“Exploring the Benefits of Blog Use in First-Year Composition: A Pilot Study”
by Jennifer Hewerdine | Xchanges 12.2/13.1
Metacognitive Use
As previously discussed, students are able to engage in a variety of prewriting exercises that, when posted to the public, allow the audience to comment and potentially engage writers in conversations or reconsiderations of beliefs and ideas. However, the archiving capability of blogs also allows writers to return to their blogs and revisit their previous ideas. Students can reflect on how their thinking evolved over the course of the semester. The archive allows for students to view drafts of papers as well as logs of posts that may include notes, ideas, partial posts and other bits of writing and information, all in one location.
Wei (2010) tells of one student’s perception of her blog: “[A]ll the versions of the outline will be [archived] on the blog. Then you can compare different versions of the outline and will learn how it takes its current shape after steps of revisions” (p. 276). In the study I conducted, students cited that returning to invention exercises while composing was the most beneficial use of the blogs. One student claimed the blog allowed her to “go back and put [essays] together” based on previous posts and freewrites. Eighteen of the students viewed the blogs as more beneficial for revision and reflection than traditional paper methods of writing, stating that their preference for the blog was based on misplaced paper assignments, the length of time teachers took to return papers, and the frustration of shuffling through papers. In their surveys and interviews, 93% of the participating students noted that they perceived the blog as beneficial to their work in the course.
The blog made visible a chronology of students’ evolution in writing over the course of the semester. Tougaw (2009) writes that the use of blogs seemed to assist students in learning the conventions of the academic English while also stimulating “students to become aware of both the rhetorical and cognitive dimensions of their writing and learning” (p. 252). Ty, a student previously mentioned, chose to use different color-coding when writing in the blog. He would often compose outlines, type brainstorms, take notes, or freewrite and then add metadiscourse such as “remember this when writing essay” and “find article that discusses [subtopic]” as a means of placing his thoughts and writing intentions in a place to which he could later return.