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Jennifer HewerdineJennifer M. Hewerdine recently earned her Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. She currently works for the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee. Her research interests include multi- and eco-literacies, collaboration, and the development of ethos. Contents |
Metacognitive UseAs 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. Students are able to return to incomplete or even complete posts and revise them, allowing them to change their thinking because of audience reaction, further reflection, and new information based on research (Glogoff, 2005; Peterson, 2008; Richtel, 2012; Wei, 2010; Davies and Merchant, 2007; Clark, 2010; Lowe and Williams, 2004). Blogs also allow for multiple and even conflicting ideas to be published in a single space and reread in reverse chronological order. 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. Even students who were not comfortable composing formal essays in online environments found the log of prewriting activities beneficial. In one interview, a student said she disliked using her blog and would not use blogs for future courses but then added that she was able to come up with ideas by freewriting in the blog and returning to those freewrites later when she was composing her essays. Though the class was assigned prewriting activities as a means of developing writing processes, students, without any prompting, returned to those activities for the very reasons they were assigned. I cannot be sure how many returned to their blog during the writing process, but 16 of the students cited that as a benefit of blogging. While it is possible that returning to prewriting exercises could have resulted in higher grades (that was not part of the study) and therefore been an extrinsic motivation for the students who did so, it is also possible that the students who did so realized the benefit to their writing because student participation in prewriting exercises in the blogs increased over the course of the semester, with students including their own unassigned prewriting posts to their blogs. 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. Because the blogs were accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, students were able to refer back to their notes and previous writing. In their surveys and interviews, 93% of the participating students noted that they perceived the blog as beneficial to their work in the course.  Figure 5 A Student Reflects on His Essay
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). Self-awareness of writing practices can develop habits that allow for writing growth (see Framework). By learning to return to prewriting activities, it is possible that students develop a process and find tools they can use when writing in other courses and for different genres. 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. He would complete an assignment for the completion points with these notes included, then return to the posts to fully flesh out his ideas after the assignment had been marked as complete. In addition to using these metacognitive markers in his writing, Ty would return to those same posts and revise areas that he previously left incomplete. Using the example given above, when he found an additional source, Ty would incorporate it into an outline or freewrite, and then delete his color-coded metadiscourse. In doing this, he seemed to create a visual system of self-reflection and writing process. Perhaps more remarkable was that Ty later continued this metadiscourse and process in another class. Ty continued to use the blog for invention activities when he enrolled in a writing course the following semester. This continuation of the blog for his own purposes seems to result from his previous engagement with the process he discovered the previous semester. Still other students used the blogs to reflect on progress (see Figure 5) and/or used metadiscourse markers; the use of metadiscourse was mostly limited to students who exhibited signs of engagement in the other constructs and, in this study, appears to be a result of students being engaged in the writing process on their blogs. |