Suggestions for Writing Blog Comments

Many times, when I tell my students to go onto other students' blogs and comment on their posts, they sit and stare at the screen for a while before writing a very short comment that is not very meaningful. When I asked some of my kids why writing comments is such a difficult assignment, they responded that they just don't know what to say.

We've gone over what a good blog comment should look like, the kind of information that it should include, and the kinds of things you should avoid doing when commenting. They seemed to get that. Yet, when it came down to actually WRITING the comments, they were stumped.

So, one class period, we talked about some sentence starters that might help students who get blocked when writing blog comments. Here are 12 of their best ideas:

"I'm confused by what you mean when you say ________ because..."

"I really like what you say about ______ because..."

"I disagree with you when you say ______ because..."

"I think I understand what you are saying, but could you please explain _______?"

"This post was so interesting to read because..."

"I understand how you feel, because..."

"I'm confused by what you mean when you say _______ because..."

"Something that I learned from reading this post is..."

"Something about _______ that you might not know is ..."

"I agree with you when you say _______ because..."

"I really like this post because..."

"When you talk about ___ it makes me think about ____ because..."

Then I took all of their comments and turned them into a class display:

The Commenting Wall!

 Now the students look to the Commenting Wall when they are in need of help when writing blog comments. We are getting one step closer to learning how to write meaningful comments and having blogging become a useful classroom tool!