In the act of blogging, students are crafting and creating texts, sharing meaningful messages, and engaging in powerful literacy experiences. But, most students don’t see these activities as being literate because they are not school sanctioned.

Well, it has been a while since I last posted a blog. Obviously you can tell I’m not a “blogger.” I’ve attempted to be a blogger multiple times throughout the past couple of years, but I never remember to come back to the blog. However, I know blogging has become a new form of communication. Many people blog daily while also reading other people’s blogs. Students are reading and writing blogs as well. Reading and writing have been assigned distinct definitions by students because of the reading and writing activities in which they engage at school.

For example, 5-paragraph essay writing is what most consider writing because that’s what schools teach—it is school sanctioned. On the other hand, many students do not consider their blogging habits to be part of their literate identity because this activity is not school sanctioned, thus it doesn’t count as writing. In fact, my own daughter who is only in first grade already has this concept of reading and writing. She tells me school is boring because she can’t be creative with her writing. At home she has a special journal in which she writes (an early form of blogging . . . it will only be a matter of time before I’ll have a blogger in my own home). How can it be that she has already formed this opinion about reading and writing at school?

In this age of technology, students are engaging with texts more and more – reading, writing, and producing on the Internet while also engaging with print-based materials. We need to validate students in all literate activities, opening our own eyes to a broader definition of literacy so we can encourage our students to take up a broader definition of literacy as well.