epals

FSO student said...

Thanks for the great post on this website. Authentic audience is a great way to address the complaints of students feeling that they shouldn't have to do so much writing as many view practice as busy, meaningless work. Having an audience that will monitor what you say and the quality of your work is a 21st century peer review of sorts. Epal is definitely a site that can be used for that purpose. Further, our group project last month was around building communities using the internet--establishing collaborative academic relationships to solve real world problems. This site, though not previously noted, would have been a great place as a teacher to start the lesson design and plans.
On a lighter note, I used to teach audience to my 6th graders by having them write a letter to their parents, a friend, teacher, principal, president explaining what they did to their babysitter. It was light hearted and the students enjoyed learning the concept of audience with this little introductory exercise. Thanks for your post.

October 11, 2009 5:11 PM