UN BLOG

It is important for the students to practise different formats of writing as they prepare for their DP Language B qualification throughout the phases of the MYP. My phase 2 grade 8 students have been learning the pretérito indefindio (see my teaching ideas here) they and done several formative assessment writing tasks which focused on their previous weekends or past holidays. Today we started  to prepare for their summative writing assessment. I decided that the most appropriate format of writing for the topic of holidays would be writing a blog post.

To start the class the students looked at these 3 blogs:

• http://viajandoporahi.com/
• http://unviajecreativo.com/monte-taranaki-isla-norte-nueva-zelanda/
• http://olivertrip.com/viajar-a-marruecos/

They then discussed these questions in groups:

• What is the register of the writing? Formal, informal semi-formal?
• What is the tone of the writing?
• What is the format and layout of the blog?
• What sort of titles are used for each entry? How would you describe them?
• Is the blog narrated in the 1st or 3rd person?
• What is the aim of the blogger? What are they trying to achieve with each post?
• Who is the audience of these blogs?
• What types of detail do they include?
• How do they close (finish) each post?

I then gave the students the below checklist. The students are to take one of the writing pieces that they did as a formative assessment and correct and improve it to write it in a blog format. The checklist addressed the requirements of Criteria D as it encourages students to use a range of vocabulary, grammatical structures and conventions as well as organise information using and cohesive devices, and of course use language to suit the context of a blog post. The students will write ip their blog post in test conditions and will then upload their post along with some pictures into a blog we will create using www.weebly.com.

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