CyberJournal 2.0

Your CyberJournal is a document that records your progress in CyberEnglish9. You begin it in September and add to it each month. You finish it in May. The purpose of this journal is to record your thoughts about how and what you are learning in English. It is not meant to be a personal diary. Please choose from the topics suggested below for your CyberJournal.

Each journal post should be about 100-125 words long. Give examples, reasons, or illustrations to show what you mean. Also, be sure you check your entries for conventions errors. Do your best! These monthly posts are worth 20 points each. Each CyberJournal post should be in your CyberJournal category.

At the end of the year, you are to write a reflection, thinking back upon the entire CyberEnglish9 experience. The directions for this assignment are at the end of this page.

Choose only one topic from the list in the current month's suggestions to write about in your cyberjournal. Develop your response to that topic in about 125 words. Proofread carefully.

September Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

What is CyberEnglish9 and how do you feel about being in this class?
What do you hope CyberEnglish9 will do for you?
How does this class seem different from other English classes you've had in the past?

October Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

What's your favorite thing about your blog and why?
What have you learned by using computers in English?
Why is it important for you to have created and maintain a blog in school?

November Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

If an outsider visited your blog, what would you hope he or she would think about it?
If you had more time to work on your blog, what would you change or improve about it and why?
What are some of the educational or career goals you have set for yourself that CyberEnglish9 may have helped you develop or understand?

December Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

What has been most challenging or frustrating for you in this class and how have you met the challenge or overcome the frustration?
Do you ever find yourself helping other students in CyberEnglish9 to learn something? How does that feel? Is this a normal role for you or new to you?

January Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

From now on, as you write your CyberJournal entries, make them hypertext!! Start linking like a crazy person. Link to things in your site and to appropriate or relevant external sites. To make links is to make connections for you and for your readers.

What steps have you taken to revise the work you have published on your blog? Why did you decide to make these revisions?
You've been learning about literature (lit terms, analyzing literature) and writing (various genres and literary analysis). How has using a computer helped you learn these things better?
What is your best piece of writing in your blog (so far) and why is it your best. Be sure to link to the page it's on.

February Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

Which new technologies that you have learned could you see using in other classes? Explain.
Do you feel more confident now than you did at the beginning of the year about any of your skills: computer? writing? reading? Explain.

March Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

How is reading a text online different from reading a text on paper? Which is easier? Why? Which do you like better? Why? (What kind of hypertext reader are you)?
You can log in to Power School to get all of your grades. How is this important to you? How does having access to your grades help you be a better student?

April Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

A panel of business people told us that one of the main things they need in their employees is the ability to work well as a member of a team. Think about what your Living Histories project taught you about teamwork that would help you in the future.
Writing collaboratively can be challenging and rewarding. Write about your experience writing with another person.
Think about your multigenre experience. How was it? Was it easy, hard, fun, frustrating, interesting, confusing, liberating, or something else? Give examples. And/or write about how creating a multigenre web project was like or unlike other big projects you've done.
Conducting an interview and writing an oral history can be an interesting experience. Besides the facts that your interviewee gave you, what did you learn by doing an oral history? Did the experience change you in any way? How did your interviewee like the experience? Might you consider interviewing someone in the future for a research project? Explain.

May Suggestions: Choose only one topic from the list

Now that you've been using the web (blogs, wikis, etc.) for nearly nine months, you probably feel fairly confident in some of your technical skills. Compare your skills now with what they were at the beginning of the year. What's different? Also, what do you still want to work on? What would you like to accomplish with your web page next year or the year after?
Melinda Sordino wonders what report cards really say about a student. What do you think? What have you learned in CyberEnglish this year that a report card would never be able to show?
How have you changed as a student through CyberEnglish9 (if you have changed)? Be specific. What will you do with what you have learned in this class?
How has peer review helped you be a better writer?

End of the year reflection:

In May, write a longer journal entry, separate from your monthly entries. Label it "End of Year Reflection" and write about 450-500 words, minimum. In this piece, look back on the entire journey, the whole year in Cyber \English. Write about how you are different now from who you were in August.

You should look back at each of your monthly cyber journal entries to remind yourself about how you've grown. But go beyond that. You may use the questions that follow to help you develop your reflection.

You should write a short introduction and a conclusion. Be sure that you write unified, coherent paragraphs. Each paragraph needs a main focus and a topic sentence. Check for conventions errors. Consider word choice carefully. Listen to your voice. Does this piece of writing express how you feel and think? Have you supported your ideas with reasons (that show why and how) and examples (to illustrate what you say)?

Include at least five hyperlinks in your EYR.

This part of your cyber journal is worth 50 points.

Here are some questions to help you generate ideas; you are not limited to writing "about" the following:

What have you learned?
Which skills that you have now that you didn't have at the beginning of the year are most valuable to you and why?
How have the skills you have acquired in this class helped you in other classes or in other areas in your life?
In what ways have you become a better writer? Be specific about how.
If you were nervous about making a blog at the beginning of the year, write about how your feelings have changed.
How does having a blog (wiki page) affect how you learn? How does it affect how you write? Has having a blog that you write and manage affect your learning in any other way?
Looking back, what do you wish you would have learned about that you didn't? Or, what would you do differently if you could go back, knowing what you know now?