Abdullah's Blogging

Theresa Prince
Ling 611

Bloch, J. (2007). Abdullah’s Blogging: A generation 1.5 student enters the
blogosphere. Language Learning & Technology, pp. 128-141. The Ohio State University.

Summary: The article focused on Somali immigrant students who experienced on blogging their formal academic writing. They read, analyzed, understand, and gave their own opinion while learning about plagiarism. The way the students used their words was their way of communication without fully focusing on grammar. Generation 1.5 indicated immigrants as not proficient in reading, writing, and speaking. In blogging, the students practiced their reading and writing with meaning and write as participants and contribute to others.

Reaction and reflection: Blogging is a new term for me, but I can relate that to my own writing. Free writing on paper was one way of practicing writing without thinking of grammar. From the reading, I get the impression of forming new ideas to make connections, link to, or make an argument about a certain topic. Some of our high school students can benefit from blogging if it is introduced into the regular writing class. I hope high school teachers will become aware of this technology to use in the future.