Enhancing literary skills at Rocky Point High School

Rocky Point High School students in Christine Blume’s English 10 class created websites revolving around a blog niche of their choice. In these lessons, the students learned how to blog, providing them the opportunity to engage in literacy activities and teaching them how to publish their writing and share their writing with authentic audiences. 

“When students write blogs they become an integral part of a lively literacy community for real readers, not just their teachers,” said Blume.

To complement the lessons, Ms. Blume — with the technical help of high school librarian Jessica Sciarrone — brought in via Zoom self-made blogger Nicole Lewandowski, who spoke to the students about blogging in a refined niche, getting inspiration to promote a blog and gain followers. She also shared how she monetizes her blog, which has now become her career and main income source. 

According to Blume, students were engaged, asked questions and gained valuable information from the presentation. 

“Furthermore, this unit comprehensively recognizes that reading and writing texts online offers students the basic skills that they need to be literate citizens in the 21st century,” she added.