Assessing Weblogs in College Writing Classes

Clancy Ratcliff at Florida State University says:

I think that the more students interact with their weblogs (and join the conversation by reading others’ blogs and responding to them), the better at blogging they are. Such a simple principle–like writing itself, the more you do it, the more experience and confidence you gain.

He points to a key aspect of Web log use, the creation of a conversation among writers about writing. Even in asynchronous form, it extends what we can do in the classroom, and as practice has shown me at least, it allows students who might otherwise not be comfortable participating another entry into that conversation.