bother Blogging:A Theoretical Rationale

The Internet is this generation’s defining technologyfor literacy (Coiro & Dobler, 2007; Leu, Kinzer, Coiro,& Cammack, 2004; Leu et al., 2007). It is home to acontinuously emerging set of new technologies for literacy such as search engines, e-mail, blogs, wi-kis, instant messenger, social networking tools, andmany others yet to emerge. Each requires new skillsand strategies. Schools need to prepare students for Typically, a blog consists of a header and two tothree columns. Figure 1 depicts a simple three-col-umn blog. The center column is often home to themost recent post (text entry) by the author. Reader comments (replies or responses to the author’s post)on this blog can be found in the right-hand column.Blog comments can often be found immediately un-der the post to which the comments refer. The new-est posts appear first, and all posts include both atitle and date. The archive houses older posts andcomments. This archive usually appears in the left-or right-hand column. The left-hand column in Figure1 also includes a blogroll (i.e., links to other blogs or frequently visited websites) organized in list fashionand often by category. In this way, the author and in-terested readers can visit related blogs from one cen-tral location with ease.Blogs can have multiple pages. Pages and catego-ries are two additional ways to organize posts andcomments on a blog. These areas are similar to filedrawers full of folders. Each page/category can holdlinks or posts related to a specific topic or student. A

Figure 1Simple Blog With Common Features

Older blogpostsLinks to other blogsor websites of interestMost recent postby blog authorHeaderbased onthemechosen.Remainsconsistentacross pages

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and learning to communicate safely—all can be de-veloped within the context of blogs.Perhaps, however, the most cogent reason for classroom blogging comes from Mary Kreul, a teach-er widely known for her online classroom work, fromRichards School in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin (Leu,Leu, & Coiro, 2004). When asked, “Why should edu-cators take the time to blog?” Ms. Kreul replied,

I think the biggest advantage to blogs is that they pro-vide an authentic audience for student writing andwork in general. In the past the teacher was usuallythe only person who read student work. With a blog,student work can be read by classmates, parents,extended family members, school community mem-bers, project partners, classroom teachers, pre-serviceteachers, and anyone around the world who locatesthe class blog. (Personal correspondence, December 2008)

Four Common Typesof Blogs Foundin Elementary Classrooms

Some of the most common types of blogs being usedin schools today are Classroom News Blogs, Mirror Blogs, Showcase Blogs, and Literature ResponseBlogs. Blogs often incorporate more than one ofthese primary functions and, given the creativeminds of effective teachers and the rapidly changingnature of literacy on the Internet, many more typeswill emerge.

Classroom News Blog

Many classroom blogs are used to share news andinformation with parents and students. Often, this isthe first type of blog a teacher will use (Richardson,2006). Teachers update classroom news blogs ona regular basis, posting homework assignments,providing updates on curriculum for parents, andsharing any other information that could benefit thehome–school connection. Examples of a classroomnews blog can be found in Table 1.

Mirror Blogs

Mirror blogs allow bloggers to reflect on their think-ing—hence the mirror metaphor. A teacher may posta response about a workshop recently attended, shar-ing insights gleaned. While reading a new profession-al book on literacy, a blogger might post quotes or these new literacies by integrating them into the cur-riculum, and blogs are an easy way to begin.Some believe that we simply need to place com-puters in the hands of our students, and they willlearn what they need (Negroponte, 2006). Yes, manyof our students can develop basic tool use withoutinstruction. We see them on the Internet at home,communicating through instant messenger (Lewis& Fabos, 2005), blogs (Mortensen, 2008), and other online tools (Lenhart & Madden, 2005). One surveyhas reported that some 12 million adolescents aged12–17 maintain their own blogs in the United States(Lenhart & Madden, 2005). However, simply usingthese tools does not predicate effective and efficientuse. Howard Reingold (2006) summed it up well bydescribing our students in this way:

This population is both self-guided and in need of guid-ance, and although a willingness to learn new mediaby point-and-click exploration might come naturallyto today’s student cohort, there’s nothing innate aboutknowing how to apply their skills.... (n.p.)

Furthermore, a blog does not simply develop com-munication skills. Instead, online communicationhas become an essential aspect of online readingcomprehension (Castek et al., 2007). On the Internet,writing is intrinsically integrated with the readingcomprehension process (Castek et al., 2007; Leu etal., 2007). As online readers gather information tosolve a problem, they frequently analyze information,critically evaluate, synthesize across multiple textsand communicate with others using instant messag-ing, e-mail, blogs, wikis, or other communicationvehicles (Leu, Kinzer, et al., 2004; Leu et al., 2007).These essential new literacies of online reading com-prehension emphasize higher order thinking skillslike analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Anderson,2005; Bloom, 1956; Coiro & Dobler, 2007) and can bepracticed through blogging.Classroom blogs bridge the ever-widening gapbetween out-of-school literacies and in-school lit-eracies (Alvermann, Huddleston, & Hagood, 2004;Hinchman et al., 2003). Most literacy educators workhard to provide authentic opportunities that attemptto break down those barriers. Broadening the audi-ence for student writing and thinking, providing aspace for collaborating outside of the typical class-room discussion, problem solving on the Internet,