Blog Mentoring Program

An exciting program is about to get underway at CIS 339, thanks to some great planning from Ben Himowitz (editor of the school newspaper blog, The 339 Hard Line), Christina Jenkins (Tech Coach) and David Prinstein (Dean of Instruction).

The Blog Mentoring Program aims to lend further support to our eighth grade student bloggers by partnering them with adults who have volunteered to mentor three students each. These adults come from a variety of professions, so this extends the blog feedback beyond the school.

Obviously safeguards have been put into place to ensure a successful program, and a great deal of work has already been invested in developing:

• guides to commenting on posts
• sample comments
• a blog rubric
• a description of the students' prior learning
• and a mentor contact spreadsheet

Recruiting for the Blog Mentoring Program has been very successful so far, and the mentoring that follows will be of great assistance to the students in terms of increasing motivation, contextualizing their writing, extending their conversations, and providing scaffolded feedback.