A community blog

Blogs work their way into the classroom:

Braden Hickok likes to read the new blog at Yorktown Middle School -- Yorktown Reads -- to find out what is on the minds of his classmates.

"It's kind of cool to see what other people think about things," he said, "especially the quiet people who don't talk much. And it's helped me keep an open mind about books we are reading in class, like Stargirl."

This is the first school year for the blog, which was launched by Amy Carney, language arts teacher.

It has had multiple teaching benefits, said Carney, who teaches 148 seventh-graders.

"I wanted something fun that combines reading, writing, literature -- something that doesn't seem like work," she said. Reading books and writing about them in the blog increases students' reading vocabulary, comprehension and fluency, and encourages them to read novels and literature books.

It sounds like the electronic equivalent of passing notes back and forth, talking in the hallway,  having study group discussions and maintaining a class bulletin board all at the same time. I think this sort of community building is what some people thought blogs out here in the real world would accomplish. It hasn't exactly worked out that way unless your definition of a community is limited mostly  to people of like political minds getting together to taunt and ridicule people of the opposite political persuasion.