Hurray!  The day has finally come; you are all getting your blogs and will begin to write your first post!

So here is what you are going to do. First you are going to study one of last year’s student blogs.  (You will be assigned one randomly.) Some of the things you might want to consider are:

What did they write about?

What can you learn about blogging from this person’s blog?

What did they use besides words?

How often did they write?

What sort of comments did they get?

What is one of your favorite posts and why?

What did you learn from this person’s blog that will help you when you do your own?

After studying this blog, your job is to write a good paragraph (or more, if you like) describing this blog and telling what you learned from it. It should have that a good topic sentence, at least three additional sentences, and a great concluding sentence. Then you should check for punctuation, sense, capitals, and spelling (and also use the spell check). Don’t forget to preview it!

Here are your blog assignments:

• c18ab – c17am1
• c18al – c17ap
• c18cm – c17ar
• c18dm – c17cd
• c18eh – c17db
• c18fb – c17ds
• c18gb – c17dw
• c18gi – c17hf
• c18gn – c17jl
• c18jf – c17jl1
• c18jj – c17nl
• c18kl – c17pm
• c18mt – c17sh
• c18rg – c17sp
• c18rr – c17vs
• c18sb – c17zt
• c18sp1 – c17am1
• c18ta – c17ap
• c18zf – c17ar

I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.
I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.

As you know, that is from the mysterious first note found by Miranda in Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, the amazing book I just finished reading to you. It was very cool to sneak peaks at your faces yesterday as I read aloud the last part — you were absolutely riveted as all the different threads were tied up.  And so today it is your turn — to write your own letters about this remarkable book — on your blogs.  My hope is that you will all write thoughtful and interesting ones that I can mention on my blog so that others interested in how children respond to the book will come to see and read them (and, hopefully, comment as well).

First of all, a fun tidbit.  The book takes place, as you know, in 1979 and the television show, $20,000 Pyramid plays a major part in the story.  Go here to see a clip of the original show and then come back….

Back? Good.  Now here are a few ideas of things to consider for your blog post —we’ll add a few more today as well.

• The title — what do you think of it?  Would there be a better one? (One person I know suggested The Laughing Man —what do you think of that?)
• The cover — some don’t like it. Do you?  Do you want to draw a better one and post it on your blog? Explain why it is what it is.
• Chapter titles are mostly “Things that…” which is the way to do your answer for The $20,000 Pyramid.
• How did you feel about it being SO mysterious?  Were you able to wait until all became clear?
• Veil metaphor — when was it lifted for you?
• Wrinkle in Time
• For kids who are comfortable with many different threads and things going on all at once.

Now that you’ve read Margu you are ready to write a post about the story. Hopefully you will spend some time thinking about this and writing about it. We hope when your blogs are public to write something about this on Ms. Edinger’s blog as she’s done before so that people from all over the world come to see what you have to say. (Keep in mind that your readers will not have read Ms. Edinger’s story as it is not yet published and only on a blog for you.)

1. To start, come up with a direction for your post. Here are some ideas, but you may have another one:

• Respond to a particular part in the story.
• Respond to the literary devices (similes, metaphors, etc.).
• Respond to the various images used.
• What in Margru’s story surprised you? What did you learn?
• Comparison to your oral history? To Amistad Rising?
• Some consider this a Cinderella story — if you think this and want to write about it, why?
• Is there something more you want to know?

With Ms. Kirsch you worked on writing a good paragraph describing your immigration oral history book.Eventually people from all over the world will read these, but for now it will just be the others in our class. So today you will create a post based on this work. First Ms. Nickles will show you how to add images from your book (the cover and two pages used at our Oral History Celebration) into it and then you will type in the edited version of your oral history book paragraph. If you don’t finish during this period, do it during Lab.

Here are the steps for today:

1. First, save your oral history images to your eeePC

2. Start a new post and add those images to your post

3. Type your oral history paragraph into your post

4. Publish your post!

Ready to write your first post?  I hope so.

So here is what you are going to do. First you are going to study one of last year’s student blogs.  (You will be assigned one randomly.) Some of the things you might want to consider are:

What did they write about?

What can you learn about blogging from this person’s blog?

What did they use besides words?

How often did they write?

What sort of comments did they get?

What is one of your favorite posts and why?

What did you learn from this person’s blog that will help you when you do your own?

After studying this blog, your job is to write a good paragraph (or more, if you like) describing this blog and telling what you learned from it. It should have that a good topic sentence, at least three additional sentences, and a great concluding sentence. Then you should check for punctuation, sense, capitals, and spelling (and also use the spell check). Don’t forget to preview it!

Here are your blog assignments:

• c17am1 – c16ac
• c17ap – c16as1
• c17ar – c16cl
• c17cd – c16cw
• c17db – c16hh
• c17ds – c16kd
• c17dw – c16km
• c17hf – c16mm
• c17jl – c16rb
• c17jl1 – c16rc
• c17nl – c16sb
• c17pm – c16sh
• c17sh – c16sh1
• c17sp – c16tb
• c17vs – c16tf
• c17zt – c16tk

2. Find your Cindy story and drag it onto the desktop.

3. Open the story and then go to your blog to start a new post.

4. Then, copy your story (not your name) and paste it into your post.

5. Separate your paragraphs by skipping a line for each new paragraph. (Don’t forget to save!) (You can do this later too.)

6. Find a passage in your story to record.

7. Go back to FirstClass and open a new message. Copy the passage into message.

8. Record your Cindy Story passage (see the steps here on the Email FAQ page).

9. Finally, add your new audio file to your Cindy Story blog post.

Your job is to first study one of last year’s student blogs. ( You will be assigned one randomly.) Some of the things you might want to consider are:

What did they write about?

What can you learn about blogging from this person’s blog?

What did they use besides words?

How often did they write?

What sort of comments did they get?

What is one of your favorite posts and why?

What did you learn from this person’s blog that will help you when you do your own?

After studying this blog, your job is to write a good paragraph (or more, if you like) describing this blog and telling what you learned from it. It should have that a good topic sentence, at least three additional sentences, and a great concluding sentence. Then you should check for punctuation , sense, capitals, and spelling (and also use the spell check). Don’t forget to preview it!

Here are your blog assignments:

• c16ac – c15af
• c16as1 – c15ai
• c16cl – c15am
• c16cw – c15bw
• c16hh – c15ck
• c16kd – c15ec
• c16km – c15fl
• c16mm – c15hu
• c16rb – c15jg
• c16rc – c15lk
• c16sb – c15lk1
• c16sh – c15mb1
• c16sh1 – c15md
• c16tb – c15of
• c16tf – c15os
• c16tk – c15sf
• c16ts – c15ss
• c16uw - c15zb