7/19/2014 Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia - ReadWriteThink

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Carey
Applegate
Washburn,
I llinois
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/blogtopia-blogging-about-your-942.html

Grades 9 12
Lesson Plan Type Standard Lesson
Estimated Time Six 50-minute sessions
Lesson Author
Publisher

After studying utopian literature, students design their own utopian society, publishing the explanation of their
ideal world on a blog. As they blog about their utopia, students establish the habits, practices, and organizing
social structures that citizens will follow in their utopian societies. They begin by brainstorming ideas about
what a perfect society would be like and then, in groups, begin to plan their project. Next, they become
familiar with the blogging process, including legal guidelines and the specific site they will be using. Over
several class sessions, students work on their blogs comparing their work to a rubric. Finally, after students
visit one anothers blogs and provide constructive and supportive feedback, they reflect on their own work. The
lesson plan includes alternative handouts for classrooms where computer or blog access is limited. In this
alternative, students complete the same basic activities, but publish their work using a Flip Book.

Letter Generator: This online tool allows students to read about the parts of a letter. They can then write
and print their own friendly or business letter.
Persuasion Map: Students use this online tool to map out and print a persuasive argument. Included are
spaces to map out your thesis, three reasons, and supporting details.
ReadWriteThink Notetaker: Using this online tool, students can organize, revise, and plan their writing, as
well as take notes as they read and research.

Literature often means nothing to students when it's not grounded in a context that matters to them. By
providing teenagers with the chance to express their understanding of literature using technology that is
exciting and engaging, the literature becomes more significant to their lives and the writing that they do
becomes something other than just another assignment. This lesson began as an extension of Colleen A.
Ruggieri's "Multigenre, Multiple Intelligences, and Transcendentalism," and provides students with the
opportunity to use blogging technology as they develop their own understanding of utopian societies in
literature.
Further Reading
Ruggieri, Colleen A. "Multigenre, Multiple Intelligences, and Transcendentalism." English Journal 92.9
LESSON PLAN
Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia
PREVIEW
OVERVIEW
FEATURED RESOURCES
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
7/19/2014 Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia - ReadWriteThink
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4.
5.
6.
8.
12.
(November 2002): 60-68.
Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to
communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.

Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements
appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation),
media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.

Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer
networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.

Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning,
enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Blog and photo hosting sites

Grades 3 12 | Student Interactive | Organizing & Summarizing
ReadWriteThink Notetaker
Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows
students to organize up to five levels of information.

Grades 3 12 | Student Interactive | Writing & Publishing Prose
Flip Book
The Flip Book is designed to allow users to type and illustrate tabbed flip books up to ten
pages long. Students and teachers can use the flip book for taking notes while reading,
making picture books, collecting facts, or creating question and answer booklets.

Grades K 12 | Student Interactive | Writing & Publishing Prose
Letter Generator
The Letter Generator is a useful tool for students to learn the parts of a business or
friendly letter and then compose and print letters for both styles of correspondence.

Grades 3 12 | Student Interactive | Organizing & Summarizing
Persuasion Map
The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out
their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.

STANDARDS
NCTE/IRA NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
RESOURCES & PREPARATION
MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY
STUDENT INTERACTIVES
7/19/2014 Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia - ReadWriteThink
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Blogtopia Assignment
Examples for the United States
Blogtopia Rubric
Reading for SOAPS
Blogging Information Sheet
Common Blog Features
Blog Creation Steps

Examining Transcendentalism through Popular Culture
America and the Utopian Dream
The Bare Bones Guide to HTML
Bloggers' Legal Guide
LiveJournal
Blogger
Windows Live: Spaces
Photobucket
Flickr

1. Prior to this lesson, students should have covered a work of utopian literature. Students might have studied
the transcendentalist writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, in particular discussing
the utopian societies at Walden and Brook Farm. The ReadWriteThink lesson Examining Transcendentalism
through Popular Culture can provide an introduction to the topic. Alternatively, students may have studied
Sir Thomas Mores Utopia.
2. Choose and test a blogging and photo hosting site for your class, such as Blogger. Other free blog hosts
include LiveJournal and MSN Spaces. For photo hosting, options include Photobucket and Flickr. As with any
open online site, remember that anyone can post to these sites. Some material on them will be
inappropriate for your classes. Be sure that the resources that you choose are in line with your districts
acceptable use policy. Some schools filter blogging sites, so you may need to speak with your technology
coordinator ahead of time to get approval.
3. If your school limits computer or blog access consider an alternative, using the Utopian Assignment,
Utopian Rubric, and Flip Book.
4. Make sure that all students have e-mail accounts, which are needed to set up accounts with blogging and
photo host sites.
5. Review the legal guidelines in the Electronic Freedom Foundations Bloggers FAQ: Student Blogging.
6. Make copies of the handouts for all students: Blogtopia Assignment, Examples for the United States,
Blogtopia Rubric, and The Bare Bones Guide to HTML.
7. Test the Persuasion Map, Letter Generator, and ReadWriteThink Notetaker on your computers to
familiarize yourself with the tools and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download
the plug-in from the technical support page.
PRINTOUTS
WEBSITES
PREPARATION
INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN
STUDENT OBJECTIVES
7/19/2014 Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia - ReadWriteThink
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Students will:
work collaboratively to design their utopian societies.
adjust their use of written and visual language to communicate effectively for different purposes.
write a series of texts that communicate effectively with their audience.
consider elements of visual rhetoric as they design their blogs.
find pictures and resources on the Internet to support the content in their utopias.

1. Introduce the project by connecting to your class study of utopian societies. Explain that like the author(s)
the class has been reading, students will create their own utopian societies.
2. Using information on Utopian Communities from the Beinecke Library at Yale and the Examining
Transcendentalism lesson, provide an overview or review of utopian communities.
3. Challenge students to answer the following questions to help brainstorm ideas for their individual perfect
societies:
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
Why? What about this place appeals to you?
Describe your perfect life.
Who would you want with you?
What would you do every day?
How would you make money?
What kind of rules would you follow (or not)?
4. Discuss similarities and differences between students brainstorming ideas and contemporary life in the
United States.
5. Pass out the Blogtopia Assignment, and explain that students will develop their utopian communities in
small groups.
6. Using the Pre-AP strategy called SOAPS strategy, go over the basic rhetorical situation for the project:
Subject: The perfect society
Occasion: Dissatisfied with the current situation, many people are leaving their current societies
Audience: People who are seeking a new home
Purpose: To attract new citizens to your utopia in order to help it survive
Speaker: An authority on this new perfect world
7. Pass out the Blogtopia Rubric, and go over the information together, connecting the information to the
SOAPS outline and your coverage of utopian communities and utopian literature. Answer any questions that
students have about the project.
8. To help students envision the kinds of text required for the project, work through the list, asking students
to identify the Examples for the United States. Alternately you can pass out the example sheet and simply
review the information.
9. Arrange students in small groups, and allow the rest of the session for students to begin their projects.
During their time together, ask students to accomplish the following tasks:
Begin brainstorming ideas for their society.
Schedule how they will spend the next five days to develop their utopias.
Divide the tasks to be completed.
Name the society.
10. Ask students to turn in these preliminary plans at the end of the session. Review their plans and provide
support and feedback. You will return the plans at the beginning of the next session.

SESSION ONE: PLANNING AND STRATEGY SESSION
7/19/2014 Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia - ReadWriteThink
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1. Return the plans from the previous sessions to the groups. Answer any questions students have and provide
any general comments and support.
2. Explain that this session will be a minilesson on blogging. Students will likely know of the term and may
have blogs of their own already. Ask students to share what they know about blogs and blogging, noting
their responses on the board or on chart paper.
3. Shape students responses into a class definition of blogging. A general example definition is a blog is a
kind of online journal that is relatively easy way to publish and allows writers (bloggers) to share ideas,
social commentaries, and reflections.
4. Discuss the legal guidelines in the Electronic Freedom Foundations Bloggers FAQ: Student Blogging and
how the guidelines impact this project. In particular, talk about the kinds of language and content that are
appropriate.
5. Demonstrate the blog hosting site that you have chosen for the class, and discuss the choices that groups
can make for their utopian blogs. If you have chosen the Blogger site, for instance, you would demonstrate
how to set up an account and pick a template that they would consider using to publish their materials.
6. As you review the options on the blog hosting site that you have chosen, make connections to the goals of
the project and the rhetorical situation that has been established with the SOAPS strategy. For instance,
encourage students to consider the tone that they want to establish with their template or layout choices. If
their society is casual, their template should reflect that tone through colors, font, and design. If their
society is more formal, the design for the site should have a more formal look and feel.
7. Once students have completed the basics for their blogs, turn to the specific entries that students will
compose for the different parts of the project. Demonstrate how to create an entry on the blog hosting site
that you have chosen. If the site has special buttons or features to help with the look of the entries, be sure
to go over this information as well (e.g., buttons for bold and italics fonts).
8. In most cases, students will want to go beyond the basic capabilities that are built into the blog hosting
system. Pass out copies of the The Bare Bones Guide to HTML or visit the site online. Go over the basic
information on this HTML sheet, and answer any questions that students have about marking up their blog
entries.
9. Remind students to preview their changes before posting their entries.
10. Create an example entry to demonstrate the entire process for the class.
11. Answer any questions that students have about the blog host or their projects.
12. Allow the rest of the session for students to work on their blogs. Circulate among groups, answering
questions and providing feedback and support as students work.

1. During these work sessions, students continue to work on their blogs.
2. In minilessons, as desired, demonstrate additional tools that students can use as they compose and revise
the text for the Blogtopia entries:
Persuasion Map can be used to gather ideas for the Invitation to Friends and Advertisement.
Letter Generator can be used to create a rough draft of the Invitation to Friends. (Note that this text will
need to be retyped.)
ReadWriteThink Notetaker can be used to outline any of the texts, but may be especially useful for the
Daily Itinerary.
3. Additionally, you might review example texts (e.g., the United States Declaration of Independence) and
discuss the qualities from the example that should also be seen in students blog entries.
4. When not providing additional instruction, among groups, answering questions and providing feedback and
support as students work.
5. Remind students to compare their work to the requirements outlined in the Blogtopia Rubric as they design
their blogtopias.
SESSION TWO: ORIENTING STUDENTS TO BLOGGING
SESSIONS THREE TO FIVE: BLOGGING WORK SESSIONS
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6. Allow additional sessions as necessary for students to complete their work. At the end of these sessions,
students should turn in the URLs for their blogtopias.

1. Post the URLs for all group blogseither write the information on the board or on chart paper, or create a
Web page with the links for students to refer to.
2. Explain that during this session, students will explore the blogs created by other groups in the class. Ask
each student to visit a minimum of five blogs and use the comment tools on the blogs to leave comments
for the authors.
3. Post a list of possible comments on the board or on chart paper:
Comment on what you liked.
Comment on anything that confused you.
Comment on anything that you did not like.
Offer any suggestions for improvement.
4. Encourage students to provide constructive feedback. The comment session should focus on reflection and
support for other writers in the classroom community.
5. After visiting the other blogs, each student should write a reflection about his or her own blog, focusing on
one or more of the following questions:
What was your group trying to accomplish? Did you succeed? Why or why not?
What would you change about the groups approach to the project? What did the group do well?
What did you like about the project? What was difficult? What was easy?
What grade does your blog deserve? Why?

If computer or blog access is limited in your classroom, customize this project using the Flip Book. Students
can still create utopian societies in small groups, but have the groups publish their work in the Flip Book.
Discuss how to decide which portion of the project to put on which pages in the Flip Book (e.g., longer
portions should go on longer pages). Use the blank flip book to demonstrate the planning process and how to
fit the information on the pages. Use the Utopian Assignment and Utopian Rubric in lieu of the handouts
from the body of this lesson.

Focus on observation and anecdotal note taking as students work on their projects to provide ongoing
assessment of their progress.
Use the Blogtopia Rubric to assess students projects.
Review students self-assessment reflections from the last session to provide additional feedback and as
connections to your rubric-based evaluation of the project.
Grades 9 12 | Lesson Plan | Recurring Lesson
Weekly Writers Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support
Students explore the conventions of blog writing while using it to self-reflect on their writing and communicate
with classmates about each other's reflections.
SESSION SIX: VISITING GROUP BLOGTOPIAS
EXTENSIONS
STUDENT ASSESSMENT/REFLECTIONS
RELATED RESOURCES
LESSON PLANS
7/19/2014 Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia - ReadWriteThink
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Grades 6 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Creating Character Blogs
Students view examples of blogs, learn the basic elements of blog creation, and then create a blog from the
perspective of a fictional character.

Grades 9 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Using Microblogging and Social Networking to Explore Characterization and Style
Students use social networking sites to trace the development of characters by assuming the persona of a
character on the class Ning and sending a set number of tweets, or status updates.


Grades 3 12 | Student Interactive | Organizing & Summarizing
Persuasion Map
The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a
persuasive essay or debate.

Grades 3 12 | Student Interactive | Organizing & Summarizing
ReadWriteThink Notetaker
Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to
five levels of information.

Grades 3 12 | Student Interactive | Writing & Publishing Prose
Flip Book
The Flip Book is designed to allow users to type and illustrate tabbed flip books up to ten pages long. Students
and teachers can use the flip book for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or
creating question and answer booklets.

Grades K 12 | Student Interactive | Writing & Publishing Prose
Letter Generator
The Letter Generator is a useful tool for students to learn the parts of a business or friendly letter and then
compose and print letters for both styles of correspondence.


Grades 7 12 | Calendar Activity | May 25
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803.
Students visit a quotation attributed to Emerson and identify the definition of success. Students then use the
Postcard Creator to write a note to a person that they feel is successful.

Grades 9 12 | Calendar Activity | October 9
In 1940, musician and peace activist John Lennon was born.
After listening to "Imagine," students reflect on the lyrics and answer questions. Then, they have a chance to
write a stanza for their own song.

Grades 1 12 | Calendar Activity | July 12
STUDENT INTERACTIVES
CALENDAR ACTIVITIES
7/19/2014 Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia - ReadWriteThink
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2014 IRA/NCTE. All rights reserved.
Legal | International Reading Association | National Council of Teachers of English
Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817.
Students make mental "snapshots" of a natural setting, then capture the details of their setting by writing and
then creating a class booklet of the nature walk.


Grades 6 12 | Strategy Guide
Teaching With Blogs
This Strategy Guide describes the processes involved in composing blogs in the classroom, the process of
writing regular posts, or entries, that are published online.


Grades 8 12 | Professional Library | Journal
Multigenre, Multiple Intelligences, and Transcendentalism
Colleen A. Ruggieri offers a multigenre, mulltiple intelligences unit on transcendentalism complete with
suggested texts and an assessment plan.


Grades 7 12 | Activity & Project
Create a Career Blog
This activity invites children and teens to explore various careers and then write about what they might want to
be when they grow up in a blog.

Grades 9 12 | Activity & Project
Blog About Courage Using Photos
Engage teens in this activity in which they use photographs to examine and write about courage on a blog.


STRATEGY GUIDES
PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY
ACTIVITIES & PROJECTS
COMMENTS