Q4W2's Student Blog Spotlights & House's Advice

1. Don't undervalue the About page.  Many of you seem to have chosen to not develop theirs, but even something as simple as  Mattias Satti's    gives the reader some purpose.
2. Want to get creative with the pages on your blog?  Then you HAVE to check out Viet Pham's blog    and the way she's organizing her work!
3. Organize your posts into sub headings, like how Daniel Benavides did.  This helps the reader.   Or even split it up into paragraphs, like Kenny Foley  and Vyvy Cau did.  Long paragraphs are difficult to quickly read, especially if the one paragraph talks about multiple topics (such as when you cram your reflection in with your insight about the book---it doesn't fit...you'll need to figure out a way to separate these sub-topics)
4. Some blogs even brought in images like Gregorio, videos like Jostine Edu  and Jessica Pham, and others brought in music like Kristin Cove.
5. Sometimes, the spacing of your text matters.  See how Taylor Howard's blog is easy to read because of the spacing? And notice how she has a separate page for info about the book! (the visuals help too!) (Some quick food for thought--Does her blog post match her title?)
6. Consider the length of your blog.  Some blogs are really quite short and don't give the audience much to think about.  Then, there are those like Amy Park's , Jenn Godinez's, Lauryn Gravley's, and Martin Nguyen's   that provide background info, insight, and reflection in an appropriately sized blog.  (note how theirs do hit all 3 elements)
7.  I'm finding that the "reflection" element at the comes across as awkward.  What if you started your post with the reflection, like Maggie Gallagher does.  Or, what if you had a separate page/blog for your reflections, like  Racquel Rivera-Garcia did?  Just a thought...
8. Blogs with no grammar errors are appealing. Those riddled with errors, well, aren't.  PROOFREAD, PEOPLE!  I can't even count how many sentence fragments, run-on sentences, commas splices, capitalization errors, spelling errors, and more that I found!  Seriously?   Step it up, scholars!  Show the world what QUALITY writing looks like.  (I'll be nice and not share which students had tons of errors...for now...).  But you want to see strong, impressive writing skills?  Check out Autumn Ritchey's work.  If you haven't read her essays before, you've been missing out, and her blog is no exception!
9. When we are done reading your blog post, we should be able to answer this one question: "WHY DID S/HE WRITE THIS?  SO WHAT?"  In other words, if what you  wrote doesn't share some insight into life, a realization or truth, or a worthwhile opinion, we're going to be left wondering why we just wasted our time reading it.  A "BOOK REPORT" is boring.  Bring your blog OFF THE PAGE of your book and INTO THE WORLD.  This is your chance to share your voice.  What will it say?!?!  (hint: leave your readers a carrot/crumb at the end to follow/respond to).  See Alexa Guerrero's,  Luann Huang's, Nicole's   or Dariana's blog for what I mean about bringing it off the page of your OREO book!
10. Lastly, KEEP YOUR AUDIENCE IN MIND!   (Look at how Vinh Tran  and Maggie Gallagher break the 4th wall to reach their audience or how Cole Takayama uses sarcasm to engage his readers!  And look at how Kelly Truong's blog sought out feedback from her readers and the responses were meaningful!)    Soooooo, re-read your blog post  before posting.  Is there something potentially confusing to your reader?  Do you think others will even care about what you wrote about? 

I HOPE MY ADVICE AND SHOUT OUTS HELP YOU ALL!!!

~House~

Congratulations everyone!  You've finished your FIRST blog post!   Although there are a variety of ways to approach this blogging project,  I wanted to showcase a few blogs that did a great job this week!   Here they are, in no particular order,  along with my advice for how to make next week's blogs even better!  #growthmindset

(Note: My apologies go out to period 6.  I did not get a chance to read your blogs yet.  I will though and my next post will attempt to include shout outs to your amazing work as well!)

Click "Read More" to see my advice and shout outs to great blogs ...