A Blogging Experiment: Part II

So far...so good! I met with my tutee two days ago and introduced our blogging adventure. I think I hooked him with the article that I attached to the first post: 35 Lego Mega Constructions You Probably Haven't Seen Before. He is a HUGE Lego aficionado. The challenge that there were structures out there that he did not know about peeked his interest. I watched him, glued to the screen, scrolling through the images of lifelike creations and surprising skyscrapers. But this is not what I was really interested in. 

After he took in about a third of the images, I stopped him. "I'm really curious to know which one of these Lego creations you would like to build," I told him. Before he could blurt out an answer, I added, "But I don't want you to tell me. I want to you write it to me on the blog!" At this point, we crafted a response together. I showed him how to toggle between screen, type a comment, and submit it. And then, there it was. HIS writing, published on the Internet! He was a real author who wrote something that others (really just me) could see! 

I left there confident that this was going to be a great tool to motivate this young learner to write more. And before I closed the door behind me, he said, "So, check the blog in like, an hour." An hour later, there was ANOTHER response up there! He had independently returned to the website, reviewed the pictures, and made a text-to-self connection. Sure, he did not necessarily answer my original question, but at this point- who cares!? He is writing, motivated, and confident in himself as a writer. For now, I can say that my objective has been met.